Bloodstock Interview: Cambion

Immediately following their stellar main stage opening slot at this years festival, we got the opportunity to sit down with CAMBION to talk about their progression as a band as well as their eagerly anticipated album that has been three years in the making.

Okay so what is your immediate reaction after opening the main stage?

Elliot: Well the stage was a lot different…

Frank: Literally in every single way it was different, the scale of the stage, the scale of the crowd, the crew, the sound system. No matter what it is you just scale is up by a 1,000,000,0%.

Did you get the crowd you expected?

Elliot: It’s hard to know because social media is one thing, but until you get up there you don’t know. It was early in the morning, it was raining when we turned up, but yeah they just flooded in and it was overwhelming to be fair.

Are there any bands on the main stage that you never thought you’d share a line up with?

Elliot: Pretty much all of these bands on today. FEAR FACTORY have been mingling around here and it’s been a bit mental.

Did it feel good to have new material in the set?

Elliot: Yeah totally. When we played the Sophie tent we didn’t just wanna repeat what we did before. This album has been in the works for a long time, so we wanted to throw some new ones in just to switch it up but also to show that the material is there.

Judging from the new material there appears to be a big focus on structure and melody, was this an intentional effort when writing?

Marc: Yeah for sure, we all value melody over everything. Melody and groove.

Elliot: Some people can be a bit clicky on clean vocals in a chorus in the metal community but at the end of the day, if it sounds good to us then that’s all good.

Frank: That’s what our new album is all about. Our song writing has grown up a lot, we’ve got songs that people can sing along to and that’s what people want from a chorus.

Marc: We’ve learnt a lot in the process

So it’s safe to say that there’s been a lot of growth over the years?

Elliot: Oh absolutely. When this album drops people are gonna see a big difference in the sound we had before. It’s still us, but its definitely different.

How far along in the process are you with regards to the album?

Elliot: The album is pretty much written we’re just seeing what we can do with regards to recording options. It’s there and ready to go it’s just figuring it out at the moment.

What were the key influences going into this album?

Elliot: To be honest, pretty much every band playing main stage this weekend. FEAR FACTORY, GOJIRA, MASTODON, everyone really.

Jonny: We all have such a wide range of influences already so it all just goes into the mix.

How was the writing process?

Frank: Stressful. It’s been taking a long time, like we’ve been writing this album for going on three years now. It’s been a case of us writing two songs then getting rid of one. Then we’ll write another two songs then get rid of all the rest. It is getting to the point now where the songs we have left are the best songs we’ve written, so, every bands first album has to be perfect and we think we’re at that point now.

Elliot: that’s another bonus of playing the songs live. We’re sick of hearing the songs now, so it’s nice to get peoples feedback because it refreshes it all for us and lets us know its alright.

Have you got an expected release date?

Marc: We’re hoping in the next six months to have it all done and released.

Frank: Early next year would be ideal but we don’t wanna set that target. If we can make the album better by pushing it back a little bit then that’s what we’ll do. It’s been long overdue.

Is the hope to have a big headline tour off the back of the album?

Elliot: Yeah that’s the plan. We’ve touched upon Europe before but never really had the chance to fully tour there so we wanna push more into Europe.

Having played Techfest and Bloodstock multiple times what do you think it is about the smaller festivals that people enjoy?

Elliot: Y’know it’s the same thing we’ve been saying all day, it’s the community vibe. Festivals like this have such a family atmosphere. We was saying it earlier, you see tiny little kids walking around, you see really old people, people in wheelchairs, everyone is just so accepting of each other and it’s such a cool vibe. Anyone falls over you pick ‘em back up, and it’s just that.

For more information on CAMBION like their official page on Facebook