31 May 2006 // An interview by Epitomised_Drummer
Picture this, sitting at a table in a boardroom with 4 members of Blindspott, in the EMI head office in Auckland.
Brandon grabbing a few dozen beers, Dave sitting texting on his phone, Shelton making toast and Damian cruising in a few minutes late.
The EMI office is totally plastered with posters and billboards of Blindspott and sitting in the corner are 1300 personally signed copies of the new album 'End The Silence' by the band.
Who are Blindspott you may ask? The answer is, they are one of the biggest metal/rock/nu-metal bands in the country, yet how can you dub them any genre? After all, how can you relate them to any of those types of music?
Blindspott have spent the last 6 months at least preparing their new album. 5 weeks full time with pre-production and recording, then a month of mixing and mastering taken care of by two Swedish producers, who are also responsible for albums released by Poison The Well and The Refused.
Damian and Dave feel that these two Swedish producers and a couple of new additions to the band have a lot to play in Blindspott's drive towards a much more angry, metal sound in the new album.
The lineup of things to come appears that Blindspott are going to let New Zealand get used to their new album and have a bit of a listen to there new songs before heading off around the country to promote it. Also in the plans are intentions to head back to Japan, Australia and over to Asia to tour the new album.
Blindspott's latest release 'Drown' is on the air at the moment, and the music video has been described as "Too Controversial" for day time airplay on Juice and C4. The video features a guy on fire riding a bike. Damien says that they had 120 noise control complaints when filming the video - which happened to be at Britomart at 4am, and the stunt man on the bike was on fire for at least 30 - 40 seconds.
There is two slightly softer songs on the new album, which could possibly end up lending themselves more to the style of 'Phlex' which has gained huge radio play since its release a single, but Dave describes it as being totally different, and wouldn't say that its a lead on in style. Damian says that all of their songs are emotionally influenced from growing up with a hard background in West Auckland - and all of their songs will always be influenced by this.
If you want to get a copy of Blindspott's second album 'End The Silence', it's available in all good music stores, and Blindspott will be back on the road in the next few months bringing you some more of the most ass-kicking live shows you are likely to see.
- Carl