Rising To The Masses: Crowgod

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Before the first riffs echo through the fields of Catton Park, we are diving head first into the pulse-pounding world of the New Blood Stage at Bloodstock 2024. So grab your backstage pass, tune your senses, and join us as we explore the stories, inspirations, and the relentless drive of the bands who are rising to the masses! Introducing Crowgod…

How would you describe your band to someone who’s never heard you?

Progressive sludge with a chaotic energy and a side of doom. There’s a lot in our music we bring live that has yet to be transposed to recordings.

Tell us about your band’s origin story. How did you all come together?

The stars aligned with chance meetings but, mostly, us all just having passionate conversations about ourselves and the music we like and like to play that led us to each other. It has really helped our band cohesion, progression, and performance that we all vibe with each other so much as well.

What song would you recommend for someone’s first listen of your band?

Describe your songwriting process. How do you create your music?

Before our current lineup, Mat wrote pretty much everything. Now that Crowgod has settled into the four of us, we’re beginning to create songs more jointly. We’re pretty riff-driven so those tend to lead the way, then Tom’ll lay down some sick drums and Alan vibes with the music to see whether something in their arsenal of lyrics matches or they start to play around with new concepts.

How do you handle creative disagreements within the band?

We all approach confrontation differently, but when we need to seriously discuss something, we try to give everyone space to be heard before coming to an agreement as a band. We care a lot about Crowgod, so we’re always trying to get better at how we communicate with each other.

What are your musical influences?

Our tastes are pretty vast to be honest, but we’ll just keep it simple and choose a couple metal bands per member! Mastodon, Rezn, Elder, Korn, Kylesa, Architects, Deftones, Loathe, Karnivool.

What’s the story behind your band name?

The old bassist David came up with it in the pub. Combo of Crowbar and Eyehategod innit. Sludge rules, man. Big up David- we love you, dude!

What’s your guilty pleasure music outside of metal?

I’m not sure if any of us really believe in guilty pleasures. We think the more music you like, the luckier you are… because music is life! But we’ll play along…
Mat: gabber
Mel: soundcloud rap
Tom: 2000s female pop No.1s
Alana: Avril Lavigne

Tell us about your most memorable live performance or tour experience.

Our home gigs are always great! ‘Doom by the Sea’ in Brighton… It’s always a pleasure playing alongside our good friends in Sea Bastard, Outback, and Black Groove… and seeing Kush Thulhu and Acid Throne was good fun! Playing at 4:20 on 4/20 was definitely a highlight for some of us as well!

The last night of our weekender in June was immense too- there was a big beautiful moon out that night and a whole bunch of us jumped naked into the sea after the show. Gotta love Dalton’s for being right on the beach. Venue of the century!

What’s the most challenging aspect of being a metal band in today’s music industry?

Much like the rest of things in life, money is the greatest challenge. We could get into a spiel about capitalism, but we’ll leave it at how it’s a shame that so many bands don’t even break even when it comes to going out of town for gigs. It’s a struggle, but we love what we do so here we are.

Any advice for other aspiring metal musicians?

Just be authentic, my dudes. Love what you do. Don’t worry about how you *should* sound, how you *should* look… and your passion will show and make for a unique band because no-one else is you.

What’s next after Bloodstock for the band?

We’ve got shows booked throughout the rest of the year on the south coast, London, and a tour up north with Lavinia Whately in November just after we release our debut album. Beyond that, we’re hoping to shoot our first video soon, with a directorial feature from Doug Norton of Why Patterns.

How do you choose album artwork or visuals for your releases?

A long-time friend of Mat’s who is an amazing tattoo artist named Evi Berry Falcon has historically helped Crowgod with art on the first EP and the Birdcage singles, but recently we’ve been using Alan’s artwork. It’s really all about vibes, and as we evolve we’re tuning into ourselves to feel out what visuals fit with that.

What’s the most unexpected inspiration for one of your songs?

Peaky Blinders! There was a poem someone was reciting before getting hanged. Mat found that old dark poem then wrote Shepherd.

What’s the best gig you’ve attended as a fan and why?

Alana- Russian Circles ’cause I got taken to another dimension of soundscapes.
Tom- Architects, Northlane, Sleep Token in Munich. Flew out on a whim, incredible crowd, Architects played the best set I’ve ever seen.
Mat- Devin Townsend Project. Not long before the gig I found out that he was playing the entire Ocean Machine album back to back live, which I’m a big fan of.
Mel- I have MANY, but I’ll say Electric Wizard at the Ballroom about 15 yrs ago. I cried the first time I saw Liz Buckingham play ’cause she was just so fucking cool & it really had an impact on my perception of how powerful a femme force could be in music.

Have you faced any challenges as an unsigned band? How do you overcome them?

We’re an unsigned band without a car, so have been heavily reliant on the help of friends with vehicles for transport to a lot of our shows so far- for which we’re incredibly grateful. Hopefully 2025 will be the year of the Crowmobile haha

How do you stay motivated during creative slumps?

There’s usually going to be at least one of us who’s inspired musically since we all work on music individually as well. So even if one or some of us are too busy or in a slump, someone else is going to swoop in with an idea or inspo to get us in the creative spirit again.

Crowgod are set to play The Hopical Storm New Blood Stage On Sunday 11th August 2024.