You’ve just released your third album Deliverance, how have the crowds responded to it?
Carl Ayers: Fucking unreal. We were a bit unsure about what to expect on this tour because we’ve been doing a lot of smaller shows in smaller towns we haven’t been to before, but honestly man, every show has been insane – people have been singing the lyrics back already.
I feel like the production, instruments and the vocals are stronger this album. What have you have done that is different to what you normally do on this album?
CA: We spent more time focusing on exactly what we wanted. With Severance (their previous album) we only had six months to write everything, whereas this time we spent about a year writing everything before we went into the studio. We wanted to pick the pace up as well; it’s a lot more pounding than Severance and it’s more fast-paced which works better for us live as well.
Vishal Khetia: Yeah that’s what we wanted to do with Deliverance – pick the pace and create some live pit anthems for kids to get down to. It’s working because we’ve had some of the most insane pits I’ve seen on tour
CA: It scares the shit out of me!
VK: Thank god we’re not in the pit!
“I think the overall thing is about focusing on yourself, doing what you want to do and not giving a fuck about everybody else thinks”
Was there a theme you were going for in this album?
CA: You’re better off asking Jamie (their vocalist) about the lyrical context. I think the overall thing is about focusing on yourself, doing what you want to do and not giving a fuck about everybody else thinks, that kind of thing.
You’ve said before that you like performing in smaller venues, do you have a favourite place to perform in the UK?
CA: Reading is somewhere we’ve only played once before. We played there on this tour and it was one of the best shows I’ve played for a long time. The venue was great, the crowd reactions were great, the promoters were great – everyone who was involved in working on the show was amazing.
VK: Kingston was completely insane. The venue was tiny but it was packed out by about two hundred people. Literally five seconds into the first song we did people were toppling over, people were head-butting my guitar –
CA: Someone almost broke my pedalboard –
VK: It was just insane!
CA: There were no bouncers, no barriers, it was a proper old school punk-rock kind of show.
“On the first song some guy got knocked the fuck out and we had to stop and revive him before we carried on”
On your Facebook page, the band says its influences are Slipknot, Killswitch Engage and Pantera amongst others. Do you get inspiration from any unusual sources? Mongolian throat-singing perhaps?
VK: I listen to a lot of electronic music, ambient music and progressive music. I think you can tell when we take our influences and put them together.
CA: There’s a nice variety [of influences] across the band.
Where was the most memorable place to perform on this tour?
CA: Kingston, Reading and Worcester.
VK: Worcester was insane! On the first song some guy got knocked the fuck out and we had to stop and revive him before we carried on. I played the last song from the balcony over the stage and there was a stage invasion, it was completely insane.
What’s next for the band? A bit of an ambiguous question I know…
CA: Yeah you’ll probably get an ambiguous answer, we can’t give much away at the moment.
VK: We’ve got stuff coming up, stuff that we can’t announce yet, but we’ll be touring so you’ll see us.
Random Question Round: If Jesus was in a band, what instrument would he play and why?
[As much as I’d like to publish the answer to this one, unfortunately I can’t! If you want to find out what they said, catch them next time they’re on tour and ask – they’re really friendly blokes.]
Heart of a Coward’s Deliverance is out now in stores, online and on iTunes.