Local ‘death metal with a twist’ headbangers Overoth took to the Hobgoblin New Blood stage at Bloodstock Open Air festival on Saturday August 8th as winners of the recent Metal 2 the Masses competition here in Belfast, and Melanie Brehaut was there to witness the proud moment. She chatted with vocalist Andy and guitarist Dan after their set about the future of the band as they see it, and just exactly what it feels like to perform at the legendary festival.
► So, how was yesterday now that you’ve had time to digest it?
Dan (guitar): Excellent, fantastic!
Andy (vocals): the gig itself was good; sound onstage wasn’t fantastic but it was fine. We played well, and the crowd started off as a weak crowd but by the end it had sort of quadrupled in size to about four or five times the amount of people that were there at the start. And we’re getting some feedback now from people coming up to us saying it was really good –
► It was!
Andy: thank you! I enjoyed it, I think we did quite well.
Dan: I think since that we’ve done something like nine or ten interviews so we were busy for the whole day. This whole festival has been good for us.
Andy: And then to add to the stress issues, we were sharing big Paul’s bus (guitarist Paul from fellow Northern Irish act By Any Means), and he gives me the keys and goes “Andy, I can’t drive around because they won’t let me through because I’m not playing today”. So he gives me the keys and we get down to the van and I’m like “why won’t this van start?!” (laughs).
► There’s a knack to it, apparently…
Andy: yeah! So we’re there for fifteen minutes trying to get the van started! We got it eventually but that was sort a hairy for awhile there (laughs).
► Does it feel like you’ve got a foot in the door now to go beyond the Belfast scene?
Dan: yeah I hope so. I mean, we got here from winning the (M2TM) competition, we played Wacken two years ago from winning the competition – it’s been some great opportunities for us, but I think now we’ll be able to continue doing these things on our own merit. We have a lot of stuff planned: it seems like we’ve been quiet over maybe the last five years or so, but in actual fact we’ve been working behind the scenes quite a lot. We’re really excited to see what the future holds for us.
Andy: I think two years ago when we won the Wacken competition it was great, and obviously it’s fantastic to play Wacken. But with this competition, we’re far more ready for what could come after it. I think we’re far more ready for what might come after it. Two years ago, we had intended after Wacken to go and record an album – which we did, but it’s still not out! It’s just taken a long time to get it together. And I understand it sounds good that we’ve got a lot of shit together – we’ve got an album, we’ve got two music videos to go with it, we’ve got a bit of a package for it. So we just need to annoy some (record) labels that we deem…I suppose worthy of us (laughs).
Dan: we actually have another album written, and we plan to record that in the next few months. We have got the new few years planned, really. We just need a record label to help us out; I think it’s time.
► What do you think of the Belfast scene? It seems really healthy right now, doesn’t it?
Dan: it’s healthy enough but it’s also very hit and miss. Some gigs you’re playing in front of three hundred, some gigs you’re playing in front of three!
Andy: that’s just being in a band, isn’t it? You can’t play Bloodstock Open Air without having played in front of no people! (laughs).
Dan: yeah, it’s all part of the job. There’s a lot of good bands about at the minute. Doing the M2TM competition it really was the cream of the crop that came and played; it was stiff competition.
Andy: the M2TM competition in Belfast really opened my eyes. Cos I’ll be honest with you, I was a bit disillusioned with the Belfast scene for awhile. I mean, our local scene effectively – where we play the most – is Dublin; we’re in Dublin ten times more than we’re in Belfast. But I’m hoping that’s going to change now. After the M2TM gigs – even the heats – there was solid crowds. It was a great thing, and I hope that’s reinforced to Belfast metalhead music fans that it’s not all just…shite, that there’s a lot of really good bands.
► I covered every single heat, and I was just like…wow. I was impressed! So, what are your ambitions for the band? Do you see yourself headlining something like Bloodstock one day?
Dan: obviously! I think every band would have a dream like that.
Andy: it’s not even ‘dream’. Back to M2TM: we entered that competition to win it – only to win it. Now fair enough, if we didn’t win we still played some good gigs, made some new friends, and some people went away with memories of a decent band and a tshirt, or something like that, which is fantastic. But we don’t do anything by halves: we want to play places like this every time, we want to jump up the row every time. I’d like to think if we make the right moves, speak to the right people, do the right things and make the right music – I don’t see why we can’t at least headline the Sophie stage here. I mean, Fleshgod Apocalypse played last night. They play a very similar style of music to us. Five years ago they were f**king nobody! And they have absolutely changed around what they do; they were like us, they played old school death metal. They decided that they were a bit more than that, that they wanted to add more to their sound, which is exactly what we’ve done. I think it’s a good band to follow in the footsteps of, they’ve made a good pathway for bands like us. And I would say we could hold a candle to those guys. So yeah, I could see us headlining the Sophie stage in the next five years.
► Does it inspire you creatively to play live, or do you get your inspiration from elsewhere?
Dan: we get our inspiration from all sorts of places, it’s not just music itself. Believe it or not a lot of our influence secretly comes from video games!
Andy: it’s not a secret anymore! (laughs).
► You heard it here first!
Dan: yeah! Even simple things like going for walks; you can get inspiration from anywhere. But when you turn up to band practice every week you do it because you enjoy it, but after this week it really reinforces why you do it, how much fun it is.
Andy: Since we’ve opened up our boundaries in how we write songs – we came away from old school death metal because I think to be honest we were sort of bored by it? We were bored of writing it. Not that our stuff wasn’t good, we just didn’t want to do it. We wanted to do so much more with it. By doing that, we’re coming to practice a couple of nights a week and…we’re writing! It’s kind of annoying in a way because we’re writing so much that we’re forgetting to finish things before we move on to something else (laughs). It’s a great place for us.
Dan: we have so much freedom at the moment: with the older stuff, when the reviews came back in the early days they would say we sound like this band, old school death metal circa this era and so on…that was all great, it was good for us back then, but I almost felt that, with our last album Kingdom of Shadows, it was our last album, we wrote it, we enjoyed it. But I feel as if we wrote it to sound like an old school death metal album, you know? Back then, we would write ten riffs and maybe use one of them, whereas now we write ten riffs and use maybe eight or nine of them – there’s so much freedom. And I enjoy the band so much more than I ever have.
Andy: I agree with that one hundred percent.
► How do your songs come together? Who does what?
Dan: In the old days one member would write pretty much most of the music and maybe some of the lyrics and then show up to the practice room, and once we got to the practice room we would pick through it, change arrangements, people would add their own twists and stuff. But these days, since Jay our drummer joined the band – and it’s something I’ve always wanted to do – we stand in a room with one idea and if we like it we all play it, and people can add their own flavour to it, and we just write a song as a full band.
Andy: Now, compared to when we wrote Kingdom of Shadows: we’re five years on, a lot changes in five years. I wouldn’t say that we’re better musicians, but we’re better listeners. And we listen, quite intricately, to what we have and what there can be on top of it. We’re starting to use orchestral movements throughout our music, and some choral movements as well, and it’s really added to the flavour of what we want to do.
Dan: I think as well, we do take a lot of time to write our songs. So a song you may think is finished, six months later you realise that every time you play through it look back and realise that you’ve changed it a wee bit here, changed it a wee bit there, just added tiny bits and just properly crafted the songs. So I think whenever you get the finished product it is music that thought and purpose has gone into; it’s not just heavy for the sake of being heavy.
► So does it evolve as you play it live?
Dan: It does. And even songs that we’ve recorded eight, nine years ago, when we play them live now I think gradually…I haven’t listened to our earlier albums in awhile now but when you listen to them you think “wow, that’s quite different from what we do now”.
Andy: Definitely with my vocals now, my vocal style has evolved considerably since our last record; even considerably over the last few years. I’m using a lot more styles of vocals – I’m not afraid to use clean vocals, when I used to be “I can scream, I can growl, that’s all I’m doing!”. But I’m happy to try and incorporate as much of it as I possibly can to add to our sound.
► It seems a little more theatrical now, too.
Andy: oh yeah (laughs).
Dan: and that’s another thing for the future, obviously with budgets and whatnot…
Andy: or no budgets (both laugh).
Dan: but I think over time that’s going to evolve as well, we’re going to be able to change our costumes and stuff.
► Costumes!
Andy: yeah, we don’t walk around the streets in wearing that black shit! (laughs).
Dan: We can add things to the stage, props, just make the whole thing massive. That’s one thing that I noticed when we were in Wacken, there were loads of other bands that just went onstage in tshirts and jeans and just played metal. And that’s fine; that’s what we used to do and it’s grand. But I noticed the headliners, which I think back then was Doro and Alice Cooper, and it was almost…music was almost only a small part of it? It was a show.
Andy: it was one of our tutors in tech, I remember him saying that a live show is only forty percent music, because you need more…it is theatre. It’s entertainment. And if the music can be tight and we can add as much theatre as suits us, I’m up for it.
► It makes it memorable, doesn’t it?
Dan: that’s it exactly.
Andy: there’s no limits anymore with us. If we think it’s a good idea we’ll work with it. And if somebody else doesn’t think so – I don’t really give a shit. They’re not the people we want to be fans! (laughs).
Dan: that’s why I’m really loving the freedom of it right now.
► This is all my subtle way of prodding you into finding when the new music will be coming out…
Dan: well as Andy was saying, we do have an awful lot going on behind the scenes. As I said, we have an album recorded and ready to go, two music videos recorded and ready to go, a whole new album written which we plan on recording in the next few months. And we have artwork, tshirts, we’ve got the package there. And after we go home from this weekend we will be sending out a press pack to anybody that needs to listen to it and can help us out. Of course I can’t give you a date or a timescale…
Andy: The dates and times will come after we agree with the right person or people. I would hope that…I think the record is a very, very good record. And I think any record company worth their salt would be foolish if they missed out on it. That sounds awful big headed but I’m very proud of it.
Dan: anybody that wants to check us out, it’s https://www.facebook.com/overothband?fref=ts . So like us, keep up to date with us and what we’re doing…
Andy: get in touch!
Dan: yeah, get in touch – we’re friendly guys to talk to! Email us, if you see us about come and have a beer with us and we’ll chat to you. We’ll keep you up to date with what’s happening with us and get the new material out as soon as possible.
► Who would be on your ideal festival lineup if you got to choose the bands?
Dan: wow.
Andy: how many do we have to choose?
► As many as you want!
Andy: ok. Behemoth, Septic Flesh, Opeth – I saw them for ten minutes yesterday, f**king best thing I’ve heard in years!
Dan: one of the best live sounds I’ve ever heard. Just absolutely flawless. Who else? We could go on all day!
Andy: Uh…I don’t know! (laughs) I’ll go for Fleshgod Apocalypse, they were awesome last night.
Dan: it’s one of those questions you get asked on the spot and you’re like “Oh you listen to metal, who do you like?” and the first thing that pops into your head is “uh…Iron Maiden?” (laughs).
► Last question: what would you like to say to everyone who voted for you to get you here?
Dan: thank you very, very much. It’s made such a difference for us and given us such an opportunity, and it’s looking good for the future for us.
Andy: keep supporting us and hopefully at some stage we’ll give you something back!
► Excellent! Thanks very much guys.
Both: thank you!
