Hevy Fest Archives - Things&Ink

October 21, 2015October 21, 2015

Music Interview: Landscapes

We caught up with Shaun Milton from Landscapes ahead of their set at Hevy Festial this summer to talk about their album plans, tattoo influence and horror.

You’re in the middle of a European tour with Endless Heights and Break Even, how is it going?

It has been quite a chaotic tour, it’s three bands in two vans so we are pretty crammed in. The guys we are on tour with a fucking awesome people, they are honestly some of the greatest people we have ever toured with. The guys in Endless Heights are such a tight unit of friends and you don’t normal see that in bands. You usually see good fiends but you don’t normally see them like that. They are absolutely loving every second of being in the UK, this is their first time out in Europe. And Break Even are just really lovely and humble people as well so we are just having the best time.

Do you think you will put an album out this year?

We are really hoping to get something released this year. Last year we recorded our forthcoming album which we’ve titled Modern Earth. Its aesthetic is the idea of looking at society and world of today and taking a step back. It is trying to figure out what people are doing with themselves and understanding each others problems, not in such a policital way but saying it in our own personal way.

So yeah, we recorded it last September out in California at Panda Studios but we weren’t overly happy with the end result. We felt there was a little more to do on it and we are all about quality control .People can wait and moan as long as they want but at the end of the day if we are not happy with it we are the ones who have to live with it. So we took it back The Ranch Production House in Southampton and that’s all together now so then we took a stepback on how we were going to approach out artwork.

We didn’t want to deal with photoshop as such so I began building a set and we’ve just had the first set of images back. Hopefully we should see the album out in the next few months fingers crossed.

Cardinals Media

Did you take time out to write the album or did you do it whilst touring?

We were bouncing ideas around on tours but we just found that we didn’t get the peace and quiet we needed. Sometimes it works better with just two or three of you and sometimes it works better as a whole band. We tend to find that the phrase is right and that too many cooks spoil the broth. This isn’t to say that we are not all involved in the writing but just that we need to break away from everything else with a focus on what we want to do.

For us it isn’t just about what is right for the sound everyone else is expecting, it is about what we feel comfortable with. It has got to be about what we are vibing and we all have such different influences. Tom is a big Morrisey fan, I’m a big everything fan, Kai is a big pissed jeans fan, Martin is well into Man Overboard. We’re all into different shit. Jordan for fuck sake is into Grime. So you look at all of us and you wouldn’t put us together but when we put our creative inputs together it works so well.

Where do you want to tour next?

We’re in the middle of a European tour at the moment but we’ve never been to Australia. We were supposed to go at the end of last year and sadly we had to pull out, but we are hoping that sometime next year we can get out there along with America. We are signed to Pure Noise Records so we want to create a foundation for ourselves. Everything is based around our releases so with our release taking a year longer than what it should have done it has put us back a bit.

Yanbo’s done by Petra Brkić

How do you feel about your work inspiring tattoos?

We are always completely overwhelmed, I remember the first person to get one, they were from Brazil of all places. He had ‘ I drain out every moment until its gone’ which is a really old lyric and we were all just astounded about how our music got that far.

So we made a policy that the moment that so many different people started getting these amazing tattoos that we were going show some sort of appreciation. I save all of the photos we’ve been tagged into and I try and post as many as I can. But we also made this deal that if we have control of the show we’ll stick you on the guest list.

So yeah we are completely touched, you think to yourself what is it that people are getting from that particular song and our whole aesthetic but at the same time their own decision. Tattoos are a really personal thing, id be a fucking liar if I didn’t turn around and say that I didn’t ever get a tattoo because it looked cool but at the same time it still means something to me, it marks a stage in your life.

It is a real privilege and an honour for us that people are getting tattoos that are anything to do with us. But at the same time it is a step in whatever path they have taken or are about to take and i’m fully supportive of it. I know that we had some people that were not even following us on our Facebook that were specifically coming to our page to call people out for getting tattooed. If you don’t want to get tattooed don’t tell someone how to live their life, so yeah we are completely supportive of it and we think its great.

Ben Abraham’s done by Lukasz Christopher at Oddfellows Tattoo Collective in Leeds

In line with the release of The Horror issue, what is your favourite horror film?

I could say a whole bunch but if it is just one, I want to say Alien. And I will tell you the reason why or else people might not think it is a horror and just a sci-fi.

It is a horror and the reason it is a such a horror is that Ripley is essentially one of the first female heroes to come forward and the horrifying aspect is the rape that is sat between the lines of that film is incredible. It is not gendered, it is the horrifying thought that this face hugger that resembles a vagina basically forces a phallic tube down your throat and impregnantes you and then it bursts out of you in the most terrifying, painful way possible. To me that is so fucking scary, it has got all the fright element to it and I am all about space and shit so I love it.

October 5, 2015

Music Interview: The Gospel Youth

You may recognise Sam Little from the Street Spotter section in The Horror Issue but he is more commonly known for playing bass and vocals in The Gospel Youth. We caught up with Sam ahead of their opening set at Hevy Festival this summer to talk about festivals, their latest EP and his favourite horror films.

So, are you nervous about being the first band of the weekend?

For all the festivals we’ve been to you always remember the first band on, so I guess we’ve got that to our advantage. At least we get to relax for the rest of the festival and have a beer!

Can we expect anything special for the opening set?

We’ve got a 25 minute set I think so we’ve got 4 songs we are playing from our latest EP ‘Empires‘ and were going to play ‘Kids‘ as well. We were going to sneak in an RnB cover but we haven’t had time unfortunately.

Your latest EP ‘Empires’ came out recently, how has it been received?

It’s actually been really good. It is so early into starting this band that we really didn’t expect anything. It’s always amazing to have nice things said about the stuff we are creating. It is weird because we’re not expecting it but everything has been really good.

After the success of ‘Empires’ is there an album in the works?

We’ve literally just starting writing the album, we were toying around with a couple of ideas. We’ve been thinking about maybe a line up jig around just so we can write the best album for us. I personally have a lot of things to write about and I want this album to be my heart and soul. I don’t want it just to be about girls and how much I hate work. I want it to be a little piece of me.

What about the rest of the year, any tour plans?

After festival season we have a tour with Verses and then a tour with Bad Ideas. Hopefully we will get to play as much as we can for the rest of the year.

In line with The Horror issue, what is your favourite horror film?

I think it would be one of the terrible ones like Sharknado or Sharktopus, stuff like that. Although you can’t compare them with classics like Nightmare on Elm Street. I think one of the best horrors I have seen recently was Kevin Smith’s Tusk. Seeing Justin Long as a walrus is the worst thing but it is just so good.

Sam’s Jekyll and Hyde were done by Ben Doran at the River City Collective. You can check out the rest of the Street Spots in The Horror Issue here.

August 25, 2015August 30, 2015

Hevy Festival Diary 2015

Regarded as one of the best small festivals in the UK, Hevy Fest has come back better than ever from its 2013 cancellation. After a smaller but incredible affair in 2014 check out what happened when our music writer Amber Carnegie descended on Port Lympne for the diverse line up they whipped up for 2015.

Thursday 14th of August

Shortly after arriving at Hevy, we soon realised that not only had we brought the wrong tent but that Camp Things & Ink was held together with worn out bamboo, wasn’t entirely waterproof and wouldn’t be around for long.

A fact we learned pretty quickly as the weekend started with some expected thunder and lightening. Lucky for us our lovely neighbours let us throw our belongings into their tents while we helped other drenched campers set up. We then escaped into the larger tents for a good wringing out.

Once we began to resemble ourselves again we headed into the arena to catch the rest of the acoustic stage. Sam Duckworth and Dave McPherson both incited sing-alongs to those who had survived the rain but it was the acoustic set from Jamie Lenman that nearly had us in tears. Reminiscent Reuben tracks like ‘Moving To Blackwater’ and ‘Let’s Stop Hanging Out’ really hit the tone for all of those brought to Hevy this year. Dave McPherson also came back out to join Lenman for ‘I Ain’t Your Boy’ that brought together the camaraderie that you cannot miss at Hevy.

Friday 15th of August

Luke keeping up the caffeine at Hevy

After we assessed Thursday’s damage and sought out breakfast we ventured into the Port Lympne Wild Animal Park. A portion of each ticket sold for Hevy goes towards The Aspinall Foundation, to help protect endangered species, and where possible return them back to the wild. With little else to do before the bands start in the afternoon it’s amazing that you are able to wonder around the park free of charge. You can also pick up an actual meal or even some Kentish Cider if you fancy it.

If that didn’t wake you up, Continents had the task of kicking off the festival from the Main Stage. Despite pretty much baking in the arena the sounds of their upcoming album got people moving and early tracks like ‘Pegasus Pegasus’ began decimating the grass in front of the stage. There is always a place at Hevy for instrumental, post rock bands and Chon certainly proved why. Chon bring movements between the stages to a stand still with riffs that mirror vocal chords in incredible succession. Closing with ‘Perfect Pillow’ with a guitar sequence that will be riddled in your brain for weeks. We highly recommend you check them out.

Even if you’re not into it, Hacktivist certainly got the Hevy party going. If they didn’t have you with ‘Djent In Paris’ then they had us in crowd peer pressure of waving hands to ‘False Idols’. We didn’t know the words but we soon picked them up before we headed to the Third Stage where Heck were destined to make us double check we all still had our limbs. What we were not expecting is the band formally known as Baby Godzilla to induce a stage wide floorshow with the audience as props. Tracks we’d never heard before had the crowd in a frenzy and if you didn’t feel the need to sing along, you’re probably broken inside.

Heck At Hevy

We headed back to the Main Stage for Touché Amore for a completely different feel, the band brought this closer environment as the crowd reached over desperate to shout lyrics. This amazing wave of post-hardcore has this insane ability to unify emotions that were once overlooked or hidden. To have witnessed this at Hevy within a crowd all clearly in touch with every word was striking and completely epitomises Hevy and the love and respect everyone has for the music and its abilities there.

Once we’d all pulled ourselves back together and the iconic intro to ‘Bloodmeat’ kicked in we knew we were in the midst of Protest The Hero. Wilding riffs and lungs you will never quite believe from Rody Walker. With his renowned anecdotes dropping momentum it allowed us a chance to breathe before winding back up into techy sequences and guitars that lick through ‘Clarity’ to see the blur in front of the stage give it one last go.

The Dillinger Escape Plan then called out the sunset with the most unnatural spasms their bodies could muster with ‘Prancer’ opening up the set and the ground. ‘Milk Lizard’s grooving rhythms had us more inclined to dance than to thrash about as the band seemed more and more determined fracture themselves. Although we’ve come to expect this self inflected battering while remaining indefinably tight it’s exceptional to witness every time.

The Dillinger Escape Plan At Hevy

The iconic opening riff to ‘43% Burnt’ ensued madness immediately and carried through to ‘Panasonic Youth’. The crowd completely lost their shit when vocalist Greg Puciato dove into the crowd for ‘Farewell Mona Lisa’ only to immerse back on stage as bodies flung for ‘When I Lost My Bet’. With no time we legged it over to catch the end of Fightstar’s delayed set, seven strings and all. With a feral tent that proved that Fightstar could have headlined a bigger stage they tore out their new track ‘Animal’ with a new synth sound before nailing out titans tracks like ‘Deathcar’ and their first single ‘Palahniuk’s Laughter’. As we held each other up in the swarming stage it was so reminiscent of our swinging emo fringe days that we couldn’t thank Hevy enough for putting something so awesome together.

Coheed And Cambria closed Friday’s live music by playing ‘In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth: 3’ in its entirety. Coheed are incomparable, the album a spectacle in itself and it didn’t stop with the album. The encore saw their latest track ‘You’ve Got Spirit Kid’ carry away the audience as the eminent ‘Welcome Home’ took over Port Lympne to show that Hevy is well and truly back.

Saturday 15th of August

Despite some technical hitches the crowd spurred Milk Teeth in some of the freshest sounds that hit Hevy. Their grunge punk rock is something not to be missed and we can’t wait to see them live again. We were then allured into a doomy tent where Hang The Bastard had incited the slugging, aching head-bangs through layers of smoke. And then as if our eyes were deceiving us (they weren’t) a fluorescent pink two piece with a triangle found its way around the Second Stage for HORSE The Band.

HORSE The Band at Hevy

If you had never had the pleasuring of witnessing these guys before Hevy you were certainly in for a treat. Their sweet set of insanity blew Saturday up only to be followed by The Fall Of Troy on Main Stage. They were the second band of the weekend to play an album in full so when ‘Doppelganger’ kicked off we knew were in for unchartered territory. Within the first track they were a band we regretted never getting into. Impeccable guitar work with catchy rhythms had us all dancing. For an album played on its ten year anniversary The Fall Of Troy not only kept everything so incredibly tight but probably gained a lot of fans who wished they tuned in a long time ago.

The Get Up Kids then followed in full album suit, and although it was now getting slightly tiring it is amazing to see so many albums still have the ability to pull in such crowds. ‘Something To Write Home About’ saw people singing word for word with ‘I’ll Catch You’ holding a quiet moment over the main stage as the album closed.

Thrice at Hevy

Headliners Thrice come together like they have never been away. Every track fell into the next and just the intro to ‘Of Dust And Nations’ sparked frenzy. With a varied set list that saw ‘The Artist In The Ambulance’ and ‘Deadbolt’ take off as if it was the early 00’s again the entire campsite was gathered around the Main Stage.

As they closed on 2011’s ‘Anthology’ we couldn’t quite believe that it was over for another year. Hevy have brought us bands in their revival that we could have never expected, what’s for 2016 Hevy?

Did you go to Hevy Fest? What did you think?