The Spotlight: BOA New Blood Interview With Blind Divide (Paul H)

Of all the bands that have won M2TM in recent years, none will make me smile more that our own Blind Divide. Veteran campaigners, they’ve completed a couple of interviews before the heats and the semi-finals, so I moved away from my standard questions and mixed it up a bit.

Paul: We’ve covered you guys in some detail over the past few months so it would seem a bit ridiculous to ask you some of the more mundane questions. Instead let’s move straight on the THAT final at Fuel. We interviewed you prior to the final. How were the nerves on the night?

Blind Divide: By the final we were comfortable with our set and the crowd at Fuel, but we knew it was going to be a tough choice on the night and we had no option but to give it our all. There were plenty of moments throughout the night watching the other bands when we wondered whether our best was going to be good enough!

Paul: You’d grabbed a couple of other gigs before the final. Did you feel sharp?

Blind Divide: We felt on form and fighting fit, filling our time with more shows allowed us to really work on our performance and iron out any little issues.

Paul: You threw in two new songs during your set. How did they go down with the crazies?

Blind Divide: We’re really stoked with the reception to our newer material, we can’t wait to get it released! We had wondered how Nimis would go down, being a bit of a different vibe from what we usually do, but people seemed to dig it.

Paul: It was a long evening, but it was great fun. Were you able to enjoy it?

Blind Divide: The wait was hard, luckily, we had some of South Wales’ finest to keep us and the rest of the crowd entertained in the meantime! We enjoyed every minute of it.

Paul: What about when you were announced as winners? What were the emotions like?

Blind Divide: Just elation. It was really surreal. We were completely prepared to see another band take the top spot, there was a huge collective sigh of relief at some point, after we’d stopped grinning like twats!

Paul: You are in good company with Chaos Trigger, Malum Sky, Agrona and of course those scamps in Democratus. Have you had any words of advice from those excellent chaps about your 30 minutes?

Blind Divide: We’ve had loads of advice from previous winners, which could probably be summarised as: Milk the opportunity for all it’s worth, enjoy every second, because your set will be over before you know it!

Paul: You are on Friday which sounds like a score. Happy with the slot?

Blind Divide: We’re really happy with our slot, we can turn up and play while we’re still feeling fresh, instead of after 3 or 4 days of excessive drinking!

Paul: Moving on to the festival itself, what can we expect from you?

Blind Divide: This isn’t the time to be winging it or experimenting, we’re going to go up and do what we do best and play our unique blend of DeathThrashGrooveMetal-Core

Paul: Which bands are you looking forward to seeing there?

Blind Divide: Tesseract, Cancer Bats, Fallen Temples, Damim, Krysthla, Incite, Ten Ton Slug, Footprints In The Custard, Rotting Christ, the list goes on…

Paul: I know that some of you have been to Bloodstock before. What would you describe as the three best things about the festival?

Blind Divide:The finest selection of beers, the finest metal (of course) and the finest Sunday roast in a enormous Yorkshire pudding! Also, Dodgems.

Paul: And after Bloodstock? What are the plans for Blind Divide post August?

Blind Divide: We’re looking to release some singles and saving our pennies and flogging our wares until we can record an album!

Many thanks for getting involved. I can’t wait to see you guys rip that stage up in a couple of weeks. As if you need to know, Blind Divide will rip the roof of the New Blood Stage on Friday 9th August. See you in the pit!