PipemanRadio Interviews Z Machine at Bloodstock Open Air 2025

0:04 Hey, you learn too, Yes, that's true for Wow, crazy you. This is pipe Man here on the Adventurers pipe Man W four c Y Radio, and I'm here with Rub from set Machine Owen and Gareth Nice here of Bloodstock. So how do you get to Bloodstock? Know? Not how you got here, but how did you get here? Basically, we just sent off an email and asked if anybody if they wanted us to be here, and we go went back and said yeah going then a simple as that. Holy shit. I don't know why more people don't try it.

0:45 I need to start a band and just send out emails. Yeah. So what do you think it is that impressed them that they just said, yes. Well, we are very much something different from a lot of the bands. I player. We're instrumental, so we are like jazz and prog rock influenced. We've got a saxophone. Robo View is the saxophone player. Yeah, so it's just a lot different from everybody else. And they seemed to like us this afternoon, so we must have done something right. Nice. So, as far as the sax goes, what was your influence to play safs? I bought a saxophone and they asked me to join their band on flute, and I said, but I've got a saxophone, and then realized I needed to learn how to play it. So one of my favorite bands is Gone and that the saxophone player from that was giving lessons out in Lockdown. So I email to inter Connections and since I needs have taught me, that's wait basically for five years. So I've learned saxophone for this band. Essentially.

1:41 Wow. Yeah, I hope there's future musicians listening is because that would make me want to play saxophone or any instrument. Just buy it first, fuck knowing how to play it, figure that out later. That's my method, and you know that it is. I love hearing a positive benefit of COVID, and I think that is a benefit COVID. It allowed people to get creative once again. Absolutely did. Yeah. Yeah, we did a lot of writing during that period as well. Yeah. I've always said that the best music is going to come out of COVID because of that. Yeah, I think I agree. Like we did a lot.

2:23 We did a lot with COVID, even though we couldn't meet up like remotely. We did a lot. And then when we brought it all together, it was much easier to bring it all into to manifest it into the real world. Essentially, it's kind of like if you're training for something, you do the really really hard way, and then when you do the normal way, it's super easy, right. Yeah, Yeah, that's the way. So what kid festivals do you normally play. You've normally been playing stuff on the most psychedelic rock scene. So last year was the last year we played Cousfest. Yeah, so last year we played cos Fir, which is a more psychedelic rock, keepy sort of side of things.

3:04 Yeah. They seem to like us over there as well, which is nice. You seem to be able to have a foot in a food different camps. So they love that. Because listen, anybody that says they only like one kind of music. Is lying absolutely, or they don't like music. Yeah. I always like to say I am a metal head, punker, hippie. Cover only basis. Yeah, I like it all. Yeah, like p He's a good song. It's a good song, isn't it exactly? And when I was a teenager, I would go to a Slayer show on Friday night and a Dead show on Saturday. Yeah, I had to do the Slayer of Friday night because my brain would be too much vegetate because Player after the Dead.

3:45 Yeah, I wouldn't have seen an impact with it exactly. At least get all out at Slayer and then you can chow out at the. Dead, right, Yeah, of course. So what was that one moment in time for each one of you that you knew music was what you wanted to do, And for you it's more like what made you buy a sax? For me, it was some point when I was in college and I wanted to go down something more like an engineering side of things, and I talk of course on music technology just to sort of help me get along with my guitar playing and stuff like that, and I don't know, to record myself. And then as I was doing that, I realized, no, I really like this. This is the thing that I really like to do.

4:27 While it's not like my job or anything, it is sort of my primary focus on And it was since then, when I was about seventeen, I think, so pushing on twenty years ago now, I decided this makes more sense to me than anything else. Nice and yeah, I've always loved music since a very early age and it's all I've ever wanted to do, so I grew up listening to progressive rock from my dad's vinyl collection, my gentle Giant jat Hotel, bands like that, and I've always just pursued that and tried to make music that I think will be interesting and that I would enjoy listening to myself. And I played a lot different instruments, so it's so I've always just stabbled in loads of different things. No jack of all trades, mastering you.

5:07 Might be a master of one now, who knows. Maybe maybe I remember being eight in nineteen ninety two and there's a big concert called Expo ninety two in Seville in Spain, and Joe Saciani and Steve I opened like one of the days, and from that I was like, I need to play guitar. So yeah, that's basically a budget, and. From there it's just been about diversifying interests, not just listening to metal or rock, but I like a lot of jazz and funk and whatever. Basically, if there's a guitar in it, I could. Find somebody to enjoy about it, and then it's gone beyond that as well. It's kind of like, okay, so you know, one of their where the instrumentations in there.

5:50 It doesn't matter. Good music just transcends like genre style instrumentation. It's like if you can find something positive about a tune, then. And he's the best therapy ever. Yeah, And to your point, I think we all evolve in our music tastes. We didn't wake up one day and we all we liked Slayer and nothing else ever for the rest of our life. Example, like you, not my parents, but my older brother who was eleven years older. I used to steal his albums. I didn't know what they sounded like. Yes, and the Rascals, the grassroots, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Crosby, Stills, Nash. And then I was at this friend's house that I had just met and pulled. He pulled out two albums, which shows my bipolar music taste, and I loved them both.

6:51 First one was Grateful Dead Skeletons in the Closet and Were of the Clauset and I'm like, whoa, that's good shit. But then he pulled out this black album with red writing and lightning bolt S's in white. We sold our souls for rock and roll And that was when my journey to Bloodstock began, right there, yep, Sabbath, but I mean also the first album I ever owned in my life, I didn't buy it. I was at I lived in New Jersey. One that I bought at the boardwalk at the Jersey Shore was the original Kiss album, the first one I won it, and I looked at Oh they look cool type of thing. But I was a Beatles freak too, so like we all look at Ozzie, the Prince of Darkness, who was its biggest love and influenced the Beatles. And I think the younger generations still, I think they should learn that that there's they're idols way beyond metal.

8:02 I think what you find is what a lot of people do is they find their influences and who they like, and then they find the influences of their influences and they work their way backwards. So people are like Sabbath and they go, oh, what was all the listening. Group growing up? Oh, you like the Beatles and you go listen to the Beatles and they think, what are the Beatles like? And then they go and find all that American blues positions influence them, all that sort of stuff, and it everyone works backwards from there. Absolutely, if you were to name one man that you think was your biggest influence each one of you. What would it be. For me? Biggest influence is a hard one to pin down, but I come back to Rush an awful lot. Wow, that's the biggest influence. I don't know, but it's when I do come back to a Lot and find myself going, oh, that riff I played the other day, that's come from something Alex Lifsinstan or something they've done in Rush.

8:51 So probably there, I think. All right, now I'll have to ask you another question and reference to that. What album one album? Farewell to Kings is one of my favorites. That's a great one. Yeah. I love Rush too. I lost him when they started getting like after Moving Pictures, when. They went in the eighties and they started doing the more synthesizer based stuff. Yeah, yeah, just because it wasn't it like to me? I loved everything from the beginning. And twenty one twelve yeah, oh my god. Yeah, that's right up there. Well, I think I found with twenty one twelve is the album too? The first side of twenty one twelve is fantastic, but I don't think the rest of the album quite hot.

9:32 Stands up. I always feel I remember the rest of yeah. Whereas I feel like with something like a Farewell to Kings and things like that and Hemispheres, the more complete album yeah yeah. Even the original Rush album. Man. Yeah, like John Ratzi on there. Yeah, mine would be Stevie Wonder Nice. You finally got a chance to see him a few weeks ago in Cardiff for the first time, and yeah, it's just incredible, like guys like in his mid to late seventies and he's still sounds pretty perfect. And the album would be Songs of Here Life, which as far as I'm considered, it is probably the best album. Nice and my dad that was one of his favorites with Stevie One Look and yeah.

10:14 Yeah. Well. One of the things I partickl you like about that album is it doesn't just showcase the singles. It's got like s Duke, which is my favorite song of all time. That song there, But it's also got tunes like Contusion, which are like it could be on the Herbie Hancock album something. It's like some crazy fusion stuff. So it showcases like everything that he could do compositionally. So not only could he write incredible songs that people could sing along to. But he's also like, here's a bit of a like spanning the works, there's some something really weird. That you might not recognize, you know. So yeah, I love it. Yes, So my main influence has changed over the years a lot, And right now it's probably cardiacs, who are brilliant.

10:55 If you've never heard of them, then I haven't. You should check them out because they're it's very rare. I haven't heard of something. Oh yeah, they are absolutely brilliant. Like Tim Smith was the composer, he was an absolute genius. Everything he touched was gold basically. And it's crazy stuff. You can't predict it. You don't know where it's going or what it's going to be doing, but it's it's beautiful as well. It's I think it's the only music that I've listened to that instead of me getting it, it gets me. It's really really important to me at the moment. And here I'll give you since you play a saxophone, I actually love Kenny G and David Samborn. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, And so I don't think you'll find many metal heads will admit that, no, that's not but it's fucking brilliant, and that's the point. Music is music, and we have different times, different vibes, things that we like. We shouldn't limit ourselves on a genre, and especially artists. That's why I don't want to hear the genre of an artist, because artists are not supposed to be put in a box.

11:58 Play whatever you want and whatever you feel. Yes, it doesn't matter. What John, Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah, it's a right thing you want to tell listeners. We haven't covered already. We've released an album and it's called Merging Worlds. It's quite crazy. It's instrumental. You can't really predict it or describe it very well, but it's got heavy moments, lighter moments. It's full of saxophones. Two extremely brilliant guitar players, and amazing drummer and a brilliant bassist. So it's like we're great musicians. You might like your band, you might like the band, you. Might listen to anything. This isn't for me, but you might really like it. Here you go, give it a listen. Tell everybody how they can reach out to you on socials, on the web. Buy your merch if you have some, because they can't listen to my show and let's say buy your merch.

12:42 Right, Yeah, so merch you can find on band camp, c research, Dead Machine on bank Camp. We should pop up on there and you'll get the album off that tool, CDs to download and get the t shirts and stuff. On Instagram and Facebook. We're at Sad Machine Whales. We're on Spotify as well, Said Machine or Emerging Wheels on Spotify. You can find us there. I think that's about all of it. And well, your band members got distracted by my original eighties battle Vest. It's a classic. Yeah, it's. Death. We got Exodus, we got Dark Angel. You know visa bands. I grew up classic bands. Yeah.

13:24 Yeah, I just interviewed Gene Hoagland last month and I pulled the time, like you recognize that logo. They have a new album out. By the way, do you know that Death Angel and No Dark but Death Things will be at Bloodstock next year? They yeah, they announced it. The other was of the bands, Yes, Cool and Dark Angels actually on tour, which amazes me. But I love it you guys rock. I love that they had you at Bloodstock and you're so like eclectic in your music. That's probably the best way to describe it, right, alectic. Yeah, well, thanks a lot for being there and thanks for being on the Adventures of pipe Man.

14:07 Yeah, thanks very much for having us. Michelle Kerr was my press officer for my entire fucking career here in the UK, my entire career with Machine D. She recently passed away and it was a very, very sad day. And I can tell you the reason that I'm gonna tell this story is because she was family. She was Bloodstock family, she was heavy metal UK family. Most of the bars. That you know and love you probably heard of because of that woman right there, Slive Knots, Slayer, Machinehead, Trivium Kills, which engaged Hey Breed, you name it.

14:55 She helped lift everybody up. Man, She helped lift everybody up, and in so many ways, she helped make this entire music scene, this incredible, beautiful community that lives here at Bloodstock Man. She helped make it. So, ladies and gentlemen, please make some noise from Michelle Kerr. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Plateman on w for CUI Radio.