James caught up with Beau Bokan from Blessthefall to talk about how the band got their name, their new album and much more.

How did you come up with the name Blessthefall?
Well I didn’t come up with it our bass player did. Basically he wanted to find a cool name with an inspirational positive message through a band name; so Blessthefall, bless the fall of man, that kind of thing.

You just released your new album “Awakening” has this gone down with your fans and the press?
Yeah it’s going down extremely well! I think any negativity that has been said is like “Well this sounds like their last CD but better”, I’m like ok? I think what they’re trying to say is some people were expecting us to reinvent the wheel but we aren’t going to change our sound we don’t want to upset out fans because they love it. I think the critics want us to do something artsy or something but if you want awesome music to party to with awesome lyrics, if you liked our band before you’ll love the new record.

How does playing here compare to playing in America? You play bigger shows in America, why do you think that is?
It’s crazy because we played here last time and had about 150 people turn up but tonight’s almost sold out, it’s like a 700 capacity room too. To see that progression over here is amazing, we love it over here, we’re talking about coming back really soon we want to make sure everyone here knows we love them. We tour America a few times a year so why not do that here? We’re working on it.

What’s your favourite song from the new album and why?
It’s really weird because every time I listen to it I find a new favourite but I have to say one of my favourite accomplishments is the last song on the album “Meet Me at the Gates” which is like 8 minutes long. We wanted to write a really epic song that had a bunch of really cool parts that weren’t boring so it didn’t drag on, but we managed to keep it interesting with tones of emotion and we’ve never done it before so I think I’m most proud of that.

How did you find writing and recording this album compared to the others?
I’m in a different headspace than I was before. There’s definitely an element of the struggle we’re going through in there, we’ve been trucking along getting bigger and bigger. It’s a struggle, its hard work, I only see my parents once every few months so I had to get that down on the paper to let people know there’s a struggle we have. There are some mistakes that I’ve made and I had to go back and re-evaluate myself and that’s all in there. It’s a lot more personal and tackles specific events that if you listen to it people will appreciate that as it’s telling a real story.

How have the shows been so far?
Oxford was cool, a lot better than we expected because we’d heard rumours that oxford is a college town and they don’t really know how to party at shows but they did great and there was loads of kids there. London sold out a month in advance, You Me At Six were playing down the road aswell, that in itself was an assurance it was going to be my favourite show. The kids were going mental, it sounds cliché but they were really losing their minds and singing as loud as they could. I lost 2 shirts that night because I got in the crowd and they tore them off it was insane.

You have Pierce the Veil and Motionless in White with you on tour with you, have you ever toured with these guys before?
We toured with Motionless in White on festivals in the US, we didn’t get to know them so this tour we’re sharing a tour bus, it’s like sharing your home with somebody for a few months and we’ve fell in love with them we’re so glad to be on tour with them.

What are your plans when the tour comes to an end?
My fiancé actually tours in her band “Lights” so I’m going to go on tour with her for 10 days, we start our US headliner a bit after that so its busy, busy, busy.

What do you do to keep yourselves entertained on tour?
I started watching the walking dead series, I have a lot of movies on my laptop, I Skype with my fiancé, we go to Starbucks. Some of the guys have been playing tour ball which you play with a drum stick and a tennis ball, they have all these rules that they just keep making up ha ha and it’s been too cold with that today. You just keep busy man most of the day is based around the internet and messing about.

You wanted to have guest vocalists on the album why did that not happen?
Well some of them didn’t work out due to schedules not allowing them because they were on tour, a couple other ones the label didn’t release them which is weird because we were stocked and the person was stoked but the label was like “yeah not gunna happen”. It shouldn’t be like that as friends it should be like “Dude come sing on my record for sure” without all these polotics.

Where do you see your band in a year’s time?
I’d hope that our band will keep growing; I’m hoping the fan base will get bigger and we’ll keep making music. I hope we’ll keep changing people’s lives and be good role models for these kids, a lot of people don’t realise that but we want to be a good example to them.

Do you feel illegal music downloading is hurting your career?
It’s a different day and age, it took a while for people to accept it but its here and until the CIA comes up with a genius way to stop it, it’s not going anywhere. They can’t get into your show for free though so playing shows and having kick ass merchandise for them to buy. We’ve had an idea with our album we put together patches and exclusive merchandise that you can’t get anywhere else and it’s catching on.

One last random question, If you had to be either a zebra or a giraffe which would you be and why?
A giraffe for sure, I love banana’s and they’re high up so I’d be a giraffe definitely.

Thanks for your time, is there any message for your fans reading?
Keep telling your friends about our band, it’s the best way for us to grow and to get the word out. Get our new record and we love you all so much.

Interview by James Webb