This summer, we had the exciting opportunity to attend 2000 Trees Festival in Cheltenham, a vibrant gathering of music lovers and talented artists. Amidst the buzz of live performances and the festival’s electric atmosphere, our very own Adam Howlett and Rae Dowling had the chance to sit down with the members of Blank Atlas. On-site and in the thick of the action, they caught up with the Bristol-based alt-rock band to delve into their experiences at the festival and uncover more about their journey, their music, and what makes their unique sound resonate with fans.
Okay, so we’re here at 2000 Trees with, Blank Atlas. It’s your first time playing the festival I believe?
First time, yeah.
I’ve read that you’re big fans of the festival in general, but it’s your first time playing it. How’s that for you guys?
Yeah, it’s a dream come true.
Yeah, my first Trees was 2016, I think, the year that Refused headlined. It was like, we’ve all been into this, this kind of ‘Trees-y’ scene for a long time, so as soon as we discovered this existed, we were like “okay, I guess we go every year now, this is our spiritual home”.
We just camp in the same place every year. It’s become a bit of a kind of routine for us and our group of friends, so to finally be able to play was kind of a little bit surreal. Seeing the whole festival in a slightly different context as well, like, we’ve never been back here [press/guest area] before.
Do you think festivals like this have influenced you as a band?
Absolutely, yeah. We’ve discovered bands through this festival that have now changed the way we write music, I guess. Bands like Press to Meco, Black Peaks, Arcane Roots, Jamie Lenman. They’re all sort of Trees bands. It’s kind of made us into a Trees band automatically, so I think we’ve blended in quite well in the line-up.
I think a lot of people probably playing this festival have been into ‘Trees-y’ music their whole lives, whereas I think we were kind of late comers a little bit. I used to just listen to, like, Download main stage bands like Iron Maiden, Avenged Sevenfold, stuff like that.
I think discovering bands like Press to Meco and Black Peaks was just kind of like “oh, there’s bands that are actually way better than Download main stages, but you can just go see them for a fiver in the pub”. Discovering that was like a revelation. I barely go to big gigs anymore, really.
You’ve been here all weekend. Any bands that you’ve seen or bands you still want to see play that you’re excited about?
We got here on the Wednesday and we saw The Xcerts do There Is Only You in full, which was insanely cool. That was a great start to the weekend.
I’ve just come from the main stage watching ‘68, and they were insanely good. It’s just been wall-to-wall quality, as always. I enjoyed unpeople, they were very good, and Vower as well – and we watched a band called Thumpasaurus last night. It was like Vulfpeck on steroids.
I’m looking forward to seeing The Xcerts again today. They’re playing two sets, and they’re two completely different sets.
You guys have kind of styled yourself as ‘influencers’ a little bit in social media with ‘Guffcast’. Do you think that’s something that’s a bit more necessary for bands these days, especially when they’re DIY, to help get their name out there?
Yeah, and I think when we were younger we used to watch loads of YouTube anyways, so all those content creators – we wanted to be them basically. We were making little silly skits and stuff like that. I guess it’s quite natural for us, because we like that sort of content anyway. Some bands don’t like the whole social media content aspect, but I quite like it to be fair. I think it works for us.
I guess also with the DIY background, it’s important you’ve got to do your own stuff.
Yeah, I think if you’re just learning to do it now, it’s daunting. I do feel for bands that it doesn’t come naturally to. Because like, it is silly that you kind of have to do that.
There’s people that come up to us that have just heard the podcast and not our bands, even though that’s just a silly thing we do on the way to our gigs. And then they’ll discover the band through that, so it’s been positive for us. But the fact that you kind of do have to do that a bit is annoying for bands that don’t have any interest in it.
But I don’t think everyone has to do that. Bands like Sleep Token definitely don’t do that. They do the opposite. There was a band called Poisonous Birds, and they didn’t have any socials, and that kind of added hype to the band in a way.
You are all obviously very close, and you’ve known each other for a really long time. How long have you been making music together?
Thirteen years.
Do you think that that changes the writing process? Like the process of writing music versus people that find each other through wanting to make the same music?
I think because we’ve been so close for so long, our taste has followed the same trajectory a little bit. Like we were all into like Metallica and Iron Maiden and stuff when we were teenagers, of course we were – so we were in like a kind of, you know, a metal band. And then we all got into the kind of more ‘Trees-y’ scene, so we just became that kind of band. But we all followed the same trajectory at the same time, which worked out pretty well. That’s just because we listen to music in the car, and we listen to music together, and we show each other bands. And we all just kind of lean in a similar way musically. So yeah, it’s been really natural this whole way, I think. We wanted to write stuff that was very angular a few years ago, because we were listening to Arcane Roots and Black Peaks and stuff. And then we discovered bands like Holding Absence, and we got a bit more layers and more pads and bigger choruses.
So what’s next for you guys as a band? What’s coming up?
We’ve got Burn It Down Festival in August, in Torquay.
Yes, I am desperate to go to that. I’m trying to convince all of my friends to make the journey, because they don’t want to go because it’s too far away.
It’s bloody good fun. What’s so good about Burn It Down is that there’s like, in the same way that there’s like, there’s ArcTanGent bands, and there’s Trees bands, there kind of is like Burn It Down bands, like it’s like party metal is kind of the vibe. Wargasm are headlining this year, bands like Vukovi and stuff like Nova Twins and stuff like that – that’s the sound of Burn It Down, just bouncy, fun, hyper party metal stuff.
And then we’re going on tour at the end of the year, and we’re probably going to release a new single as well.
Have you played in Nottingham before?
Yeah, we’ve done a bunch of bUTTONpUSHER gigs. We’ve done JT Soar, which I really like. It doesn’t take much for it to be rammed and on the whole all those shows are great, it’s like a group of people go to all the gigs anyway. And I love that, because I don’t think there’s ever been a dead gig. I’ve never seen a dead gig for bUTTONpUSHER. It’s really great. I love it. And Marty – what a guy!
(Editors note: The band will be back at JT Soar later this year so watch this space)
Do you prefer doing DIY gigs then, compared to more commercial stuff?
Because we’re not a very big band, it’s mostly DIY anyway. We don’t have a booking agent or anything like that. So just kind of by nature, that’s how these gigs tend to go. I think you can tell when you’re working with a promoter that’s putting on gigs. Maybe they’re just an in-house promoter for the venue and they just have to fill the calendar, versus a promoter that is just doing it, not necessarily to make money, they’re probably losing money, but just for the pure passion of it, and those gigs are always better just because they have their hearts in it.
If you could change one thing in the world. Anything, big or small, what would it be?
Blimey? Should we keep it light?
You can be as light or heavy as you want to be. Just take the question in your own way.
I would like live music to be funded by the government, so you don’t have to pay 200 quid to see a big band, and bands can afford to go on tour – they’re getting paid decently. Arts funding for heavy music would be so good.
There’s a reason festivals in Europe have an easier time of it generally, because the funding is there.
I was going to say that cups of tea should be free everywhere, like water. Because sometimes you just need a cup of tea. And cups of tea are cheap. A tea bag is like 1p. Do you know what I mean? There used to be a venue in Bristol called Sagan Hounds. And we used to always have a cup of tea there. Bring our own tea bags – chuck it in. Tea for the people.
Good answers. Thank you so much for sitting down with us.
Thanks for having us. It’s been a blast.