PlanetMosh Keeping it Metal
Pelgrim is a 5 headed band from Tilburg (Netherlands). They are growing fast and only with less than 2 years in existence, are making big progress. With a mix of styles like prog, djent and hardcore, they bring forth a good example of the younger metal scene in the Netherlands. I am not going to chat to much about how the band sounds, you can read all of that in the review I did for their debut EP right Here.
On September 7th they will perform in the 013 venue (Tilburg) to show you what they can do! Maybe they will be in a venue near you sooner than you think. I decided to have a little chat with these blokes so you will get to know them a bit better.
For starters, are you guys in shock with how fast the band’s reputation has grown?
Before we started working on our EP we knew we had something good going, but we never expected that much positive response. So we were in fact pretty surprised about the big growth. At the same time we’re incredibly thankful that people like what we do.
Did you expect this to happen when you started the band Pelgrim?
No, we just like make music and play shows. From that point of view we try to move forward as best as we can, taking every opportunity that we can and work as hard as we can.
There were some rumors about the increase in the number of likes on your Facebook. Rumors that said you guys bought the likes, what do you guys say about that?
There were some rumors indeed, but we can honestly say that we didn’t buy likes. What we did do was promote ourselves via advertisements on Facebook and message a lot of metal/djent community’s and pages if they could share our teaser and lyric video.
It must be very frustrating to make so much of an effort to share your stuff, put your blood sweat and tears in it, and then hear such rumors. How did you guys handle with that?
First of all we surely get people that were thinking that; it certainly is suspicious if a band gains a lot of likes in a short amount of time. We heard some of those rumors by people who asked us about it and we explained to the what i just explained to you. For the rest we don’t really pay much attention to it. We like what we do, we know we didn’t buy likes and there are always some people out there who like what we do. Those are the people we play for.
You had a lot of bands together before Pelgrim, do you feel you really have a gem in your hands right now?
Knowing each other before starting Pelgrim certainly helped a lot on a personal as well as on a musical level. Being in a band revolves for us a lot about friendship. We’re a real close group of friends and that really contributes a lot to the ‘being-a-band-feeling’. Also knowing each other on a musical level really makes It a lot easier to write songs, create new ideas and, maybe the most important part, criticize each other. We think that both aspects, the musical and the personal, really helped us a lot in creating Pelgrim as we are. So yeah, you could say that we feel like we have a gem in hands!
After the EP release that is going to happen at the 7th of September 2013, what doors do you think will open for Pelgrim?
We hope this will get us a step higher in our ‘musical-careers’. We hope this way we can show that we are Pelgrim, we are here to stay and we are here to tear shit down. We also hope to get some more national and international exposure which will help us to play more and bigger shows.
Speaking about your selftitled debut EP, what is the strongest thing this EP has to offer?
I can’t really think of one thing that really is the strongest aspect of this EP. For us it is the total package that is just like we wanted. We had some troubles making this EP; it took us more than a year to write, record, mix and master and finally release it. But thanks to all those problems we got exactly what we wanted, an awesome sound, awesome song, awesome artwork and an awesome EP release party.
Where does Pelgrim hope to be 5 years from now?
A lot can happen in 5 years and of course we hope we can make a living out of playing all over the world with Pelgrim. The chance of that happening is goddamn small though, but you got to keep faith! In a more realistic point of view our goal is to play as much as we can, get as much attention as we can and hopefully get and keep people to like our music.
Do you guys think it is hard for bands nowadays to grow in the current metal scene?
Absolutely, there are so many, so awesome metal bands! At takes a lot more than just write music and play your song. You also have to think a lot about social media, promotion and your live performance. Everything has to be right to grow into a ‘well known’ metal band.
If you guys had to choose, what is more important. Write good music or have a good live performance?
Pff..
Hard question huh?
Haha yeah! That’s really hard to say. It’s obvious that you need both, but i think we would have to go with good music. The music is where it all starts for us, if we don’t like what we are playing we never would be able to give a great performance.
What are the most important influences for Pelgrim?
We all have got a pretty diverse taste in music. For example we like to listen to Jazz just as much as we like to listen to Deathcore. Therefore we hope a lot of different genres can be heard directly and indirectly in our music. The biggest influences are, of course, metal bands like: Parkway Drive, Emmure, Architects, Whitechapel, Between the Buried and Me, Textures and Periphery.
Are there any bands you would like to share the stage with?
Thats a though one. We all like so many different bands that it is hard to choose a few, but i think we can all agree on: Periphery, Whitechapel, Between The Buried And Me and Parkway Drive.
If you would headline a big festival, with an unlimited budget, what would your show look like?
He he, that’s a fun one. We can think and speak about this one for hours but it surely will involve a lot of free booze, naked big booty girls, dinosaurs, time travel, penguins, camels, sasha grey and a walnut.
Do you have any tips for new bands that want to grow as fast as you guys have?
Have fun in what you do and show that fun while performing. It’s not all about fun though, being in a band and wanting to get a few steps higher is also about thinking of your band in a more professional way. Besides making good songs and heaving a good live show it’s important to think about marketing and ways to get yourself out there and how you can distinguish yourself from all the other metal bands.
And last but not least, where can interested people get the EP?
Our EP can be downloaded from September 7th for free (or name your price) on our Bandcamp. It also will be able to be found on Spotify, iTunes and our Facebook page and YouTube channel.
http://youtu.be/vNpmu2COPj8
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