INTRODUCING: Writhe
The festival scene has become renowned for bringing like-minded people together and forging long lasting friendships through their love of music. It was through their mutual adoration of UK Tech-Fest that the members of progressive deathcore outfit WRITHE crossed paths.
“Seb and Rocco knew each other beforehand from a previous band but we were all united thanks to UK Tech-Fest,” explains frontman Simon Longe. “Seb was looking for a vocalist and a drummer. Once I got involved our mutual friend Rania pulled me and Cam to one side and said ‘you guys need to talk!’ and we just hit it off straight away. This has been a project that has been underway since the days of lockdown and is finally coming to fruition”.
As well as being instrumental in bringing this talented force together, Rania also brought her own unique skills to the table, offering her stunning vocal prowess to their debut EP entitled In Filth. A release where the thematical concepts had been brewing away waiting for the right collection of personnel to bring it to life. “My aim with this EP was to create a fantasy world akin to all the worlds we’ve had the pleasure of being immersed in ourselves such as Bloodborne, Dark Souls and that kind of thing as well as taking it back to the abstract, cosmic horror vibes like The Thing and Event Horizon,” discusses guitarist and main songwriter Sebastian Smith. “It’s been a big experiment and we really wanted to build that atmosphere and ambience but still give something for people to headbang to that was within that kind of context and space”.
Luckily for Seb, he found the perfect companion to harness his love for all things dark and twisted and bring them to life. “A lot of the lyrical content I was working on was inspired by the Lovecraftian side of things and how that world has evolved with people continuing to add to it,” states Simon. “For myself personally one of the scariest realities we see out there is in the real world and the utilisation of AI, so we wanted to lean into that uncanny valley vibe that was occurring throughout the generation of the artwork. I feel like it’s a nice unique reflection of what our music and the world we’ve created represents. We used some of our lyrics as prompts to see what would be generated and build off that style. It was almost like we were subjecting it to our world. We were quite shocked with how accurate the depictions were considering the tools had not experienced our music and it was giving us such immediate results.”
Whilst Simon and Seb were the initial driving force in crafting their intriguing yet harrowing narratives it was the recruitment of drummer Cam Booth that really got the ball rolling. Not only did he learn the tracks in rapid fashion, he also performed at their debut show a matter of days after recording his parts for the EP. A show that just so happened to be their heat in the Bloodstock Metal 2 The Masses qualifiers. “It was a fun experience because I had all of this music to learn, record, and play in such a short space of time and I remember getting on stage and practically hyperventilating,” jokes Cam. “It was a lot but we pulled it off and it was a great gig. I’m always the perfectionist and want everything to be tight and I’m really proud of where it’s taken me as a drummer and what we have achieved. It’s been so inspiring and it’s not every day you get to meet people who connect on that kind of level and have such a deep understanding of music”.
In a heartwarming turn of events WRITHE were invited to perform at Techabilitation, an additional event ran by the organisers of the same festival which helped their stars align. “It was definitely the culmination of everything we’ve worked so hard on for the best part of a year all coming together,” admits Simon. “Performing on a big stage, having a sound engineer who knows how to get the best out of our sound and the fact that people set alarms to wake up and see us play was mental. One guy actually spoke to me after our set and said that our music made him cry, through deathcore, which is not something that happens very often. To have that effect on people considering the level of heaviness in our music it’s crazy. I’m hoping it was for the right reasons!”
It is evident that WRITHE are much more than just a collection of musicians, they are a tightly bonded unit who share a great friendship which continues to flourish. “It’s been the easiest band experience of my life so far and it’s been so satisfying to work with such like-minded people who all have the same goals,” declares Cam. It’s crazy that we’ve managed to come together and find a group of people who wanted to do exactly the same thing.”
“What I love about this project is that we have all come from different backgrounds and we express ourselves in different ways but at the same time we push each other to be the best versions of ourselves,” adds bassist Rocco Macchia. “I hadn’t even met everyone in the band this time last year and now we’re all playing shows together. The progress we’ve made has been amazing. I’ve come from another country and this is what I came here for and I’m so thankful for them. I couldn’t have gone on this journey on my own as a solo artist.”
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