Rising To The Masses: Reverent Son

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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 Reverent Son…

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

We’re an energetic mix of Metal and Roll. A blend of the tail end of the 70’s heavy rock sound with the current execution of recent groove metal bands.

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

We got together at the tail end of Covid, most of us had come from other hard gigging bands that had disbanded, we saw a gap in the scene to do something a little different. The first 6 months was a lot of trial and error. Lots of booze was consumed trying to figure out how to sing and play at the same time on some of the songs, but we got there!

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

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

We draw inspiration from old stop motion and 70’s movies, cult leaders, historic events and sci fi/fantasy. We’re all about the riff, so once a good riff is dug up we can pull on a wealth of pop culture to base a song on. We have the ‘creature feature’ special, base a song on a monster or creature and run with it.

How do you handle creative disagreements within the band?

Being a 4 piece, we divvy up band responsibilities, that spreads the workload and gives everyone an equal footing when coming in with ideas.

What are your musical influences?

We pull influence from COC, The Sword, Megadeth, Mastodon, Green Lung, Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy.

What’s the story behind your band name?

We’re not 100% sure, we think a mix of booze, the film ‘The Reverent’ had come out, and we had a lot of Credence and clear water revival on the jukebox at the time. Somehow that combination at 2am created the band name.

What’s your guilty pleasure music outside of metal?

We’re a mixed bunch, so anything from outlaw country rock, boogie music, 50’s radio jingles and electric dance graces our radios.

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

During the m2tm Essex heat, watching the crowd almost break all the lightbulbs by the stage with the inflatable sharks we threw in the crowd during our last song.

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

Well, there are a lot of metal bands, and were all influenced by the same core of bands, so it’s hard sometimes to be ‘original’ with material. Coming up with a fresh riff and song subject can be tough.

Any advice for other aspiring metal musicians?

Play everywhere and anywhere you can, work on your material and make sure your socials are up to standard. If you can get a group of you to create music you believe in, and focus that energy, your music will find its audience. Be Prepared to play to no one, so when you finally do play to someone, you’ll be ready.

What’s next after Bloodstock for the band?

Will finish up 2024 hitting up 30+ gigs, then try and aim for a booking agent / management for 2025, and see if we can get on the festival circuit as well as play further up north.

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

We have taken inspiration from older records, and found a great artist we are using for the first record that’s being put together. Iron maiden and their use of art work relating to songs has a massive effect on how we want to visualise our material.

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

That would be our single, Circled by Sharks, all based on the Jaws movie, Our lead guitar player Danny brought in this killer riff, we got so caught up when writing it in the rehearsal room we realised we needed to actually put words in the song so we crammed some Jaws references in there. Bam!

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

Ross and Danny saw the last London Black Sabbath gig, that was pretty special, like watching mosses return back up the mountain.

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

Getting into new venues and counties. After Covid we lost a lot of the older promoters, and venues took a big hit financially, so we don’t blame them when you message out of the blue and they know nothing about you, so you don’t always get the gig. What we found is, play some more venues, work on your social media, come back and re-email, phone, send a letter etc again, sometimes you just need to prove your bands the right band for their venue.

How do you stay motivated during creative slumps?

We tend to read some sci fi / supernatural books, watch some old skool movies we’ve never watched and listen to music outside our usual repertoire.
A change of scene always has inspiration lurking around the corner.

Reverent Son are set to play The Hopical Storm New Blood Stage On Friday 9th August 2024.