Trigger The Bloodshed

author EW date 25/08/08

To compliment the recent album and gig reviews for Trigger The Bloodshed, interviewing them was

the obvious choice for us, and the only way we hadn't covered the band yet. For those not yet overdosing on Trigger The Bloodshed, read on and find out why you should check them out if you like your things heavy. If you don't, well you might be wasting your time here, considering the brutal deathcore/death metal assault the band puts up on their debut album "Purgation".

RF.net: Firstly, please introduce yourself and the remainder of Trigger the Bloodshed to the readers of Rockfreaks.
Hi I'm Dave from Trigger the Bloodshed I play bass guitar, we are a 5 piece death metal band from England consisting of Jonny Burgan with lead vocals, Rob Purnell on lead guitar, Max Blunos on drums and Martyn Evans on guitar.

RF.net: May I offer my personal congratulations for “Purgation”, one of the most downright brutal albums I’ve heard in a long while. What are your feelings about how the album has turned out?
Thank you! We were aiming to achieve the most brutal and heavy music we could possibly make for the album, I wasn’t actually in the band at the time the album was being written but I was always close by because I am the brother of the lead guitarist. The writing time that we had for the album was quite limited so it was quite stressful rehearsing and recording for the rest of the band but it we are proud of it for how it turned out for our debut album.

RF.net: Trigger the Bloodshed have come rather a long way for a band formed only 2 years ago in the not-so-recognised Death Metal hotspot of Bristol, with an album, a few tours and now a signing to Metal Blade already under your belts. Have you had a chance to sit back and wonder how its all happened so quickly? What do you put it down to?
Well we are all so stoked to be were we are now, as a band we are very determined to be the best we can and we work as hard as we can, so we can only hope things get better! Since the band started there has always been a big drive to write more and better music and even through the two years that TTB has been together our music has progressed a lot and I guess all of this must’ve helped us get on our way to where we are now. We are all very immersed in music constantly and practise together as often as humanly possible!

RF.net: It seems you were quickly snapped up by Metal Blade shortly after the release of “Purgation” - have you had time to notice the benefits of being on a major Metal label compared to your previous home Rising Records? You have some pretty illustrious labelmates in your new home too…
We‘re very happy to have signed to such a big label so quickly after the release but we are still with Rising Records as well as Metal Blade. Rising Records is for the UK and Europe and the rest of the world is for Metal Blade, both labels treat us very well and we are very happy with them.

RF.net: The world of Metal has always been full of scenes and styles rising to prominence, often inexplicably, then disappearing just as quickly, and to me ‘Deathcore’, for want of a better word, seems to be the strangest of the lot combining both brutal sonic aggression and yet a soft label-backed image peddled by many of its acts. Have you ever or do you consider Trigger the Bloodshed to be a member of this scene? What are your feelings towards it?
Although we are often perceived as part of this scene because we are a young band we consider ourselves to be death metal and do not label ourselves as deathcore as we feel this is a unfair judgement; deathcore suggests that we play music for the fashion as well as the music but we are solely about the music. We don’t care how people label us as long as there are no pre judgements, we like a lot of new bands as well as old school metal bands and we take our influences from lots of different genres of music. All we care about is making music to the best of our ability!

RF.net: Which bands and topics would you say are the biggest influence on everything Trigger the Bloodshed?
The most prominent and common band influence for us is probably decapitated but we listen to lots of death metal, grindcore, black metal and progressive music. Between all the members in the band we pretty much cover every end of the metal spectrum of music we listen to! Lyrically, purgation is hate filled and aggressive but with our new vocalist we have turned to more realistic lyrics about humanity and general political happenings in the world.

RF.net: Tell me what line-up you would love to play on if you had free choice of any bands to play with at a gig…
We would all love to play with decapitated but obviously that is not possible anymore! I guess now it would be Behemoth, Nile, Necrophagist, Misery Index, Rotten Sound, Hate Eternal…the list would go on and on! We were stoked to play with Suffocation and Dying Fetus and we cant wait for the Meshuggah and Cryptopsy tours as well!

RF.net: This very writer had the experience of seeing you guys supporting Dying Fetus in London not so long ago and was pretty taken aback by the brutality of the band, especially for an opening act. What is it that actually drives you guys to want to play music so brutal, and dare I say, negative?
We want to promote the English Death Metal scene as much as we can, especially as there are lost of stereotypes in the country at the moment. Mainly it's the music we all love playing most, So we pay it as best as we can and hope we give the best impression possible to the crowd. We don't view our music to be negative, we play shows for people to have a good time and we don’t we don't create our music to bring out negativity in people.

RF.net: New album “Purgation”, itself no relaxing ride, blasts along in a tidalwave of venom and hatred, rarely heard in such a manner from a British band for many a year. What particular feelings did you want to come across in the listening of the album?
The album was written to come across as fast and aggressive so we hope that worked out! We wanted for listeners to hear the album for the music but also we hope that we impressed listeners for how fast and brutal the music is!

RF.net: Where can you see Trigger the Bloodshed being in around 5 years time? Does the band have an ultimate ambition it is striving towards?
Not an ultimate ambition so much, but we just hope to have toured the world, meeting awesome people, playing with awesome bands, having a good time, whilst having put out some seriously heavy records. Having some wicked European tours coming up we seem to be starting to get there. We hope to make a real grounding for ourselves within the worldwide metal community with our second album being recorded in October, which will hopefully open up as many amazing opportunities as "Purgation" has for us.

RF.net: Ok then, many thanks for the time taken to answer these questions, please leave us with any comments you have for the Rockfreaks readers, and especially those who up til did not know Trigger the Bloodshed…
Hey Rockfreaks, If you’ve read this, then thanks, check us out wherever and however you can, if you like your music aggressive, blasting and heavy, then have a listen on our myspace or something. Thanks for the interview.

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