Rising To The Masses: Hellbearer

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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 Hellbearer…

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

Very intense, fast, energetic and pure thrash.

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

The band came together after Ash (guitar/vox) mistook Mosh (lead guitar) for a different person during a metal 2 the Masses show in 2022, they got to talking and Mosh introduced Sam (drummer) into the fold, who then introduced Kieran (bass) to the band – it’s been chaos ever since!

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

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

Sometimes we’ll jam out ideas in the rehearsal room and then record it as a demo on our home recording setups, or one of us will write riffs at home and send them to the band to add their interpretations – it’s quite an iterative process for us.

How do you handle creative disagreements within the band?

Touch wood – we haven’t really had any, as far as writing goes, we’ll shoot out riffs to see what fits the part best. Whatever fits goes in, it’s for the good of the song and that’s all that matters to us!

What are your musical influences?

Testament, Slayer, Exodus, Metallica, Death, Onslaught and Municipal Waste

What’s the story behind your band name?

We were spitballing names as a group, we had things like ‘Helldriver’ or ‘Hellrider’ but they all seemed taken or not quite what we wanted – eventually we settled on Hellbearer and we felt that fitted our music and message, perfectly.

What’s your guilty pleasure music outside of metal?

Ash: Hip-hop/rap (action bronson, Aesop rock, rob sonic, cypress hill).
Mosh: Acid jazz, dnb, jungle, hiphop, 70s rock, Russian hardbass.
Sam: Cheesy music, Aggrotech.
Kieran: Synthwave/vapourwave.

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

During our metal 2 the Masses heats we saw some insane moments – Stage diving, huge circle pits and some dry humping at one point! We adore our fans, the crazier they get the happier we are! Shout out to Lord Dopedude, our gasmask-wearing good luck charm!

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

We’d say probably Reach. It’s easy to get known in your local scene by speaking to your local promoters – but trying to get shows further afield is a bit of a hard time when you’re not familiar with the names and faces elsewhere. Something many bands don’t speak about is finding reputable promoters, talk to other bands in the area!

Any advice for other aspiring metal musicians?

Listen to the bands in your scene and identify how you can stand out. Try to avoid the same things everyone else is doing, and write with the utmost conviction. From a live perspective, play as hard as possible and do your research on promoters before agreeing to shows!

What’s next after Bloodstock for the band?

Funnily enough, Bloodstock was the final part of our ‘5 year plan’ – we’ll be releasing our second album ‘Darker Fates’ hopefully at the end of 2024/early 2025, and a UK tour will be on the cards somewhere in there. Pie in the sky plan would be to play in Europe at some point!

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

We use a friend of the band for our single/album artwork – Finch, he’s fantastic and he’s never let us down. We will sit with him and discuss what we want as he sketches up a basic version, we also tend to pull together a bunch of influences for the piece on a mood board which helps set the tone. The art seems to get better and better every release – we’re huge on supporting local grassroot talent from our communities.

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

Arthropods of Annihilation on our first album, is a song about giant millipedes destroying the earth. The origins of that come from Mosh who told us a story about someone burning a millipede, so Ash wrote a song about the revenge of giant millipedes on humanity. In some ways, it’s an allegory for climate change.

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

Ash – Bloodstock 2016 Twisted Sister, their final UK show – truly an incredible performance by an inspirational band. Dee snider is a lunatic!

Mosh – anthrax and municipal waste at the academy. It was overall an amazing gig, when I went into the municipal waste mosh pit there was a huge amount of my friends there so that meant a huge amount to me. And afterwards to top it all off me, my partner, Ash and a few other friends ended up meeting and drinking with municipal waste! (Mosh now has their signatures tattooed on his arm)

Sam – Rammstein in Cardiff in 2022, stage production was mind blowing

Kieran – Testament March 2020, perfect line up, set list had all my favourite songs, and got me into exodus

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

TONS! Every gig is a challenge as an unsigned band – hell, even as a signed band I’m sure. As an unsigned band, we don’t have the kind of infrastructure to always keep merch in stock and we’re constantly fighting to improve our reach using social media. The only way to overcome these challenges are to keep pushing against them, and rethinking your approaches when you slip.

How do you stay motivated during creative slumps?

Taking breaks, you don’t have to be switched on 24/7 – you’ll only burn yourself out. Another trick is removing barriers to writing, Ash bought a Boss Katana mini amp and it’s been a blessing for writing – just plug in and start riffing out right there in the living room!

Hellbearer are set to play The Hopical Storm New Blood Stage On Saturday 10th August 2024.