Welcome to In Conversation, a special interview column on the site where we sit down with artists and dive deep into everything music. This week, Max sat down with Goonzi of Bleed From Within to discuss touring Shrine, bagpipes and travelling worldwide.
Max: New album, around the corner and it’s the first on Nuclear Blast. How are you feeling about the launch?
Goonzi: Really excited at this point. It has crept up on us. Really happy with how the album turned out, and it’s exciting times for the band.
Max: Is it a different experience now, being able to go out and tour this?
Goonzi: It was weird for us releasing the album during lockdown, 2020. In a way it was also our best year as a band. We got a record deal, did the livestream, and Fracture was our most well-received and successful album yet. In a lot of ways, 2020 was a weird year for us. It has turned out quite nicely for this one, right before the summer festival run, which means we can play some of the new ones live. It’s going to be good being able to see the action and people’s faces right away, as it’s really hard to see how the album is going down when you can’t play shows and see people’s reactions. You’re relying on YouTube reaction videos I guess. That’s what we pretty much did during lockdown. It will be good to see how songs go down live as that’s a huge part of our writing process, seeing how songs go down live.
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Max: It must be weird going to where you were pre-pandemic to post-pandemic, with all this new music tour and a bigger fanbase for Bleed From Within?
Goonzi: There’s been a lot more breathing room for people to get used to the songs on Fracture and become familiar with them. With Shrine it’s going to be new and it will be hard making setlists. The Shrine tour we’re doing in December in the EU was originally the Fracture tour. That will be weird, as we’ve had to rename it but we’ve had to rename it the Shrine tour. At Download Festival we have 25 minutes, which is five songs. That would be all the singles from the album, but we can’t play all singles and will have to play some old stuff.
Max: Would you say there’s a bigger melodic push or did it just happen over the two records?
Goonzi: It’s something we’ve been exploring on purpose. We try not to think too hard when we’re writing them and let outside influences come in too much. There was definitely an effort to step up the melody but the album is quite diverse. I think we make a conscious effort to make all our albums diverse and balance the heavy with the melodic and the groove. We try to make it more of an album listening experience than focusing on each single.
Max: Is it still Scott doing all the clean vocals?
Goonzi: It’s a mix between Scott and Steven. Steven does the completely clean stuff and we layer it up with Scott’s voice. Scott has been exploring the pitched scream vocals and the gearing towards the melodic side. Steven is the producer basically and vocal production is the strong point. His vocal production shines on this record with the layering. His and Scott’s voice is a wall of sound, he knows how to get that balance right.
Max: Do you think going full clean could happen in the future?
Goonzi: I don’t know, I think Scott would love that, as he always goes on how he doesn’t listen to metal and only listens to emo and all that. I think he would just love to do clean singing. The vocals have to match the riffs, and the riffs have to match the vocals. I’m not going to stop writing heavy riffs.
Max: You have a very distinct riff style, I love how that sounds. Was that a style that developed or time or a conscious effort?
Goonzi: It’s a sum of my influences from when I was younger and more modern stuff creeping which naturally comes out that way. Every guitar player is inspired by different group of guitarists and bands, which will directly affect the sound and the mix of influences that make it unique.
Max: What would you say those influences are?
Goonzi: The main core bands I go back to are the ones I begun listening to when I started playing guitar; Lamb of Gods, Pantera, Chaimaira. I think it’s called the new wave of American metal, bands like Killswitch and Shadows Fall. That was when I was growing up and got into metal, that style really effected me and still does. I go back and listen to those albums still.
Max: What sets Shrine apart from the rest of your discography?
Goonzi: The song-writing is naturally progressing the way it would. What sets its apart is that we got a few more people involved sonically. We have a string quartet and a guy called Simon Dobson, who did the recent Abbey Roads with Architects. The strings take it sonically to a different level. Then a guy called Jamie Finch who makes the senses and weird noises you hear throughout the album, he does all that. The combination of those two guys involved takes it sonically to the next level. We‘re thinking how to get them involved in the writing process.
Max: Do you think you would go further into a theatrical direction?
Goonzi: Possibly, I’m down for anything. We’re at the stage in our career where we can begin experimenting and doing weird shit, ’cause why not.
Max: What would you do if you were given free rein?
Goonzi: Bagpipes, I’m going to sneak a couple of bagpipes on there. If it can be done tastefully, I will try and sneak some bagpipes on there.
Max: You’ve got Download and your tour coming up, what are you most excited for in regards to the band?
Goonzi: Touring and making up for lost time. There’s a lot of places we’ve never played. There were a lot of shows in 2020 we never announced, and there were countries that all got called off. I want to explore and meet new fans and make new fans, then start writing the next one. It’s good to now, when you’re in a good place and in writing mode from the last album. Summer festival seasons is a good inspiration for me as you get to see a bunch of bands and how they do things and see the reactions for our new songs. I’m really excited for that.
Max: Getting ahead of the curve is always good, especially if you’re still in that writing mode.
Goonzi: You have to be in this day and age. People expect music a lot quicker than they used to. We used to take our time writing albums. I think we now have it down to a fine art and how to get on with it. We now know how each other work and the best way to go about writing.
Max: Is there anywhere specifically you didn’t get to go that you’re looking forward to visiting?
Goonzi: The US has always been something that’s on our radar and we’ve never been able to make it there. It feels like every other band in the world and we’ve never been so that would be a good one to tick off the list. I’d love to go back to Asia, do more of Asia. We only did Japan and China, so it would be good to explore more of Asia and Australia.
Max: How was the experience of playing in Asia?
Goonzi: Japan and China were very different tours. Japan was only four shows and we had days off and you got to sightsee and chill out with people. China was eight shows in nine days and they were all over the country; so it was up at 4am, go on a train for six hours, sleep for three hours and back up train for seven hours. It was just constant travel and we didn’t get to stop and enjoy, so it would be good to go back and get a bit of sightseeing in. We did get to go see the Great Wall of China and the panda sanctuary. We almost got no sleep so the whole trip for us is just a big blur. We can hardly even remember most of it just because we were so tired or asleep.
Max: Are there any bands you’re looking forward to seeing over the summer festival period?
Goonzi: The next festival we’re playing is Mystic Festival in Poland and the line-up on our stage is just ridiculous. It’s us, Malevolence, Mastodon and Opeth, which is just insane. So that whole day will be mental and I will pack up my guitar as quickly as I can so I can go watch other bands and hang out. We’re playing a festival in Sweden and Electric Callboy are headlining, that’s on our pre-show playlist. So our mission is to hangout out with them.
Max: Are you going to be touring a lot in the next year or so?
Goonzi: There’s nothing mega booked in, touring is still finding its feet a bit in Europe but the UK is pretty much back to normal. We did two UK tours at the end of last year, so we’re going to chill on the UK a bit and play some bigger venues when we’re back. Right now we’re going to focus on Europe as we last toured there in December of 2019.
Many thanks to Goonzi for sitting down for a chat with us, and you can pre-order Shrine here.