The Downbeat - Josh + Wilkie - Malevolence

Episode Date: May 12, 2022

I sat down with Wilkie and Josh from Malevolence to talk about the history of their band, what Sleep Token look like, 140bpm Sheffield bassline and also about their new album Malicious Intent (out May 20th). Their dream festival is a real party.

Fifth time recording this intro. First time, about three days ago, I was really, really depressed. And in retrospect, it really is going to be a whole thing where everyone's like, Are you okay? Right, fine. While we're on that subject,

RIP to Trevor from the Black Darling Motor. Big, big, no viatrophy without Trevor. Any death metal band that had two singers, only had two singers because one of them couldn't do what Trevor did massive loss for metal I'm not going to pretend we were mates met him a couple of times I've got the same thing to say that everyone else that even knew him

has to say he was just a fucking just such a nice guy so big RIP there also while we're on the subject of that and my original intro I'm not going to say some, it's okay not to be okay, fucking catchphrase shit.

I'm going to instead try and offer a little bit of practical advice. I think we should all be checking in on everyone because we're all fucked. Okay, we're in the work, probably the worst, you know, mentally the worst place, particularly musicians have ever been. So might I suggest that you have a little Google of invalidation?

okay and things what not to say when checking in on people because a lot of people mean well sometimes you can do more damaged and good and seamlessly let's now go into plugging things and other stuff like that that I have to do I've got a live show coming up 17th of June is that the right day yeah it's 17th of June um Signature Brew London Special guest. It's a live podcast. I'll probably do some stand-up at the beginning. If I can fucking get myself out of bed in the morning and make myself funny,

I'll be there. If you don't come, I will be distraught and I'll never do it again. I'm 100% serious. You might be watching the video of this now, which is now a thing, because I've been catching up with bands in person. On patreon.com for slash a downbeat, it's one pound, or you can pay in advance. It's 12 pound if you pay in advance and you're from outside the UK.

I think you only pay one transaction. action fee. Very clever. It allows me to do stuff like buy nice cameras, not get a full-time job so I can have lovely chats with people like malevolence. Who are my guests today? I've got one further plug. Not even a plug. It's just a thank you. Road sent me some wireless go-to microphones, which is why I could do this podcast, the first episode with two guests. And it was really fucking easy to do so shout out to road um my guests this week i'm finding it really hard to say the word guest guests guests anyway uh wilkie and josh bassist and the guitarist of malevolent wilkie also deals with their unbelievable merch spread josh writes all the songs most of the songs i guess they had a lovely

real fun maybe the best yet dream festival talked about their new album malicious intent that's out of May the 20th. The band is fucking awesome. Probably one of my favorite metal bands of the moment. Metal slash hardcore, but don't say metal core, it's a dirty word. It is Josh and Wilkie from Elevenance on the Downbeat podcast. Let's go. Here we are.

How are we? Fantastic. Thanks for having us today, Craig. Look how professional it is immediately. I feel like we sat really close. I've got my game face on today. This is the first time I've been on an award-winning podcast. That's it, yeah. Do you need me to? that's it.

Do you mean to prove that? Yeah. I can prove that if you want. I was told by our mutual friend and manager, Adam Foster, that you were the two to have. No offence to the rest of the band. Why has he said that?

I've got the biggest mouth, but no one wants to hear from me because I'm the bass player. So, yeah, there's that. I'm a drummer. Pleasure? Yeah, I don't know why he asked me. It's completely different, isn't it?

It's scary. mouthbook. I've heard. No, he literally he just said, you want Wilkie, you want Josh. Josh Banks,

because there's, that's it. There's only one Josh. We call him John, actually, so yeah, they're confused, but his real name's Josh.

My name is Josh. My name is Josh. It's not John. I'm sure you called him John earlier. I was like, why you're John? Yeah, yeah. It's a long,

it's just like years and years and years of nicknames, basically. And you landed on John? Yeah, just a normal name. It was... We actually, we had...

Years ago, we had another guitar player and he was called Josh, but we called him Keith. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not really quite sure why. So we had another... Wait, wait, wait. With you two together, two Joshes? No, that was before I was.

Replace one Josh was another Josh. Yeah. How long ago is this? Because we played together, I reckon, nine years ago. Right, yeah, this just goes back way before then. Charlie and I... We started like 06, I think we were called malevolence, but we were like children.

How old do you know? I'm 28. Yeah, I'm 27. You all grown up. Yeah. You all fucking grown up. Yeah. No.

Yeah, I joined when I was 14, so it's been a long time. So we played together. Brutalel, it will prevail, with malevolent supporting a weekender in December. It was like around Christmas time in 2012. Yeah. In London. There was the garage. Yeah.

And then there was rebellion. No, no. Sound control in Manchester. Yeah, somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah. And you guys smashed. So hang on.

That was when? That was 2012. So, or maybe 2013. 2013, it must have been because I only joined BWP in 2013. Okay,

so hang on. And this is your third record coming out. Third record. Yeah, yeah. We've done an EP as well. Fuck you've been doing. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. Techint, sweet time. Yeah. That's actually what I want to talk about because how, because you had the first record.

2013. 2013, yeah. So that's nearly 10 years. ago and that smashed and then you did fucking nothing for ages. Yeah, we were quite into drinking at that point. You can do both, man.

I've been doing both for 20 years. Yeah, we went on tour a lot and then we just carried on touring and we were like, oh yeah, we haven't put any new music out. I'm still playing these songs from four years ago. And then at the time it took us ages to write music. We're quite fast now, but at that period it took us ages. So

we probably lost a fair amount of momentum. them. But... Yeah. People went to uni and it was all those things. I don't think it was like that no one took it that seriously. Who went to uni? Charlie. Just Charlie went to uni. You went to... Con went to uni as well for like a brief moment. And then just...

Drop out? I did, yeah. What were you doing? I did one year. I did one year. I was like, one year. And I was like, hold on. I'm running a pretty successful business. I'm already. Yeah, mom, I need to go on tour. So who you're going on tour with? I was like, oh, a goat whore and dying fetus.

Just like, oh. Yeah. Quit. That's so funny. Was it actually those two? Yeah, actually. That's the ultimate, like, Christmas dinner conversation. What about you on tour with?

A goat whore? Dying feces, as in a baby. Yeah. A would-be baby. I was like, yeah, but don't know, it's actually going to be pretty good. It's going to be fucking awesome. So what was the chronological order was?

First record, EP, second record. No, we did. First record, 2013. Rainer Suffering. Yeah, brain of suffering. Self supremacy came out 2017. Yeah. Yeah, four years.

Four years ago. Yeah, yeah. All that momentum. It was just too long. Then we did, the record came out at the beginning of the pandemic, like, April 2020. April 2020, EP. And now we have a new one malicious intent coming out in two weeks. I think two weeks yesterday.

May 20th. Yeah. And that's nuclear blast. And it's coming out on nuclear blast. Yeah. So that was the other thing with you guys. DIY, which is why we'd fucking got on, because we'd come up from the same DIY shit. But like, I always remember thinking, why haven't they got a big deal yet?

Is that like, did you deliberately not do it? Well, we had, we were with Century Media and Siege of a Media for our first one. So we did kind of, there was like a bigger... That doesn't count. Yeah, okay, okay, yeah. Phone off, phone off. I'm sorry, I've been on that label, it doesn't count. We got drops, though, straight away.

Because, like, we didn't sell... Our album didn't sell enough. And then the second one... What? Yeah, yeah. Well, I know. It's been good for them now, like, in the 10 years on. I think that's bollet.

Yeah. And, you know, they've come back to us and started talking to us again, Century Media. The second one, absolutely no one gave a fuck. Like, no one... We were, you know, asking nuclear blast. I didn't care. No one cared. So we were...

They didn't give you any feedback to why they didn't care? Because you've been doing nothing for four years. Actually. Yeah. Probably that. So we self-released the EP, mainly because we had no interest from anyone that we were interested in.

We self-released it. And to be honest with you, it was doing it ourselves was amazing. It was just really, really hard. And I think we did a good job of it. Like, in the sense, we had all of the... After that, we had all of the major UK festivals. We did, like, download, bloodstock, and slam dunk.

Bearing in mind, we have no label, no management. Absolutely nothing. And then after that, there was about... All of them. All of them, like, yeah, yeah. You guys are sick. Like, yeah. And you're actually like doing this yourself without any help.

So yeah, we all want to sign you. So yeah. And we were going to do this album that's about to come out. We were going to release it independently. But we didn't. We actually paid for that near enough the whole thing up front. We recorded it all. We started making the music videos and then we signed.

So where did you record it? Treehouse. We've got Carl Baum. Jim Pinder. He's in Chesterfield. Is it in a tree house? No. So it's like a renovated farmhouse.

Who else have they got? Sleets. Bullitt for my valentine. Sleeps. They do the drums for Bring Me. Oh, fuck. That's big boy shit. He's doing sleep token.

Yeah, he's just done the new Sleep Token record actually. Has he done something for Trivium as well? He did in waves, I think, for trivia. Okay. And then he's done mixing for some sleep. Wait, who is this? It just sounds like you're describing Colin Richardson, but it's not. He's called Carl Bown.

I should know who that is. I don't know what anyone is anymore. Yeah, he's a good dude, yeah, he was in a band called, oh what, I can't remember the name actually, what is it? It was like, sort of like early 2000s, like metal. Stamping Ground? No, no, there's like more new metal than that. Oh.

Yeah. La Rousseau. Do you remember then? Yeah. I should just fucking stop doing anything to do with music because I don't know what fucking anything is. You're on tour with Sleep Togun right now. We are on tour with Sleep Togun right now.

What are they like? So who are they? Just tell me exactly who they are by name. The Inbetweeners. If anyone was wondering who they are or what they look like, the singers like Neil from Inbetweeners. Lovely lad, though.

Yeah, nice lad. Which one? Oh, wow, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he's like him, but much more eloquent. Eloquent, slightly, you know, quite... She's got a nicer voice, I imagine. I'm not a Neil's scene.

Yeah, yeah. But are they all right? Yeah, very professional. You say that with a smirk. Because this is their second tour ever. Yeah. How many members of crew do they have? I'm not shitting on it before anyone says anything.

I'm not shitting on anyone. More than we've ever had, added together. I just find it, I'm not shitting on anyone. I just find it amazing. The pandemic's fucking changed music. You can be a band out of nowhere and go from nothing. I know they were around before the pandemic, You know what I mean?

The pandemic was just like everyone sat at home being miserable listening to sleep tugging. So then you can come back out of the pandemic and be like, oh, we need 10 members of crew now. Yeah. Fair play. I saw it with Spirit Box. So they're fucking, you know. Yeah.

You need that sort of music. You need someone to set off your fucking lights and shit. Yeah, they do. I mean, especially if you've got to be anonymous, you can't exactly be loading your head off after. See, there, guys. Their drum tech is my old drum tech. Josh. Yeah, yeah.

He's sound. Yeah. Yeah. Josh Singh, he's absolutely fucking. legend but I think he they make him call him he he's not allowed to call any of them by their names oh okay in case somebody like hears it right oh really I don't know if I've just thrown it he's gonna probably get fired for that if you're gonna fire people for something like that don't do stuff like that in the past place well yeah but like I get it because it has to do the

anonymity but what we were talking about earlier imagine if like you said you got to play Rebellion Manchester Yeah Yeah, yeah And you've got And you've got You've got to walk through the crowd To go and get yourself a soft drink

Yeah Pop your mask on Come back down Yeah, yeah yeah I mean You know Standing at the merch table Big fat line of people

Yeah Yeah Yeah Oh shit No larges No larges near me I wonder if they're gonna If it's gonna come out

It's got to come out Like Slipknot came out Pretty fucking soon After Everyone that's tried Like the guy from ghost Everyone has tried to be... Yeah.

Yeah, I guess. I think they're trying the very best not to let it come out. Although, I think if you do let it come out, you have to do it like strategically. Like, this is what the rappers do. You know, they'll have their... Oh, my fall out.

They'll have their grand unmasking, but they'll do it in a music video so it's like promotes their... Yeah. Oh, did they do theirs in a music video? That was, uh, what was it? Before I forget. Oh, okay.

Did the big unmasking? Well, I might know if you actually see any of the faces in that, just the masked like off in, like, hung off, Mike stands and shit. Yeah, okay. Theirs was earlier than that, though, I remember because Kerrang did a big feature, but it's definitely, like, stuff like that gets leaked.

Yeah. Otherwise, it's just like, now you get older, and it's like, oh, Kerrang's got the scoop, and then you get older and you realize how press works. It's like, oh, they were just told. They were told, and that's why it's on the front cover. Yeah. I mean, if Kerrang offered me two grand,

I go into the dressing room live stream today. Do not threaten me with that. We do it for a gig? Yeah. Because I could find me. I can crowd fund this right now. Is 2G's the price? I don't know.

I don't know. I've got a good relationship with them now, but I think, you know, they should keep the masks on. What about, honestly, though, what about... Face it. What about two grand, though? Because I could definitely... You know what, actually, I take that back.

I'm pulling out, you know? I like... Pulling out... What would the three be for Wilkie? Imagine the price for you guys. It actually be awesome. You're not going to lose... You're not going to lose...

You're not going to lose any fans. There's no, like... No one... Like, obviously you must have some crossover fans, but like... Do you make a little bit of bank? Yeah. It would get...

There'd be articles everywhere. It'd be better than any of the interviews we've done for the album. Like, it would go further. It'd be on all of the gossip blogs. Yeah. Oh, I'm lots of something in it. Right, if you join the Patreon, Patreon, patreon.com,

4 slash the downbeat, right? If I get it to three grand this month, I will try and give Wilkie enough money to unmask sleep token. I actually joked about it with him yesterday and it didn't go down very well. About the demasking?

Yeah. Well actually I was going to take a picture with Adam Foster and spread a rumor that he was the singer of Sleep Token. Oh now see that's something I'm into. Yeah. Because I remember there was loads of shit

I don't want to spend a whole podcast talking about fucking sleep stuff. But there was like oh I heard it's like one of the guys from the 1975 is like, no, it's not. Number one, they don't have enough time. Number two, who could be asked that I'm in the

1975? Can I please play a 500-cap venue? You know, when they were like coming up? Although, actually, that would probably be quite good if you were in 1975, and you'd wear a mask so, but maybe it's him, but usually it looks like Neil, so who looks like Neil? I'm trying to think who looks like Neil from the in-between is and I can just maybe it's Neil, and you're just not telling me. And that's why.

That would be amazing if it actually was, can you imagine? Imagine Neil had that fucking, because the guy's got amazing voice. He's just like, all right, and then it seems fucking perfect. Is this tall fucking mental?

Yeah, it's quite eye-opening for us, to be honest with you. I've never seen anything like it in my life. Architects are killing it. It's huge, the rock stars. I had no idea. Architects, sleep, choking, Mellev.

Yeah. That's it, three-bound bill. Yeah. How long after doors are you on? It's been 30 minutes Sundays and it's been an hour Sunday but the rooms have been full They have been turning up

Early doors which is sick It's like showing a lot of love For us which is nice You know I mean Because we sort of thought it'd be pretty dead At Matt knows too Yeah like arena tour Do you ever see like

Like behemoth on the Slipknot tour Did you see that It was like maybe three or four Nah three years ago Yeah And like beaheemoth And like Behemer 4 and like Fucking 10 minutes after doors

Yeah I think our kids The architects have like, they told, you know what I mean, they arrange something to make sure that we're on at least an hour or whatever. Yeah. Which is nice of them, do I mean? It's like they do actually care, I think, about like the experience that we're having, which is

nice. They fucking vet who comes on the tour as well, like they wouldn't. If they weren't into your band, you wouldn't be on the fucking tour. Yeah, yeah. That's cool. That's always cool. Arenas, people do that thing when the doors open and they run to the front. I love it. I love it. It's amazing. Run to the front, buy a shirt later

and then put it on straight away. Like, people People are like, oh, that's not cool. It's like, to the band, it's the coolest thing on fucking earth. I mean, especially where we come from, we're like playing hardcore beatdown shows. I used to playing people at the back of the room. The polar opposite.

Is there any, like, hardcore mosh at this? I think in Leeds is probably a bit of moshing there and stuff. For our first couple of songs where like only the die-hard Mulev guys are there. And then after that, it's just circle-pits and shit. I show them more like that now, anyway really, particularly in the UK.

Yeah. It's less and less. Less and less dancing. Yeah. But the new record, got that's a segue. Yeah. But I'm about to ruin it. Yeah.

Which is called what? Malicious intent. Is anyone sent it to you? Yeah. You have. I've got it. I've been pumping it at the gym. Nice.

I can't even remember what I was going to say because I thought I had such a good fucking thing. It's really, it's still pretty beat down here. That's what I was going to say. Yeah. You've lost it. It's whitened up on some bits, but there's like even like the track management is intent.

Yeah, okay, yeah. The first track is still has a fucking slam in it. Yeah. Yeah. Like the tempo changes are fucking mental. Yeah. We'll never stop doing them, I don't think. No, that's like sort of the thing that we've always done in it.

So I think like just trying to be a bit more like conscious of the structure. Yeah. Writing the songs has made them, it's not like wasting all your ideas and one go, do I mean. So I think the way we've done it. is a bit more conscious just trying to like link it together and make it like a bit more of a journey but still have the bits that

like the heavy bits because like we like playing him there's fucking awesome there's like I can't think of another band doing the like 90s Pantera machine head thing that's cool

like they're all just fucking just like no offense to them I'm not going to say I'm not going to say but it's just like oh that's like When Pantera was out and Machine Head were out, they were doing it, and they were cool as fuck, and the music was cool as fuck. But then it's sort of, for about 10 years, inspired the least cool music of all the time. And then now it's kind of you guys got a bit of swag about you.

I think that scene's ready for a new generation. As long as you don't spend another four years. Is there a stipulation in your contract? Like, mustn't wait four years a day. Who writes it? Do you all write it? He's the riff man. He writes all, every single one of the riffs.

is like so much better than me and Conner's like no point. I was really doing it. But yeah, like we, I write like some of the choruses and the lyrics and talk about how the songs go together. But, you know, you write every single riff, every single. Yeah, I generally just like demo all the stuff myself and then give it to Charlie, you can write his drum parts because I've just programmed the drums.

But it's just to catch a vibe. Do you write it all on a computer? Yeah. Well, no, well, I just demo stuff, you know, at the computer, really. and then just sort of like try and figure out what's good or come back to it a day later and see if it's, I still think it's good or not. Do you put all the tempo changes in?

Or do they happen? Sometimes it depends quite a lot of the time, yeah. Or sometimes when we're doing the vocals and stuff will try and manipulate different parts depending on how they go over what's being written, do I mean? Have you got that in mind or does that come later on? No, yeah, right with it in mind.

Because it's like we've always had the fucking Lime Rider tempo check, do I mean, so That's what I fucking love about it Because we do that in Strait Like, we'll do Here's a chorus, it's 3 BPM faster Like the breakdown's coming up, let's ramp it up Or whatever

But there's other bands, quite a lot of bands that I love It's just straight The whole way through, you know who does it And I love the band, psilosis Yeah, yeah I'm going to Josh about it Every, I'm like, what? Josh is allergic to fucking tempo changes

I don't know what it is, but he loves Fantara and stuff like that. of like less than five. Oh yeah, no, no. No one's touching it. If you give Josh a like a 173, you'll be fucking sick. We were literally listening to Silo's

like in the van just before we got here. Oh yeah. I'm fan-buying pretty hard, to be honest. Really? A while. Jocelyn on the tour? Absolutely. I love Silos.

What's your favourite? Salos's record? Conclusion in age? Yeah. Is it? Yeah. Yeah. I like edge of the earth as well, to be fair.

Oh, I feel like, I feel like edge of the earth is like... I think it's actually better. But the nostalgia of... conclusion. I think, to be fair, it might be controversial. I think Jamie's vocal

amazing on it. I mean, he's an amazing fucking, despite the thing I said about Sieger of a Medea Records earlier. He's, uh, I love Jamie.

I love, uh, his vocals are fucking amazing. Yeah. And every band he's fucking in and is fucking amazing. But, yeah,

I mean, to play those riffs and sing it. Like, I remember when Josh was like, oh, I'm going to do it. Everyone was like, what? Yeah. And then...

Jamie Graham was singing and playing guitar. No, no, but Josh, oh, Josh does that now, but Jamie's out of the band or whatever, oh, I'm going to do it.

And everyone was like, I don't know if you remember there was a fucking MySpace video. And it was Carl, who was the bassist at the time, and Rob, who was the drummer at the time, neither of them in the band. Oh, no, it was Bailey and Rob, actually. And they're out of computer, and they're like, oh, Jamie's quit. Like this was the video. Oh, Jamie's quit. Oh, what are we going to do?

And then Josh just gets out of bed, puts on these 3D cinema glasses and goes, of it. And then it cut to Josh singing Conclusion of an Age and playing guitar. And that was it and that was like the announcement. And I was like, that's so funny. Back in the day when you could just get away with just being like a laugh. Yeah, yeah.

To like, this is the announcement and it's just funny. Yeah. So do they still play any of the songs of Conclusion of an Age? And how do they sing the chorus is now? I haven't seen the Tarras. Yeah, I think they might play Conclusion of an Age. But yeah. But he just fucking does it.

Oh, okay. Just a fucking... Wizard. Just a shredder fucking legend. Yeah. Is that... What's your... Who's your main influence?

Guitar wise? I would ask you, basically who cares? Yeah. I don't have one. Yeah, I don't have one at all. Someone asked me like two days on an interview. I was like... Who's your favorite bassist?

Yeah. I have the solidarity for the bassist and just the drummers because no one gives a fuck. But, like, they don't realize. are you in control of the merch? Yeah. Yeah.

This man's the mogul. There's two people in the world in the world who, when I've got something cooking for Downbeat, one of you does it first. Oh really? It's Mellev and it's Drop Dead.

Oh, okay. And it's like, because I love your shit and I love Drop Dead shit anyway, it's like, okay, well, I'm on the right fucking path. But we always have very fucking similar ideas and you'll put something out. And I was like, that's in my fucking. fucking drafts.

I was gonna fucking do that when he did the pizza one. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I had it fucking in there. Oh, mate, you can do it again. Everyone's done one of that, one like that, you know. The fucking the football shirt. I like everyone being different.

Drop dead's the worst because they've got the fucking, they've got the force to be able to like, well, I want to do this. That's fucking... Yeah. Can I get a sample of this and they get it fucking tomorrow?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But their shit, their anime shit, had like three designs already done and paid for and then dropped it was just like came out with that rival school thing and I was like oh well I'm just gonna drop their clothes I just can the whole thing oh really and then like that dropped their

neutrals thing if you see that thing yeah like the beige track suits yeah there's a bunch of fucking samples over there because that was happening for the fucking downbeat and then they come out of it I mean we're all just ripping off here ago but yeah it doesn't it's the same fucking thing so bassist no one cares about the bass bassist no I mean I don't go and watch videos

of bassist playing on YouTube but I can I don't imagine you doing that. I'm not ever doing that. No, I never do that. Oh, is this a shit? But yeah, yeah. I may call the merch and I put a lot of graft into it, you know, as you do as well, but you have to.

It's hard, you know what I mean? It's hard out here. Like, it's fucking, yeah. And that's where the money goes, it comes from. And it's also like, it's literally just, it's how we make money. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, also, you could express yourself creatively

that way as well. You know what I mean? Do you love doing it? Yeah, I do. I do. And like, honestly, when I have a day where I sell a load of merch, feel like I'm on drugs. You know, you're like, you put something in a life.

It's just like, ding, d-din-din-n-n-do. Do you have the Shopify app on your phone? Oh, you don't? No, you don't have Shopify, do you? I've got like a different, I've got like a built-in thing. So I do get it and I do the drops and I see it. And you know, it's exactly that. And then, so I wake up and I like plan a drop.

Yeah. And I look at the orders and I do whatever. And then when the drop, yeah, we're insane. When the drop pops off, it's like I want, and I go mental like, because I get the dopamine release. I'm like, I want to, I want to fuck. everything. I want to I want to do loads of

fucking coke. I want to just fucking like a proper go into American Psycho, mate. Please buy a t-shirts. Yeah. People are going to be like fucking capitalists. But it's like... I can't help it. I get a ding. I have a notification every time it makes a sound. It makes a noise. And then like some days

my girlfriend's like, turn it off. What's the noise? What's the noise? Chich! Yeah, absolutely. No fucking way. Put your phone on loud. Put your phone on loud. Okay, I will do. I want to see if one comes through. That's like built in on Shopify, so yeah. Yeah, yeah. We'll see if it comes down. Hey, if you listen,

oh no, it's not live, is it? I was going to say, someone buy something now and make it, make the sound. I mean, I can just, I'll tweet that out right now while we do this. Yeah, please someone buy something. I think the cheapest thing is a sticker for two pounds.

I'm going to say, can someone buy something from malevolence, Rith, merch store right now we're, it's for a podcast. Nice

Thanks We'll get you up as a set on a 10% Commission code Wait imagine you sell like fucking 20 shirts now There's not going to be one is there Well that's what I've said I have said Can someone buy something Oh yeah here we go

Notifications can someone buy something from 11th Rift merch store right now it's for a podcast Thanks we'll shout you out We'll see Yeah yeah and you have to leave them on Even if it just pops up imagine if it doesn't I'll just look like a nobody Oh he buys his followers

He buys his fucking followers I got sidetrack I don't want to show these people this This is a fucking godson this book Oh wow is this the pantoms then Oh okay Next to your fucking computer And you go on

Well I've got a shirt blank the sack colour I want to fucking Yeah oh very cool Very cool I'll tell Yeah yeah Real ones but you can't see that I'll go on to merch without talking about

That's all good What's your guitar If you're top one Give me a top one? Who's your top one? It's obviously dime bag, isn't it? Is it? Yeah, of course.

Yeah, obviously. It's controversial, maybe these, always band does it. I think he's alright. No, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm paying before at any kind of, anyone can go, you're doing. I'm campaigning to separate the band from the people in it, I think. Do you know, I mean, the music is still.

Yeah, yeah. Isn't it weird? Because I have this conversation quite a lot, obviously, because my band's super fucking political. But, like, I think now with, like, the cancelling shit, which, you know, sometimes, obviously you can't go around fucking Zig-heiling. That's a big no-no. You can't fucking do it.

But what seems to happen is unless you're fucking kids, you just wait. And then everyone goes, yeah, this person's back. And everyone goes, oh, is that all right? And everyone goes, I guess so. But, like, I don't know. It's scary, isn't it? Just sit it out.

Everyone just fucking sit it out. That's the right thing. That's the right thing. I don't give a fuck. I don't care. It ruined it for me. Might not have ruined it for everyone else. I don't care.

Everyone seems to forgive everyone. Don't bang kids. Yeah. That's it. That's my advice as a musician. We've got a bit serious there. Trigger warning. A retrospective trigger warning.

Let's feel about something else. So what about you, Craig? Can we have a Craig Reynolds timeline, like, of your projects? Are we allowed to hear one of those? It's not my podcast, is it? Yeah, yeah, but I mean, you know, you're far more well-known than certainly me. I don't think so. So what about it?

It was Viatrophy. Then it was The Heart Machine with Jamie Graham in. He was in there. I forgot he was in that. This was in our group chat this morning. We were like, who was in the Heart Machine? Because the Hart Machine is like the weather thing, right? that band fucking

that band was one guy and he hired me and Jamie Graham was session musicians Jamie Graham and him had an argument he quit, me and him had an argument I quit but I recorded the record I literally

engineered the record, played the drums on the record then had a big falling out which I'm not going to go into because I don't want to give them any press because there's a band that's been going for as long as we have one album in 10 years. I'm giving you fucking shit

for four years. I think it's one album in... Are they actually still going? 11 years, apparently. Oh, mate. Just pop it into fucking YouTube and just have a little listen. Because I was, I helped

with the, you know, the fucking making the guitarist music listenable. Because you can programming drums or whatever. And then, so then I quit and then they made it look like Alex Ruehling and played drums on the album. They've faked like a studio. documentary.

Really? So it looked like he was doing it. So everyone thinks he played on that. But if you were one of the six people that bought a CD and you go into the credits, you can see that it was me. So I fucked that off.

In fact, before that was in Dead Swans for a bit. Were you? Oh, nice. Yeah, that's like. Like two years. Sick. But again, didn't want to put out. They didn't want to put out another record. So it's just like, everyone's just like,

you do have to make music. To be a musician, you have to to make some music. Then I did then there's a art machine and then I did BWP. BWP.

Did one record with BWP and Blue one. Yeah and he fucked it. The mix is so bad. And he was like so, it was so

the guy that was engineered it was a nice enough bloke was just I really want this to be really fucking natural or whatever and it was like at a time when everyone

was not doing natural and was like, okay, whatever. Yeah, yeah. Write the songs. Kurt Balloon mixed it. Refused to take the gate off the snare drum. And I was like, I kept doing the mix notes.

It was like, the snare drum is insanely gated. Like you can't hear any. Like, my whole thing is fucking ghost notes and all that. Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to like bring a little bit of summing into hardcore. And then he just kept refusing to do that. And then he turned around and was like, I don't really know what's going on with these vocals.

I don't want to do it. So can I just mix this instrumental and then you guys get the vocals mixed and master it somewhere else and we were like well are you telling us that you want to do? Are you asking if we can do that or are you telling us? And he was like oh that's what's happening and we're like okay and get it back. It sounds like a Kurt Baloo record

but the combination of him not giving a fuck which is like record sounds terrible and then so that bum me out sorry what I get bummed down I was just quit the band I just too all the time that bum me out I'm out fuck this because then that gives that's a two-way street

because then I get out of the situation and at the same time the bank can blame all of that and me so it's win-win because I don't give a fight because I joined any fucking well

okay I'll take it just to it yeah I don't give a shit and then I taught drums just teaching drums for like three years

and I made like more money than I've ever made from music from just teaching and then Stray asked me to join and I said

no because I'm fucking cleaning up and then they said can you help us out with one tour and we'll pay you whatever whatever you're missing out at home so much fucking fun and they were just like

do you want to join you I was like fuck yeah yeah fair enough that's sick yeah kicked all my fucking drum students off that fuck you sorry no I actually tried to do both for the longest time but they were just like I'd go on tour for three months

come back and then none of them are practice and it's just not fair on them yeah that's the same time right it's my episode of the podcast okay cool thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Like, May 20th. How many singles you had?

How many got that? There's three. Three out of the minute. Three and there's a fourth coming out. Which one's the one that you filmed outdoors? On broken glass. Oh, in the yard, like the outdoor one. That video is fucking so sick. That's my favourite video, but I think it was a good one.

It's quite an organic video in the sense of like we were having a really, really good time. Yeah. It wasn't like a video. shoot, yeah. I mean, it was, but for like 200 guests list in the yard in Sheffield, just part it. It looks, it just sums up like a malev show. Yeah. That song's pretty, does everyone like it?

No, no, no, no, I'm just checking because it is, it's the, probably the most singy. Yeah, it's not the most singing, actually, but there you go. Did you hear it? Oh, there it was! Yeah, I hope I might pick that up. No, it's the most singing of your singles. Yeah, it is the most singing. Now, I think Kons vocals, like some people don't like them

and some people really love them. Like some of our old, old fans are like, nah, you don't like the singing, not enough... You heard that on... Self- Supremacy. No, no, we've had songs with just clean vocals in from the very beginning.

Yeah. First record, Turn to Stone. We've got a seven-minute ballad on there. So that's something that we've always done. That's the same as you get is coming out. Yeah, yeah, we've always done that. But combining it with the heavy stuff is a little bit.

newer. He's trying to do it in like an organic way where it's not just another metalcore song. I fucking hate metalcore. So I'm in a metal core man. I fucking can't. This is my thing and I say it all the fucking time. I don't hate metalcore. I just love because when I say I hate metalcore, I'm like, you're in a metalcore.

I hate, I love architects, I love what they've done. I hate every band that sounds like architects. Yeah. Because I've already got architects. And also, Sam's voice, indistinguishable from anyone else, you can't fucking do it. I can do it. My only criteria with any heavy music is, does the vocalist sound different to anyone else?

So it's like, and everyone's like, you're in a medical band. I was like, give me another band. Don't say Reg against the Machine. Give me another band. Don't, give me another band that Drew, that sounds like Drew. Like fucking no one.

That's why I love straight before, even in the fucking band. Like, you guys at singing, that's like 90s fucking 90s, fucking 90s Pantera singing, no one's been fucking doing it at all, it's nothing like any other person in Metal Corps.

Con's definitely got like his own style. I guess obviously it's reminiscent of stuff like Pantera, but there's not really anyone else doing it. Like he's doing it, do you know what I mean? He's singing as well. Well, he has to do it. I'm sorry, he has to do it. You can't get rid of that now.

Yeah. Because it's fucking different. Everyone at every other metal, fucking knock loose. Counts as Metal Core, Brian is the fucking best. No one sounds like him. And I'm actually annoyed that no one's really ripping him off because I could actually probably do a couple. Give me another knock loose.

Give me another little yappy man. Yeah, yeah. I think it works really well with how heavy and low tune the music is. But he's like, it's quite different because I think if his vocals were like super low and growly, it'd just be similar to a lot of other people. I fucking hate it. The, like, the as I lay dying.

Yeah, yeah. I absolutely miss me with it. I get it at the time, everyone loved it, but it's just like, and then every band came out. It sounds exactly the fucking same. Yeah, that's it, isn't it? Don't care. I don't care so much.

I get in trouble for saying that, but it's just like, just do it, I mean, original. So easy. All you do, right, write a list. Here's what everyone's doing. What can we put on that side of the list? It's just something else Even like

Spirit Box If you take Courtney away from Spirit Box And this is not To fucking shit on them You could put Sam on it And go that that's architecture Do you like me? With a lot of it

Maybe not the like The really fucking balladit shit But then you put Courtney on it It's like okay This band's fucking amazing Yeah Yeah Yeah

Because it's different Yeah I've shit on everyone What's your favourite track On your own record Probably the ballad Higher play I think that's probably the best song we've ever made.

Yeah, that's real. And that's not public. It's not out yet. No, I think that's. In fact, the video will be coming out in a few, three or four weeks or something like that. Yeah, I think it's like post. Have you heard that one?

I mean, do you like our soft ones? Yeah, I love it. Okay, yeah. And I think it's probably, that's why I was like, do people like this? Because it's like, that on broken glass is like a toe dipper because it's, as far as I'm aware from your other singles, it's got the most amount of singing in it.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. followed by self-supremacy. Self-supremacy... There's not how much singing on that. Yeah, but that had the first, like, reveal. Yeah, yeah, of, like, a mix-up, yeah, the discurs and the vocals.

Yeah, I think... Did that divide people when that happen? Because when I heard that, I was like, this is the best thing I've ever heard of. I think the other side was the one that we had got the most stick about the singing. You know, if you know that one? So that's like the ballad on there.

And you know what? Everyone was writing in the comments, like, oh, this fucking sounds like, Creed and I'd never heard of any of these bands so I'd check Creed out and they're fucking amazing like it's sweet we sound like these guys sick I'm down for that to be honest yeah

I mean you can't fucking do anything different no someone's always going to relate it to particularly in metal like in metal people want to hear 12 of the same song on an album but like you listen to you put a Drake album on he's got Afro beats on there he's got a dance whole song he's got a rap song he's got one where he's just talking

he's got an R&B tune like on you know in it doesn't get fucking heat for it Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then he's got the pop commercial chart song, yeah, no one cares. I'm not saying it. I mean, I don't want to listen to 12 blast beats. 12 songs have just blasts. I love blast beats, I love shredding, all of that. But there has to be something in the mix there.

Yeah, I'm saying. I'm absolutely, fucking saying. You need to, like, get in the mix, and it'll take it on a journey, do I mean? One or two songs that are just a little bit different. Yeah, yeah, 100%. The, it's weird you say that about the Drake thing, because, and just hip-hop in general. Like, why, do you reckon it's just metalheads? I don't want to slag metal heads off

because we all rely on them buying merchandise. But like, the elitism. Yeah. I saw that actually when the Travis Scott thing happened. I saw a lot of

this wouldn't have happened at one of our shows like a metal thing. It's like, well, actually, it fucking has. Pearl Jam, Limbiscuit, people die. It doesn't matter.

It's a security issue at the end of the day. It's not any of the fucking artists fault. Justice for Travis Scott. I'm not saying he's not at fault there I'm just saying like it was crazy to see the hate from the metal community

or this would never happen at our show but it's like have you been to a Strave in the Bath show how many times has Drew said get on the stage how many times his fucking Alex said get on the fucking stage get on the stage jump off man there is days back in the day where fucking vice you would be like turn to the person next to you and punch them square in the face

Oh, yeah, yeah. Like a really super violent mosh call. And it's like now, like, the difference was none of our bands were big enough for. Yeah, for anyone to care or anything seriously bad to happen. Because, you know, it could have done. Fucking Randy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

And he got in fucking shit. Yeah. Like, I wonder with that, with today's climate, I sound like one of those council culture people now. I'm not. but like I wonder if Randy did that oh that happened to Randy today if anyone is living under a fucking rock

Randy Blythe a kid stage dived in somewhere in Eastern Europe Russia He was It was a bold area or something Poland We're sounding pretty ignorant now Yeah we are

Somewhere in Eastern Europe And a kid stage died And died Yeah died And then the next time They went back to that country He got arrested at the airport, I think it was, and then he was in jail for a bit.

Well, I wonder if that happened now, if the internet would be going mental like, yeah, he shouldn't have done that, what do you want at a gig? You want to stand there like this and go, sleep so kind of good. I'm sorry. I can't fucking leave it. I can't not talk shit. I'm really sorry. That was the first band in my head. I thought, what would be a band where everyone stood still with enjoying themselves? I mean, it's good for shows to be safe, but a little bit of danger goes a long way.

I mean, I remember seeing BWP and just getting both my nose, like, bleeding, black eyes. Instantly, I was 18 years old. I was like, this is sick. Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah. Yeah, just one crowd killer. So everyone knows. Right, I want to keep away from that guy.

Yeah, yeah. But still at the same time, ooh, I'm on edge. Yeah, yeah. It's coming. It really depends on your environment. If you're at a desolated show and, like, you're complaining, then it's like, what on earth do you possibly expect? But if you're going to go on sly moshing like that to architects,

you were a bit of a wanky, really. Yeah, exactly, yeah. Read the room. Yeah, yeah. What's the crossover with Desolated and Mulev? Charlie plays drums in them. Is that it? What's the...

What's the... What's the... What is it? We've taught together a lot, like, when we first came out. Yeah. Now it's all completely different guys than Desolated. The whole band, the whole band's different. Bar two of them.

About the... Bar two of them, and Charlie plays drums in them, but kind of not, because they're in the USA right now, and he's not. Right. Yeah, so that's... That's about it, really. Who was the desolator?

Oh, Ben Spenser. So he's a jeweller in Doncaster now. Shout out, I think it's precision jewelry. Shout out to precision jewelry. He sells Rolexes and stuff. You want a little fake? That's a plug there. I'm going to need a little discount.

What a fucking, what a great career path. So who was he? What did he do? He's their mascot mosh. Mascot mosh. Yeah, that's what I remember, the desolator. At one point, he even got into Kerang and he wrote a little thing about him.

About the desolator, yeah. The desolator, which is pretty funny. I think that's when that term was kind in Kerrang, I think. But he was always being at gigs. He used to put shows on. Yeah, I remember it. I remember exactly what he looks like. Now he's flogging watches.

In my head, I've got like uncut gems. Uncut gems vibe, but he's listening to Desolated. Yeah. So what's Malay of L TD? That's our label right now in our merch store, basically. What is nuclear blast? We pressed our own ourselves. Our own vinyl.

This is the brains. Yeah, the organisation right here. Fucking smart. When we were actually independent... Oh yeah, do you like it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Beachfield blanks, I'll send you a link.

I was just about to it. I was just about to leak my supplier. No. Fuck you. So when we did the last record, we actually had nuclear blast doing the digital distribution, you know, the blood blasts, whatever,

it was called. and they helped us get on all the cool Spotify playlist, which are apparently where it's all out now. Where it's all out, but it's also where a weird capitalism is going fucking crazy in that shit. People being asked to waive their royalties in exchange for being playlisted. Right, okay.

Which is a crazy thing, but when you look at like the editorial playlist at Spotify, the amount of, like, you get on one of those big ones, you know what it's like, if you look in your Spotify for artists some of our songs that get editorial playlisted, you look at it and it's like 20% of the streams.

Yeah, so it's like, do you? A lot of people are like, this is fucking, you know, this is the worst thing ever and I'm like on paper, yes, this is the worst thing ever. But we are reaching new people. 20% Yeah, it's a lot. 20% of a million's fucking

200,000, like, that's 200,000 possible. I'm in merch mode. 200,000 possible t-shirt sales. Like, on principle I definitely disagree with it, especially if it becomes oversaturated. And then really that could be leading itself to you don't get paid anything for streaming, which is fucking crazy because the guy that owns

it's a fucking billionaire. Yeah, yeah. But it's all Spotify monthly listeners now. That's what everyone's talking about. Yeah, that's the goal. Oh, yeah, we need to get it up. how many have they got? How many have they got?

Look how many you've got right now. I think it's pretty meaningless. I see bands that have loads of them playing to the Snooty Fox in Wakefield to seven people. I think it can be juiced up as well. Yeah, yeah.

You can get juiced up by one song getting playlisted or there's another thing where you get featured on someone else's thing. It juices your shit. Yeah. I'm looking at yours. Little loopholes. I don't really follow the numbers too much.

Yours are good? Are they good, are there? Yeah. Was it good? I'm going to look at ours. I think they've gone up to be recently there. We have between, we have literally 1,000 different. Oh, okay.

And you've just put new music out. And I love both of our bands. So that's fucking cool. Yeah. Basically, all the coolest bands have that many listeners. How many? Did you say how many of those? 155K.

Oh, okay. How bad is it? Which is, you know, it's not too little to be playing the Snooty Fox. It's not too many. of mainstream sellouts. I will sell out. I will sell out. Just give me a little bit of fucking money

and I'll sell out. I've got like a section that I want to get onto off the podcast. But do my job for me. You got it May 20th. Malicious intent. Is out May the 20th?

What else we're doing? We've got loads of gigs going on our Instagram. What are you doing after architects? So we're going to Malta we bring the horizon. I want someone so much to just invite me to do a podcast there or do some podcasts. I want to go to Malta.

Why are you not a DJ? You should be doing it. Stop doing the DJ shit. Okay, yeah. Yeah, I think we're DJing now, but we don't. That's going to be sick. I stopped doing it because when bands do it, it's fine.

Like, after the thing. And like, well, I've got friends, like, Zorro London and stuff that are actual fucking DJs. But then there's like a different culture, especially with men, who are like, they're just known for being DJs. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, okay.

And they're all losers. And I just don't want to be putting in it. Not all of, if you're my friend, I'm not talking about you. And I just don't want to, it's weird. The podcaster to DJ to loser arc is really, really fucking, it's a really small steps to go to those.

I'm like, you know, I'd rather stay here for, You want to give you 200 quid? And it's like, I enjoyed fucking doing it. But like when the flyer comes out and it's you on it, I'm like, oh, that sucks. Yeah, yeah. That fucking sucks. Yeah, I know what you mean.

Also, the problem with DJing rock nights is you're, you basically just have to play like the Kraske. You know, you have to play the songs that people know. Otherwise, just everyone leaves. Yeah. So honestly, we'd love to go on there, do bassline, garage, get on the mic, whatever. Oh, God, my left garage. If we do that, bring the Horizon Malta, whatever.

You got bars? You look like you got parts? Do you actually? I'm retired. Me and Charlie used to, we used to dip our toes in. Oh. Only in the live setting, not really like on YouTube or anything. There was a freestyle once in Slovenia, yeah. Is it? Is that on YouTube?

It's private on YouTube, I think. But it did get out once. It did get out, yeah. We're on like Facebook or something like that. Yeah, this is like 2015, I think, around it. But yeah, you can't. quite restricted to just playing crowd pleases at DJ and rock events so you just kind of just go

there and play like hate read or something and then yeah I tried to do mash up stuff so I did like 9 inch nails and Ash Niko and everyone no one got either of the bands and I was like okay well I spent ages I spent ages fucking

mashing this up and no one liked it and I did like Ramstein into RuPaul's drag race and I like and just mashed a bunch of shit up and everyone was like fuck is this may he bring me in the horizon I'm like okay

yeah yeah I'm 35 I'm off I'm fucking off right so you got Malta weekender it's a Malta

then we've got download after that is it down we're going to the we're going to the USA with the Acacia Strait I saw that that

that line up's fucking amazing when is that when you're doing that when you're doing yeah on air then you know that one in the heavens yeah

sick festival then we're doing duple on tap then we're doing with full force and then we're going to America and then we're calling straight back for Notfest. We're gone for ages, five years.

Are you doing the Finnish Notfest, Finland one? You're doing the German one? I think I was going to, that's when I'm in America. Oh, okay. What are you going to be doing in America? Just leaked at all, it's not out yet. I'll be in America in August. I'm not going to tell you who with, because I'll get in so much trouble.

I'm just looking if I'm in America when you were in America. Yeah, I think like... That's your first time over there? No, we went in 2016. with Kubla Ikhanna Jesus Peace And that's the only time Yeah that's the only time I've ever been And like the funny thing is if that line up came back round like now

It'd be sick It'd be nice to say it wasn't sick then Yeah, they're wicked Good ones as well Big fan of the band Yeah we did a US tour with them And we did Australia with them Just about my favourite hardcore band right now

Yeah absolutely And sweethearts Yeah Sweethearts for such an angry thing I'm looking at I want to see if we To be fair, that occasionally straight in tows, what, is it like two weeks or something? Two weeks, oh yeah, then we're going to do a stay in and doing some more of our headline shows just to fill it out. 17th of July you end.

Yeah, but I think we're going to be staying out there until around another 10 day, another 10, I haven't even seen the days yet. I wonder, tell me those dates when you get them because I, I'll just leak this fucking tour. I go on tour on August and 4th, but I want to go out early and just fucking hang out. Yeah. Yeah. So I want to see if you're anywhere that I need to be. Yeah. I'll just come out and hang out.

August the 4th. Yeah, yeah. We'll probably be around something. I don't even know when North Fest is, to be honest. 31st of July, that one. Who's, like, who's headliner? Slipnough. Obviously they are, but who else?

Oh, Ghost Main, which is a bit of a wild card. Is it Slipknot Ghost, mate? Sirpnot, ghost main. In flames, cattle decapitation. I think it's a bit further down. Yeah, they usually have like a big headline, and then Slipnots, obviously the fucking desert. Yeah, is it in flames? are like below, I think

there's only about five bands in house. Oh, right, okay. It's not the full thing. I should probably know because this will go out or not test, so. Yeah. Should have known that. Why you pay me some money

and then I'll do it? Why don't you give me some money? You give me some money. I'm getting my own fucking money here. Someone needs to give me some. Anyway, who's on it? I can't find out. All right.

It doesn't matter. Speaking of festivals. There'd be enough people there anyway. Speaking of festival. Yeah, it's fine. So yeah, fine, Slipelwright, sell the tickets. Who are they? We might see behind the mask of Slipknot.

Right, so speaking of festivals, I've got a thing that I do when I can remember to do it. So it's Dream Festival. It's a Dream Festival. I call it Goth Menu, right? So what it is, we need to know, I don't even know the rules, I keep forgetting them. But what I need to know is like,

so you're building your dream festival. I guess you can do it together because otherwise we'll be here all fucking day. Yeah, yeah. So the idea is that we have a conversation about the things that come up if it's funny and entertaining So where is it you got to do where is it getting like where are you having a festival it doesn't have it could be a whole day or it could be fucking outdoors Whatever your favourite shit is whatever maybe a favourite festival you've ever done then we'll go from there and we'll go So where is it includes what country okay so this is your dream festival. I'm going to give you some examples will putney's was Australia

outdoors, two massive stages that will get onto the other elements of it. Everyone's drinking fizzy water. There was nine inch nails on one stage, Metallica on the other stage, and they had to flip-flop. One song per band, and the other band.

So Trent Reson's waiting for Metallica to finish. And Metallica were playing, and Justice for All, but with the bass turned up twice as loud and the St. Anger snare. and everyone in the crowd had a dog so like it can go your wildest dreams

so let's start with country venue it's got to be the Mediterranean hasn't it it's got a bit like you know what have you been well I've got my beef or something

never played a gig there never but yeah I'm sure so what's your reason for our bea you can go to a club afterwards just because it's nice and warm and you know there's a nice clear water so we're out beach we're like beach

it's got to be a beach vibe So it's like on Broken Glass video but it would be at a beach. On Broken Glass but in Bali. Barley would be nice. It should be too much traffic there. But other than that, you know. Have you done Bali?

No, we toured South East Asia but we didn't play in Bali but we went there on the way home from Australia because you can fly there for like 70 quid. You go to just fucking partied and went on Cooter Beach and fucking. We went to. It was the monkey place, really.

Nick all you shit? Yeah, we did all of that stuff. Yeah, all that stuff. Yeah, yeah. Just beach bars. So a beach club there would be pretty nice. You know, some pool, several pools. I think there isn't enough seating as well at festivals these days.

I like to sit down and watch your band, to be honest with you. You know, like slightly raised. So imagine, pool at the bottom, tear around the edge. So it's a pool. It's not, we're not, it's a swimming pool. Yeah, yeah, it's a resort. It's a resort. Nice one.

Barley Resort, beach next to it. Amphitheater seating. A pool at the bottom. Yeah, yeah. Can you stage either into the pool? I don't want to put words in your mouth. Yeah, yeah. Table service as well.

Oh, my man. Table service with food, with food options, nice balcony. I don't really know about the line. Is there no moshing? No, there's a separate area for moshing. Yeah. There's a designated area for moshing. A designated mosh area.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, state, pool, designated mosh area so people can mosh in and out of the pool. This is fucking awesome. Several designated mosh areas. So you know, like when you go swimming, there's a fast lane, the slow lane, or whatever. The crowd kidding, like.

You've got the dancing area. You've got the circle pit area, then you've got the bang head-banging area. Love it. And then you have the table service. The VIP. The IP, like a strip club, I imagine. Michelin Star food on deck. Nice.

Nice. In Bali, that's going to be tough. No offence. No offence, barley. Like a fibre in Bali. Something like that. Mushrooms as well in Bali. Oh, yeah.

Don't tell the police because you're going to jail forever. Oh, no, if mushrooms are illegal in Marley. but everything else. The people that sell you the mushrooms go, you want cocaine? And then in Fortnite, you say yes. And then they just come back with the police and then you go to go. Yeah, yeah. Okay, and then amphitheat seating. Okay, so we've got location.

Okay. Before we get onto the bands. So you've actually answered the like the food and drink. Okay. It's already done. So it's bottle service. Yeah. Michelin Star, VIP stripper seating, strip club style.

I'm not putting chauvinistic words into my own senses now. But, no, it doesn't matter. Amphitheater style seating. Okay, who's headline? I don't really like that many good bands. So like a lot of, there's a lot of headlines that are the bad. You can decide on the headliner. It's your dream festival.

You're not thinking about ticket sales, you're thinking about what you want to watch. I suppose if it was on a beach, it probably wouldn't be metal. No, you'd have some metal. There's some metal on it, but I mean the headliner. I don't know.

What's the band that you would most like to watch from a VIP bottle service? And Mulev's playing, by the way. Oh, okay, we're playing. So you want to think about supporting. Yeah. Well, I'd like to say Pantera, but it's probably not feasible.

As he's two of them are dead, but is that allowed to happen? I don't think it's feasible for everyone in the crowd to have a fucking dog. I reckon I can give you Pantera. Yeah, fair. I reckon I can... Holographic.

We can do perfect hologram of Pantera. I reckon I can bend the rules to that. Is Phil there, or is he also a hologram? It's from... It's a hologram of the massive show in Russia. Yeah, is it right 91 or whatever it was. Someone dying that one as well?

I think, yeah. There's like loads of rules. There was a big, big, fucking, oh, we're a head by the cops. 10 million people there or something. Okay, so it's a perfect hologram, so we don't even have Phil in the... We don't need it, do we?

Yeah, me. It's got a hologram pantera. Okay, in this Bali resort, Mulev's obviously playing. We've got Bob Drake. We've got up, like, some rappers. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, massive conflict.

What is Drake headlining or we got the Pantera? All right, okay, so we got... Drake's supporting us. We've got that. Okay, so we got Malette. Okay, so we got Malette. Mulev headlining. Yeah, Mulev's headlining, yeah.

Sixth minute. Supported by Drake. 60 minutes. 60 minutes. Yeah. Supported by Drake. And then you've got... Oh, is Drake on the after party?

Drake's on it? We've got to go for after parties. Do you want to save Drake for after party? Or you want to... You want Drake to support you? I'd like him to support us. Okay, so we can think about the after party in a minute. So we've got Malev headlining.

We've got Drake. you got a holographic pantera from Russia, 981 Moscow 909, you're out of the police Yeah, without the police. Yeah, without the police. We've got to have hate reading they

either doing perseverance or satisfaction. Yeah, yeah, yeah, one of those. Well, you can have both, it's a dream. Or both, yeah. One in the morning, one in the afternoon. Hate read, like, archive set. Yeah.

And then, so, then you've got to have who's, like, who's headlining a smaller stage. So this is a band that you're into who's smaller than malevolence is my idea here. Grid iron. Do you know grid iron? I love grid iron.

I love to see them. New favourite in the camp. Where are they from? I don't know. Like somewhere in the East Coast of America. Are they feeling? Why make it up? Probably fine.

It's like a rap metal, but like done in a way that's like really cheesy but also like not lame. I don't know. You might not like them. I've heard them before. Grid iron. They just got a new record out. Yeah, it's good.

I've seen, I've seen. I've seen the artwork as well. It's all just fucking clack. It's all just fucking clack. Look at the way. New York Knicks fucking top on. Yeah. Split across the states of Michigan and Pennsylvania.

I think some of them are from Philly. Yeah, they can definitely headline the stage. They can headline the stage. We'll have rough justice on, you know. Yeah, yeah. Get the guys out. You sleep token after play but without the masks. Nice.

Big reveal, big sleep token reveal. After Drake. After Drake, they have the sleep token. Yeah. You've got the sleep token revealed where they don't play. Yeah. Sorry, I'm putting words in your mouth. They come on stage just to be demasked.

And then we like sleep token, shut up. It's just funny. If you're going to do that, expect some funnier. So they get demasked and then Mulev start. That's your intro music. Yeah. It's as if sleep token are about to play, but then you just go, bumpf, and then ring out.

Yeah, ring out and then go. All right, and then what's your after party? after all this well is it the same location I guess it's or maybe we're going to the beach you could do whatever you want Will Putney said after the show

we immediately get in on a plane which I'm driving flying and then I can't remember where we flew to we flew somewhere else so you can do whatever you want it's a dream that sounds like a good day none of this is actually going to happen

so you can do whatever you want How long did Will Putney have to like think of this did you give him a briefing like a week before and he came with he did it all that as far I like to do it on the fly but now I'm hoping If I remember to do it, then this will become a constant feature and people might rethink.

Yeah, fair enough. Because I thought you did the one where you say like, okay, so you go to your girlfriend's house for dinner. Oh, yeah, we could do that. I forget about that. We can do that one in the minute. We can do that one in the minute. I haven't actually thought about that, but I just remembered that you do that one. I actually was in my head to do that and then we started talking about something else.

Right, okay. The goat whore, when you said the goat or thing, I was literally about to open my mouth and talk about it. and then we start to talk about something else. What you're doing for the after-party? Probably us going back to back. Probably us on the decks, on a boat, like after, you know, we go out to the ocean. This is a daytime party, by the way.

So, like, the headline is on at, like, five, right? And then as soon as it finishes, straight onto the yacht. Yeah, like, straight out into the ocean. Big, big fucking yacht. Load of jet skis for everyone. Like, so you can fucking, you can be whizzing it around. later there giving out what

yeah everyone gets a little fucking Rolex fucking bag gift bag from the desolator yeah to straight onto the yacht

where we have several DJs play strictly 1 40 Sheffield bass line for at least 30 minutes minimum of 30 minutes but what's Sheffield

baseline so niche you heard of you heard of the genre niche so that's there was a nightclub called niche Sheffield in the 90s to 2000s

and they basically spawned baseline which came from Speed Garage so it's like 140 BPM and it doesn't really exist like that anymore so yeah that's how it came back but it did originate in Sheffield like originally like low quality like local to where we're from

Okay who used to really be into pills then Oh it doesn't matter you don't have to answer Oh man I was I reckon everyone Yeah I was fucking mad for it you could just see it my faces, though, so you just say, I can imagine that guy going in. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So we've got at least 30 minutes of that. Get a pill testing kit. If you're going to do it. I'm not going to tell you not to do it. Just get a kit. And then, you know, maybe a nice bit of R&B soul as well while the sun's setting. And you're DJing this or your hangout?

No, no, no. Well, then like, you're working overdrive. Yeah, yeah. Some people come out, like, I don't know. You'd be nice to have like a Georgia Smith, wouldn't it? You know, summer walk or something like that. Yeah. Yeah, a nice bit of singing to wind down too.

Nice, we're done. That's a nice festival. So we're going to rewind back. That's the festival. You've got, you're in Bali, on a beach, well, it's off the beach, on a resort. Stage, pull,

three designated lanes of moshing. Then you've got, then you've got the table service, Mission and Star sort of strip club seating, and then you've got that amphitheater seating behind that. You've got Mulev headlining, supported by, before Mulev starts,

Sleep Toak and get, unmasked Drake supporting then you've got holographic Moscow 91 Pantera before later

you've got hate pre-plane satisfaction and perseverance yeah yeah grid iron on a separate stage with rough justice yeah yeah wow straight after about 6pm

when this is all finished it starts real fucking early about 6pm when this is all finished we go to the yacht where there's a strictly 140 B PM, Sheffield bass line. Party going on, and that's it. Yeah, that's it.

Maybe at the beginning, like, you get a quad bike delivered to your hotel and you have to ride it down the beach to the festival. Band members only or everyone? Everyone. Like, every ticket holder. It's included in the package. All 15 ticket holders. It's like a fire fest situation happening here.

All right, so let's rewind real quickly while I'm on it. because you must have had it so how are you explaining malevolence well I usually do it's so early in the podcast but I forgot how are you explaining malevolence at your new

Mrs's Christmas dinner to her nan to our nan and then you play music what do you do you always follow the first hurdle when they ask what the name of the band is

and you say malevolence and they're just like what you know what Sounds malevolent. Yeah, yeah. So I generally say, oh, yeah, I'm in a heavy metal band. Yeah.

And then they're like, oh, you know, you say it to like your local tradesmen. They're like, oh, ACDC, yeah. Yeah. Every rock, yeah, for Paul Weller, fantastic. And you start telling me about some like rocker from like the 1970s was apparently a megastard. There we go, yeah. Oh, I used to play the drums.

What it is, it's my mate from school, like knows this guy who was in Led Zeppelin. But yeah, no, what do I say? I generally say we're in a metal band really heavy. And then they go, oh, like, slip not. Wow, they get slip not. No, no, no, often not. I mean, the main one I have, because I have this conversation, like, as you do, probably, all the time.

Have it in the gym, mostly, because I talk to, like, people in the sauna and all of that sort of stuff. And there's a lot of religious people. And the one I get at the most is like, oh, so, like, are you lot Satanists? I have that. I wish I had that. No, no, no, I get it all the time.

Yes. Yeah, yeah. I say, I say, no, actually, no, we don't. because I'm, yeah. Yeah, it's strange, isn't it? Because I don't associate metal with that at all. But it is, yeah, yeah. Everyone else seems to do that, you know what I mean?

It's like some sort of like dark wizardry, like. Yeah, I fucking love it. I love that it's coming back like metal being evil because I'm like, yeah, fuck yeah, I'm evil. Really, yeah, you know, we're actually not that evil anymore. Elevalence isn't very evil band now. I'm entering my evil. Oh, okay, right.

I'll go around and do evil shit. Right. Yeah. It'd be like, awesome. I feel good. Like the fucking selling the merch. I'm like, I'm just going to do evil shit now. I don't mean like fucking stab a baby today for whatever.

But like someone wrongs me. I might fucking slash their tires. So what do you say when someone asks you what kind of music do you play? With Stray, it's a weird one because there's no real, it's kind of heavy. And they go, oh yeah, like Metallica. It's like, well, no. No, no, not at all. So usually with Australia, I go.

Do you know the Beastie Boys? Oh, okay. And then they go, yeah, for the most part. And I go, well, it's like that, but a bit scarier. Yeah, okay. Yeah, fair enough. That's my go-to, like, lip-less test of them going, oh, okay, so it's not, it's not... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But to them, it still is. So anything louder than a whisper. That's pretty good way around it, I guess. Beasty boys. But you guys can say Metallica, I guess, like, old. Because you've got the riff in. Yeah, yeah. You don't have to go super niche.

It just seems like it's way too big to compare you band to. Yeah, we're like Metallica. I'm like, surprised you're just about as big as Metallica. Like, do you ever think about the fact that you like drive miles, you know, days of traveling, buying all this equipment, finding out about it, your whole life practicing, and then like the vast majority of the whole planet just thinks it's just like random noise?

Yeah, I think about that quite a lot. Like it's just a weird, it's a weird amount of work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And most people think they're like, oh, so is he saying something? Is it like planned what you play? And he actually think you're just going, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Yeah, yeah. Like, people don't understand how if you use it. Like, oh, wait, oh, I didn't really realise there'd be lyrics. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What does he say? Does he hurt his voice? Is it all that, like, kill your mum shit? Yeah. It's all that, rah, ra, kill your mum shit. Oh, I've got a merch idea for you. Okay.

Because, and it's actually, oh, I've got a similar thing planned. Yeah. I wonder if we could double down and do it. Okay. Okay. Neither person, no one can rip us off for this. Okay. So obviously my shit's called the downbeat. So I had an idea of bringing out some stuff that was like really nice looking, like a fucking nice, have a nice day t-shirt.

And I call it the upbeat. Oh, well. But you guys could do it and just call it benevolence. Yeah, yeah. And just to have like a real nice range of just like a fucking smiley face t-shirt. Benevolence. Yeah. With that fucking font that ends up.

everyone's using it at the moment with the like, you know, like the fucking... I know what you mean. You know exactly the following. Yeah, bubbles kind of letters. Yeah, exactly that. Benevolence and like a fucking really nice little. Rainbow, a nice bit of sunshine on it. Lovely, like a care bear's.

Carebear, noise. Benevolence, the upbeat. You heard it here first. You've probably got to go and do some shit. What is it? Yeah, half past one, yeah. We covered everything. May 20th.

Yeah, yeah. If you're in America, go to that Ocasier Strait Tour because this band is fucking crazy, crazy good. Thank you fucking crazy good lives Crazy good music Check out malicious intent On May the 20th

Check out the singles before then That's it Thank you for having us For coming See you in Bali Yeah See you in Bali at the fest Let's fucking go boys

Peace Peace!