Mark Browell from Bloodloss Interview 19/1/12

Thank you to Mark from Bloodloss for taking the time out to fill in this email interview.

Bloodloss are

Vocals – Matt Hobbs
Guitar – Rob Ironmonger
Guitar – Mark Browell
Bass – Dave Smith
Drums – Dan Kelly

 

Why did you pick the name ‘Bloodloss’?

Trying to come up with a good band name is always going to be a tricky thing.  We wanted to have a working name as soon as possible.  So we all sat round a table, and wrote down as many names as we could think of, after a while we had filled an A4 page with names and started to go through them, Bloodloss was the first name on the list and the one name we all seemed to be drawn to. I would like to think that it’s one of those “It was meant to be” stories. Since that day we have never looked back or questioned our name enough to feel we would need to change it. 

 

How would you describe the band?

Angry, Frustrated, no I’m only joking!  We’re all good mates, we just write the music we love!  I don’t like to get stuck up on what genre of metal we are, we see ourselves as a METAL band with modern and old school influences.  We are not trying to be a particular type of metal, it’s a door we like to keep open, as to not limit ourselves.  It’s always nice to be able to mix it up from time to time.   

 

What are your musical influences?

So many!  From a very early age I loved Michal Jackson I can remember getting the ‘Bad’ album on tape as a Christmas present.  When I first got interested in guitar, my father introduced me to Jimi Hendrix, and Mike Oldfield to name a few, so that really opened my mind to the importance of melody.  From about the age of 13 I used to walk round in a Metallica bubble, refusing to listen to anything that didn’t have Hetfield yelling “hell Yeah” over the top of it, almost as if I would be un-loyal to them if I listened to anything else!  A friend had brought the Master of Puppets album in to school and that was me sold for years!  

Later, around the time of Slipknot, my bubble was burst and I started listening to other bands, and actually felt like I had been missing out especially when I first listened to Pantera.  I mainly listen to bands like As I Lay Dying and All That Remains now.  I know that Rob gets a lot of his guitar influences from Paul Gilbert, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and Dimebag.  As far as the band goes, we pretty much listen to all types of metal!

 

What equipment do you use?

Me and Rob on guitars use Peavey JSX and XXX heads, 2×12 marshal cabs loaded with Celestion Vintage 30 speakers and a selection of different Boss and MXR pedals.  I could give you a complete break down but that would be way to geeky!  I use an ESP MII and Rob uses an Ibanez RG2550.

Big Dave Smith on Bass uses an Ampeg head and a Mark Bass 4×10 cab, a boss tuner and Warwick Corvette 5 String Bass Guitar.

Dan on drums uses a Tama Super Star Custom, one rack tom and two flour standing, Remo heads and Vic Firth 5BN sticks.

Matt on vocals uses a Shure SM58 but from time to time he has been tempted with using a beta 57.

 

What kind of response did you get from your fans?

We have had nothing but a positive response from everyone so far, which is great! It’s been a long time coming for one reason or another but now we have given them a taster of the album by releasing the single. I can’t wait for everyone to be singing the words back to us!

 

Any particular gig story or memorable experience you would like to share?

Well there was this one time when a guy greeted us as we arrived at the venue, who I could only describe as not quite being the full picnic.  I’m not in any way being discriminating, its just you need to know that for the story to make sense!

So anyway, he starts telling us about how he had never “moshed” before and how he was really looking forward to going crazy during our set and so on. So sure enough we start playing and this guy’s jumping around the place, head banging like there’s no tomorrow and lightly pushing all the people around him.  Now this guy was like a giant so everyone was being a bit cautious around him. It was about half way through the set he started dancing with this very petite girl, if you can call it dancing! He was lightly shoving her and she in a fun way, was shoving him back with everything she had, but this was barely moving him. So anyway, this went on for a bit and then all of a sudden, this guy bent down behind her and picked her up by her ankles to about chest height which was very random, she was trying to reach back to grab his head and keep her balance, then using his shoulder he face planted her in to the floor. Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and stared at this guy!

I didn’t know what to do!  Do we stop, do we carry on?!  I looked at Rob and remember him just being like “what the fuck?!” The girl got up straight away and seemed fine, but her face was the first thing to hit the floor. Brutal. He got thrown out straight away and we have never seen him since!  But yeah, that’s probably one of the most memorable experiences so far!

 

What was the reaction to your debut single “This Still Remains” that was released in December last year?

It’s been very positive so far! Some of our die-hard fans had downloaded it within seconds of it being put up, and we haven’t had a bad word yet! Everyone seems to be looking forward to the album! 

 

Can you give us a quick description of your debut mini album “The Struggle”, that will be released soon?

Well our approach to this album was to make the best mini album we could, not only musically but we wanted it to have great artwork and also decided to package it in a really nice six panel digipack with booklet. We have Colin Marks at Rain Song Design to thank for that!  It really did turn out better than we imagined it could have! 

With digital downloading being so popular, we felt that it was important to try and make our fan’s want a physical copy.   We feel there are no album fillers or tracks that you just want to skip every time.  It’s all been about quality from day one and we would not have been able to achieve it without the help of Alex Loring who recorded and mixed the album.  Alex was so enthusiastic about helping us achieve our goal and really did everything he could to get us where we needed to be.  We then approached Jens Bogren at Fascination Street Studios who mastered the album for us.  We are very happy with the final result but we will let you decide for yourselves!

 

How would you sum up 2011 for the band?

2011 was all about laying the groundwork for 2012, it’s been a good year with some memorable gigs but I would sum it up as being the year we got everything sorted, what with writing/recording the album, making the music video for ‘This Still Remains’ (which is due out very soon!) and all the other stuff that needs to be done alongside the 9-5 job!  It may not seem much but all this stuff costs money and without a massive record label behind you, you kind of need to spread it out a bit!


What are your plans for 2012?

2012 for us is about keeping the momentum going, the album will be out on the 5th March and we will be touring late Feb into March.  We plan to make this year as busy as possible, touring the UK and hoping to get out to Europe before the years out!

We have already started writing for the next album and have been chatting about making another video.


Are there any messages that you would like to pass on to the readers?

Thanks for taking the time to read this!  We couldn’t do it without you!  Check out our music leave us some feedback and drag all you mates out to a show near you!

Mark Browell

 

Band Links

http://www.facebook.com/bloodlossuk

http://www.bloodlossuk.com

http://www.myspace.com/bloodlossuk

About Sheila

Former Editor, Team Co-ordinator as well as PR, news poster, pass requester, Ex-Scottish Team Leader for PM since 2011 \m/ \m/ Also owner of the infamous Garfield L'arpie, who is a official mascot of RACPA UK. Check out RACPA UK (Rock Against Child Pornography and Abuse UK) http://www.racpauk.org/