Pravitas is a technical death metal outfit from Leeds. For fans of Decapitated, Thy Art Is Murder and Periphery, the band stormed to a M2TM win in their final and were kind enough to give us the answers.
Paul: Let’s start with a brief history of the band?
Pravitas: Instrumentally we got together in November 2013 in Leeds, adding our singer Josh that December and playing our first gig in April 2014. We released our first EP (Queen Nothing EP) in September 2014, our second (The Synthetic Peregrination) in November 2017, and we are currently working on our third, to be released late 2019 / early 2020.
Paul: Who is the current line up?
Pravitas: We have: Joshua Barnett – vocals Richard Barnes – Guitars Joseph Taylor – Guitars Les Harrison – Drums Conor Devlin – Bass
Paul: Describe the band’s sound and influences?
Pravitas: We are most easily encompassed by ‘technical death metal’. We like crazy shred and heavy riffs, so bands like Archspire, Soreption, Nexilva, Godeater, Beneath the Massacre, Car Bomb, Decapitated, Revocation are some what we like to listen to.
Paul: Prior to Bloodstock, what are some of the highlights for the band so far?
Pravitas: We had an amazing time playing TechFest 2016 and 2018, it’s such an amazing festival! We got an amazing opportunity after our second ever gig, back in 2014, when we were offered a main support slot on a UK tour with Whorion, a tech death band from Finland. We jumped at the opportunity and loaded up our bassist’s mum’s Citroen C1 to go on tour, and we had a really good experience and a lot of fun. We named one of the tunes on our first EP on this tour, with the help of Whorion – Jaatelotottero, which means ice cream cone in Finnish.
Paul: Let’s move on to Bloodstock and your road to the festival. Please tell us about your journey?
Pravitas: We have entered M2TM on two previous occasions, both times in Selby and both times coming out in the semi finals. When we saw it was being held in our hometown in 2019, we thought it would be silly not to enter, so we did, and third times the charm. It must have been our year!
Paul: Tell us about the build up to your final and how you handled it?
Pravitas: We were just really excited to get through the Semi finals, which we hadn’t done on our previous attempts, and at the prospect of playing one final show and having the chance to play bloodstock. We prepared just the same as any other gig - lots of rehearsal!
Paul: What about when you were announced as winners? What were the emotions like?
Pravitas: It was such a great moment! We had decided from the beginning that if we were going to enter, we were going to aim for the top and hope to come out as winners, so to get the that final moment and have all that anticipation come to a head, it was really special.
Paul: So, moving on to the festival itself, what can we expect from you?
Pravitas: Lots of notes! Haha! blast beats, sweeps, shred, riffs, and also a nod to our favourite Swedish extreme metal band…
Paul: Which bands are you looking forward to seeing there?
Pravitas: We’re particularly looking forward to Aborted, Harbinger, Karybdis, Thy Art is Murder, Dimmu Borgir and TesseracT.
Paul: Have you been to Bloodstock before?
Pravitas: We are all first timers, apart from our guitarist Richard who attended a few years back when he joined Pteroglyph on the new blood stage on bass guitar! We’re excited to get stuck in, have a laugh, and watch some great bands.
Massive thanks to the guys from Pravitas. Enjoy the festival! If you fancy having your face melted by the most ridiculous riffage, then Friday 9th August in the Hobgoblin New Blood Stage is the place for you.
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