Rising To The Masses: Crucible

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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 Crucible…

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

We are a combination of the energy and riffing of thrash metal combined with the brutality of death metal. All of our band members contribute unique influences to shape our sound in different ways, for example the slap bass in our tracks.

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

We all went to school together and started jamming together after finishing our GCSE’s. We started out playing covers of songs by bands like Pantera and Lamb of God at local jam nights and eventually formed the band Crucible and began working on original material.

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

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

Usually someone will pitch an idea to the rest of the band and then we all write our parts and structure the song together. Songs usually start with a riff or bassline and then we contribute ideas and discuss where we think the song should go.

How do you handle creative disagreements within the band?

We aim for compromises and to make sure we all have a fair say in our music. We’re all musicians with a passion for creating so at the end of the day, disagreements can be quite useful for innovation and developing our ideas.

What are your musical influences?

Our band has quite a unique range of influences. Our vocalist Zakk is influenced by Death, Alice In Chains and Lamb Of God, our guitarist Jacks influenced by Pantera, Opeth and King Crimson, our bassist Jayden is influenced by Mudvayne, Korn and System of a Down and our drummer Stan is influenced by Meshuggah, Gojira and Tool

What’s the story behind your band name?

We struggled to find a band name for a while so we all made giant lists with possible names. Our singer Zakk’s list contained Crucible as a reference to the sword in the game Doom and our guitarist Jack’s list had the same name but as a reference to the Crucible Knights in Elden Ring. We all liked the name so we went with it.

What’s your guilty pleasure music outside of metal?

We listen to too much guilty pleasure music. Zakk loves Men at Work, Jack is obsessed with City Pop artists like Miki Matsubura, Jayden’s favourite album is Exodus by Bob Marley and Stan is a huge fan of Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine. In between recordings and setlists we all sit in the kitchen and enjoy some smooth jazz and a cup of tea. Very metal

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

Definitely the M2TM Final at the Arches in Coventry. During our song Warzone, Zakk called for a wall of death that was absolutely vicious. Watching people enjoy our music and give that much energy was unforgettable.

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

All the other things you need to do that aren’t a part of your music. Promoting yourself on social media, trying to crack these websites algorithms and just be seen is so hard.

Any advice for other aspiring metal musicians?

Just be true to yourself and make the music you want to hear. Perform on stage how you want to and not how you think others want you to. That is what we did to boost our confidence and find the sound and style that is right for us.

What’s next after Bloodstock for the band?

We are getting ready to record our debut EP “The Cage.” Three of the songs from it are released as Demo Singles so we are including remasters of our tracks Demise, Warzone and Collapse as well as the rest of the unreleased songs you can catch at Bloodstock.

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

Our three singles all have black and white photos as album artwork. We thought the style was cool and a good theme for the singles to have as they are all of the same EP. In future, we plan on choosing artwork based on the overall tone and story behind releases.

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

One of the riffs from our song Demise came from a gypsy jazz guitar video our guitarist saw on instagram. He tried playing the chords and made a mistake but it sounded cool so we went with it.

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

Municipal Waste at the Castle and Falcon in Birmingham. They sold out the venue and it was absolutely packed, their energy and how they commanded the crowd was a massive inspiration for us moving forwards.

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

We struggled to find gigs in the beginning but we kept at it and kept emailing people. Once we started gigging it got a bit easier so we just had to not be disheartened.

How do you stay motivated during creative slumps?

We all have our own methods but one thing we’ve found to be helpful is to try something new. Learning new genres and styles and thinking about music in new ways is great for inspiration.

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