Master’s Call hail from the home of metal, the Black Country. The band have released a very tasty EP earlier this year and now take a headline slot on the New Blood Stage at Bloodstock on Saturday 10th August. Here’s their interview.
Paul: You’ve been building momentum for a while now but for those who may not know about you, can you give us a bit of history about the band and tell us who is in the current line-up.
MC: It began as a project between John and Dave (guitars) formed in Birmingham back in 2014 before developing into a full band by 2016. It took us a few years to develop a sound that we felt was "us". Once we started playing live, we soon had invites to various festivals such as Beermageddon, HRH Metal, and when we finally released our debut EP Morbid Black Trinity earlier this year things ramped up with the likes of Incineration Festival and of course Bloodstock! The current line-up consists of John & Dave on guitars, Adam on bass, James on drums, with an anonymous vocal presence fronting our darkened chaos!
Paul: You play a pretty intense blackened thrash which certainly gets the thumbs up from me. Who are the band’s major influences?
MC: It’s often easy to draw comparisons to bands like Behemoth, Dissection and Belphegor for bands in our genre, which is fair enough, as all of those bands certainly do influence us. Further to this we have major influences from the likes of Necrophobic, Watain, Slayer, Deicide, Nifelheim and Morbid Angel to name but a few, as well as our metal forefathers Black Sabbath and Judas Priest that inspire us to keep the Black Country fire burning!
Paul: You’re from the Black Country. The home of metal. How do you view the metal scene in the UK and in your area now?
MC: We take our art seriously and have found that the level of dedication, conviction and passion we have for it is becoming something of a rarity in our surrounding metal scene. Metal often gets treated like a joke, but we really believe in what we are doing. As proud as we are of our metal heritage, we honestly don’t believe the home of metal truly gets the recognition and celebration it deserves in the UK. It doesn’t really feel like a home of metal- like you’d expect Birmingham to be the capital city of metal, right? In truth it’s vastly underwhelming and desolate. We want to see it ignite with the same fiery passion we have!
Paul: You released Morbid Black Trinity earlier this year. How was the response to the EP?
MC: As it was our first release our first impression, we really took our time over it- ensuring that everything from the song choices, the production and the artwork were all at a standard we would be proud of before we release. We received positive reviews and praise from the media and the metal community, as well as festival slot offers off the back of it- so the hard work and patience we put into our EP certainly paid off. Of course, this all now means the standards and expectations have been set now for our next release!
Paul: You’ve got a high slot on the New Blood Stage this year at Bloodstock. Congratulations on the invitation. Were you expecting it?
MC: Thanks! We honestly weren’t expecting to be offered a slot at all, let alone a high slot. We sent our EP to Bloodstock more so to introduce the band and hopefully get on their radar for future considerations- but to get that offer right out the gate - to be making our debut at Bloodstock in the same year as our debut release is such an honour and we are ready to bring chaos to Catton Park!
Paul: From reading the BOA promo section, I know you guys have been to BOA before. Tell us about your BOA history. Who have been the most memorable bands you’ve seen there?
MC: We’ve individually all been to BOA over the years at different times but we were all in attendance last year- Judas Priest headlining the Friday with the likes of Emperor, Watain, Bloodbath and Cannibal Corpse on the bill it had to be done! One particular epic all time moment would be Watain’s main stage set in 2012 “we have come to bring the sun down!” just as the sun was setting. Perfection.
Paul: To those who haven’t seen the you live, what can they expect at BOA?
MC: We will bring our visceral and visual live presence, performing our EP tracks as well as a couple of forthcoming tracks with full intensity! It’s going to appeal to fans of the more extreme and darker sides of heavy metal.
Paul: It looks like you’ll be going toe to toe with Anthrax! That sounds fun. Who else do you plan to catch at this year’s festival?
MC: Well of course, having the high slot we were bound to clash with one of the big guns of the festival. As much as we would have liked to catch Anthrax, we’re just glad we weren’t put on alongside Cradle, Dimmu or Taake. We’ll be aiming to catch them for sure. And of course, we want to catch the Priest legend, KK Downing’s appearance with Ross The Boss!
Paul: And after the festival, what else can we expect from you over the next few months?
MC: We still have a few live appearances confirmed or in the works, but we plan to put more focus on writing our follow up to this year’s EP. It’s already in progress but the last few months have been too relentless for us to give it the attention it needs- we’ve had a lot going on behind the scenes to keep the train moving, so we really can’t wait to get back to writing and release a new album next year!
Massive thanks to the guys in Master’s Call. Be sure to check them out at BOA. Some blackness is always welcome!
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