Metal Without Borders: Chekhov’s Gun Breaks Genre Boundaries at Bloodstock

0:04 Hi, you love then too, he cure. For see wow cray you. This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man w four c Y Radio. And I'm here with James. And Kasha from Chikovsko. Nice here at Bloodstock wows. Yeah it is. Yeah, it's bloody fucking hot here, yeah, but it's worth it because Bloodstock is fucking amazing. We have this incredible family here, is what I feel. It's like, you know, yeah, no, we've never been here before, but it was so good to be here. Like everyone's so nice, so cool.

0:52 The whole crew is just like so nice. And friendlies that a bad person also, Yeah, Like I I've been saying, like I've been doing this for years and I've never met an asshole yet at Bloodstock. It's kind of hard to keep going, yeah, because his assholes everywhere. So nowadays, right, this is this is our safe haven from assholes. Yeah, it must be. The genre s the genre belt heads are chill. Well, that's definitely one of the big keys. But the other big key is the people that run Bloodstock. You know it's a family run festival for the fans by the fans.

1:32 Yeah definitely. Yeah. Yeah, So what was your journey to Bloodstock. How did you end up here? So we did the Metal to the Masses competition, which is basically a competition where you go through four ryans to you're fighting against other bonds trying to beat and get get to the top. And we made it frough to the final and that's how we secured a spot here. Nice, So you must be really good because when I heard is it's some really really solid talent all the way around. Yeah. I mean we've tried it multiple times. This is our third time trying to get there, and we finally we really pushed ourselves to like get for this time. So we came with some really tough competition in the first year. Yeah, Hamma who are playing here on Friday No Friday, and we got to beat out by them in the first year and either playing Sophi Lancaster and but this year we made it for him.

2:23 We're hoping to phone in their footsteps exactly. Nice. And one of the things I love about Melting the Masses is not only does it given opportunity for bands to play here, but you guys, it's a competition, but yet you guys aren't competing, you know, like you all love each other and support each other, and even if you don't win, you're super happy for the band that did. Exactly. Yeah, We've got so many like Edinburgh bands that we're friends with and we just kind of recycle like gig line ups and things like that. So just compete in with friends. It's like it's just a normal gig really compared to an you know, it's not like we're competing. We're just playing together and whoever wins wins, and we're happy for whoever wins, you know.

3:07 Just have that hope. It was like someone's gonna win and have a great time. There you go. So where do you think you're key weds to winning this time? By the way, I'm very It makes me happy because I'm also a motivational speaker. That you persisted until you succeeded instead of giving up. Yeah. Well, I mean we always believed in ourselves. We always thought we were doing something a bit different, but this time we really uped our game. We tried to like get a whole cafesive look. Before before we're just going on with ban T shirts and short it's pretty casual. We're still figuring our sort of stick, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah this time. This time we've got more of an aesthetic. Yeah, we've put in a bit more effort and to like make up theatrics. Also me, the violinist and the chairlist haven't joined the band, so we're having a bit of like kind of a little bit of nuance in the metal scene, you know, live strings.

3:57 Yeah, it's a bit unusual. We've got so got unusual line up with violin sallow which before it was just like classic two guitars, bass jumps, you know. So so Keith Keith Duncan from Edinburgh because he was he gave us a good message after our gig, like guys, get some makeup like this style, you know, like really dive into that esthetic and even aura and. Go all out. You know. Yeah. Fun keyword fun because if you're not having fun, we're not having fun, you know. So it's so important. And the common denominator I have found especially this year is the bands have won that didn't win before. It's because they listened to the advice and applied it. So that that's pretty smart, you know. And then I love the idea actually that you have a violinist and cell us in the band, you know, It makes me instantly think of Lindsey Sterling and she's a badass.

4:56 Oh yeah's awesome. Like you watch her and like you want bang your head because it seems like she wants to be in the pit herself. True. Yeah, it's like playing into strengths, you know. It's like, oh, my friends, a cellist, do you want to join? Like you're great, come on, play into strengths and. It creates uniqueness, which I think is so needed in metal today because there's so many bands that are in these they're boxed into these subgenres and micro genres that they it's almost like they're using a formula to make metal. Yeah. No, I totally agree. Like we really, we really disregard the sort of genre borders for us.

5:37 We tried to anyway. We just call ourselves prog metal, you know, because that's sort of the best descriptive for us. Just we're just doing our own thing, hopefully progressing the genre, creating something new, because that's what that's is a progressive metal or rock or whatever. But we still respect the genres as well. Like James has introduced me to the world of metal genres added I didn't even know exist that I'm like, oh my goodness. It's like a tree of life. It just keeps expanding. That's funding. That's pretty cool. And And before doing this, were you into metal at all? There was some metal bunds I liked. I usually I lean more into like kind of quirky metal, like that's the Bungle Primus, but James Moore introduced.

6:24 Me to metal more. I also liked private with mister Bungle, and I love Bungle. Yeah, like they first started when I was a teenager, and they did go like in like they went in all different directions in the eighties, like. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we just love wacky stuff to be honest in general. But yeah, I mean I've always been into the old thrash stuff and all the you know, Black Black Sabbath. That's where all started for us. Most yeah, you know, yeah, big Concoccus Opith as well. It's big and plus you. Know, speaking of wacky stuff, the most fun so far I've had at Bloodstock this year was being in a marsh pit with a bunch of dinosaurs. That was that was like the best wash bit ever. Man.

7:06 Yeah, some characters about it really like spices things up, yeah. Push ups. At one point I was like, oh my god. Yeah. Man. Right after that there was evil Scarecrow that you know, they had spiders in the pit and crabs in the pit, and they had the whole crowd doing this like crabs with their hand opening and closing like they were crab claws. See, don't take yourself so seriously. Yeah, I mean, like my favorite bond of the whole time, it's probably Battlesnake And they were like half naked bottle snakes only on their on their we jockstrap sort of things going on flying about it.

7:49 Not to expose. Them, but that's the great thing about Bloodstock is there is so much fun here. There's so much diversity. But yeah, we're one big family, you know, definitely. Yeah, Yeah, I'm just looking forward to meeting everyone, honestly. Yeah, I mean I already feel like part of the family. Honestly. It's it's yeh, been very welcoming. It is true, Like everybody like is just so friendly here, and you know, I'm gonna be sad leaving and going back to my fucking insanity of the United States. Yeah, if only this was like a week society. Oh you Ryan. Stuffy, I know, like I kind of feel like we just need everybody to be at a metal festival, keep all the political leaders out and we could work out all our problems.

8:38 Definitely, Yeah. Yeah, and we also like to discuss some of those problems and our songs just a little promo political issues. And that's the way it should be too, by the way, Yeah, you know, because there's a lot of people out there saying, even like Gene Simmons said, like, just play your music, don't talk about stuff. No, that's what music's always been about. Yeah, otherwise you get the rise of fascism, that sort of thing. People just shot up about horrible stuff that's going on, you know, yeah, exactly do you speak up? Mean we have a platform? You go, you saw platform. I always say that why not If you have a platform, why not use it? You know, the fascists used the platform, so why not you? And what is music? Music is talking about all those things that bother you. That's what you write in songs. That's you know, it's not pop like this is something where whether it's metal or punk, you're writing about issues. You're writing about things that are bothering you. People don't have to necessarily agree with you, but that doesn't mean they should shut you up either.

9:46 Yeah, I mean that's what rock's built on, you know, one hundred. We're supposed to be a rebellion genre, you know. I mean go back to Elvis, biggest rebel ever, you know, and even you go before him, his mentors, that Chuck Berry of the world, the Fats Dominoes, they were rebels too, you know. Unfortunately, the rebels are the seventies, the hippiads, They're the ones that became the boomers. I don't know how that happened. It does start, it does trip me out, Like, Okay, you're talking about hip beads that are the big love and peace and this and that, and they're the ones causing all the anti peace and and everything, whereas metal heads will, oh, they're scary and they're evil. We're the ones promoting love and togetherness and heat.

10:31 Definitely, I think that's just uh so media like image of things. You know, it's definitely been pumped out by I mean, obviously there's still scary people in the metal ride well. Too, but like it's so rare. I'm not that bloodstock, No, no, no, definitely not like like there's much more scary people the scary people everywhere, and like there's much more out of side of any metal gig. I've ever been so absolutely, to. Be fair, like, when I first kind of gotten into metal, I was a bit like nervous just because of like the really like explicit get A graphics, sometimes gruesome icnography, lyrics things like that. But then I was like, oh wait, that's such like a as you said, great platform. You can just say whatever you want, honestly, anything you want, you can say it.

11:11 And people misunderstand the lyrics a lot of times. Like you take a band like Slayer that's talking about death, destruction, this and that, you're not talking pro, they're talking against. Yeah, you know, if you really read the lyrics instead of just forming some stupid opinion. Yeah, yeah, you go interprets it, you know, and you're in the right way, you. Know, no doubt. Maybe that scary kind of imagery is what like kind of froze people off, but keeps like, you know, the people who see beyond the veil coming to these shows and. Actually exactly and keeps the assholes out because. There's yeah, that's true. Yeah, there's certain artists have said to me, let's let's keep them thinking we're scary, so the assholes don't come.

11:55 That's so true. So tell everybody how they can reach out to you on socials buy your merch because they can't listen to my show. And let's say buy your merch. Yeah, so we've got band camp of course, Checkov's gone on band camp. We go on Instagram, checkovsgun dot band the. Band camp link on Instagram page as well. Find everything through the Instagram link as well. I've got Facebook of course, it's. Chekhov's Gun dot official. I think the Instagram. Yeah, yeah, it's dot official. Check us gunt official. But we do the merch as well, added some of the designs, so it's kind of all di y. We work with like local printmakers as well, and editor love screenprint.

12:37 In It's all quite limited as well, so get it while at last and you might you'll get like one of a kind T shirt, one of like one of fifty ye limited edition. Baby can't get it. I love it and I love you guys. Thanks for being here on bloodstock and persisting so you can be here, and thanks for being on the Adventures by Man. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Tapement on w for c u I radio,