Aug. 10, 2026

From Moscow to Bloodstock: Imperial Age’s Journey and Defiance in Metal

Show Notes
Transcript

In this episode, Pipeman interviews Ayo from Imperial Age at Bloodstock Festival. The conversation delves into the band's journey from Moscow to the UK, their genre-bending musical evolution, the significance of artistic freedom, and the realities of pursuing a music career independently. Ayo shares personal stories of risk, inspiration, and gratitude to fans, while also promoting an upcoming Kickstarter campaign for Imperial Age's new album.Main Topics Covered

Journey from Russia to the UK and Bloodstock Festival
The evolution and philosophy of Imperial Age's music
Genre bending and rejecting musical labels
The importance of loving the process in music and life
DIY approach and the challenges of independence
Details about the new album Kickstarter campaign
Gratitude to fans and the metal community

Key Discussions & StoriesBloodstock Festival Debut

Ayo describes moving to the UK after leaving Moscow due to the war against Ukraine, forming a new band lineup, and playing the main stage at Bloodstock as an "absolute dream" 00:39.
Pipeman welcomes Imperial Age to the Bloodstock "metal family" and praises the festival's sense of community 01:05.

Band Philosophy and Musical Evolution

Ayo explains Imperial Age's musical journey from symphonic power metal to a more genre-blending "powercore" sound, integrating breakdowns and extreme vocals 02:58.
Both discuss the freedom modern artists have to break out of traditional genre boxes and how every song on an album can have a different vibe or genre 04:07.

Rejecting Labels and Embracing Uniqueness

The conversation mocks the proliferation of hyper-specific subgenres in metal, emphasizing that what's most important is making music and having fun 05:08.
Pipeman and Ayo agree that true artistry comes from experimentation and refusing to be boxed in 04:35.

Artist Motivation and Going All-In

Ayo shares the turning point when music became a full-time pursuit, leaving behind tutoring and medical careers for the band's success, thanks to fan support 07:21.
The challenges and sacrifices of an independent music career are candidly discussed, including the importance of burning bridges and never having a fallback plan 09:03.

The Role of Fun and Authenticity

Both agree that fun and passion are crucial; a lack of enjoyment means audiences and competitors will notice 10:02.

New Album and Fan Support

Ayo reveals details about Imperial Age's Kickstarter campaign for their forthcoming album, highlighting its genre-bending nature and the importance of fan pledges for independent artists 10:44.

Notable Quotes

“When the war against Ukraine began, we said fuck it and left the country…we found a new band with a British and Italian lineup, and since then it's just been going up and up.” — Ayo 00:39
"Our country is the UK now." — Ayo 01:51
“Everybody today is genre bending…maybe you could call it something like powercore…to be honest, I don't even know how to call it.” — Ayo 02:58
"Being an artist is all about experimentation and just playing what you feel, not because, oh, we have to go by this guideline of this subgenre." — Pipeman 03:42
"I think that you should always do only the things which are fun for you." — Ayo 10:02
"Never have plan Bs." — Ayo 09:03
"We are running a Kickstarter campaign right now for our new album…kickstarter.imperialage.com. Every pledge is welcome." — Ayo 10:44

Resources & Links Mentioned

Imperial Age Kickstarter campaign: kickstarter.imperialage.com 10:56
Follow Imperial Age on all streaming platforms and social media: Search "Imperial Age"

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Hi, you love done too here that's.

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True for ce Wow, crazy young. This is the pipe

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Man here on the Avengers Pipe Man W four c

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Y Radio and I'm here with Hi.

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I'm aar from Imperialasian. Nice to see you.

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Nice to see you here at fucking Bloodstock. Man, that's amazing.

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How what was the journey to get the Bloodstock for

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your band?

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Well, Janey and myself, we are originally from Moscow, Russia. Yeah,

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so when the war against Ukraine began, we said fuck

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it and left the country and we basically lost our

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entire band. Then we were granted settlement here in the UK.

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We found a new band with the British and Italian lineup,

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and since then it has been going up and up

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and up, and here we are. This is a great

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honor for us. It's our first major festival performance and

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it's here at Bloodstock main stage. Fucking dream.

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What a fucking great start. Because this is what I

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do all kinds of festivals. This is my favorite because

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we're just a family here. We're a metal community. It

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doesn't matter where you're from, who you are, what you do.

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We're just family and that's what's cool about being at Bloodstock.

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So welcome to the family.

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I agree, and the biggest family for us to have

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always been our fans, like to whom we literally owe everything.

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And we're so grateful for all the people who support

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us and continue supporting. You brought us here, guys, and

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we're literally sitting here talking thanks to you, guys. Thank you.

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That's very cool. And I gotta tell you how badass

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it is that you decide fuck it and just left

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your country left everything behind.

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Not our country. Our country is the ukto.

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Exactly see, what a fucking great attitude. I love that,

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you know, and I think you'll find what I find

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here too, is like I love it fucking here. The

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people are so cool, the country so cool. The only

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thing I like here is the bipolar weather.

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But quadrupolar I think totally right.

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You know. It's like when I packed to come over

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here and do the festivals, like I got packed for

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all four seasons.

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We live in the countryside and the weather changes every

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thirty thirty minutes. I even made videos about it, I though, right,

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it's from sunshine to a hailstorm easily.

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Yeah, you could have all four seasons in one hour. Absolutely, Yes,

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I love it, So tell me a little bit for

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the listeners about your band of how us the artist

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would describe it, not from a genre standpoint, but in general,

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because it sounds to me like because you're also mixing

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different nationalities, that you're probably blending different types of music

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to make your own unique sound.

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Well everybody today general bending. But basically, we started off

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as a symphonic power metal band, and on the new

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songs that we have, we have started like really introducing

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the modern stuff, so we dropped the guitar tunings, we

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introduced some breakdowns, some some extreme vocals, So right now

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it's I don't know, maybe you could call it something

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like PowerCore, you know, when when you have some anthemic

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power metal stuff, but then you have insane breakdowns, you know,

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and you have riffs and all types of vocals and

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and the symphonic element. So to be honest, I don't

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even know how to call it.

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I don't I don't even want you to call it

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a label because I hate the fucking labels. You're an artist.

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You shouldn't be boxed in being an artis it's all

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about experimentation and just playing what you feel, not because

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oh we have to go by this guideline of this subgenre,

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you know. So that's what's cool about it. And you're right,

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there is a lot of general genre, but Brent the

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blend nowadays that basically I like it better because it

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means every band can be unique.

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I agree completely. I also think that today, more than ever,

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you can actually spend the entire genre of metal and

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go beyond it and feel fine, fine with it. Now

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maybe on any song, Like if you have like twelve

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songs in an album, you know, why do not make

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them all slightly different genre?

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I love that.

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Yeah, why do you have to be stuck in a

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single box? You know? This is the attitude And I

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really like this about twenty twenty six when it's fine, you.

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Know, yeah, because you're an artist. You're not this artist.

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You're an artist, so you could have different vibes that

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you're feeling when you write a song, you know.

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Yeah, and when people ask us what genuinely is a metal.

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Yeah exactly, that's all let's needed.

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That's the only one definite thing I can say.

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Right because nowadays I think there's way to make micro

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genre subgenre just all fucking man.

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Yeah, I agree completely, Like what what what? What was

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your sub sub sub sub subgenre. Come on, mate, we're

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just having fun.

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Right exactly. You know it's funny. I used to do

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a joke on my show a lot of times in

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interviews and basically have the band if they were gonna

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make up their own genre, what would they name it?

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Because that's about as ridiculous as it is now that

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it's so specific that maybe one band fits to that genre,

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so you might as well make up your own name.

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Yeah. Also, like they have like they start starting inventing

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like Disney characters, and you have old sorts of metal

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just based on one single character. Oh, come on.

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Right, just make it music, make music. Yeah. I think

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Allie put it best when he was being given ship

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for changing up Bring me a Rise, and it's like.

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Why did I heard his lost album?

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Fuck exactly?

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Oh fucking love to humanize the song. Fucking amazing.

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I heard the fucking last the first song of this

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last album. I was like, fuck, they went back to

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death Car. But that's what you could do. The next

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sound may be completely fucking different. And he said, why

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do I want to write the same song over and

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over again?

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Agreed, that's what inspires us as well. Like one song

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can be an acoustic ballad. Another song can be a poem,

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metal anthem. The third song can be completerally death course song.

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All in one album. You could. You were not allowed

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to do that before, you know, you wouldn't get away

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with it.

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Today it's fine, exactly. There was I remember once there

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was his arts I was managing, and I brought her

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a sony and they were asking what genre, Oh, she

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can perform in any genre? No, and it's that's basically

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they want you to be put in a box man

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and that's not where artistry should be. There should be

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no rules, no boundaries, you know. And so that's what's

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great about your band, and that's what brought you here

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to Bloodstock. And I guess because so many bands here

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are unique and you know, you can't compare one to

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the other. They're all great bands and that's part of

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the metal family.

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I completely agree, I can say.

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That, right right. So what was that one moment in

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your life that you knew music was your life?

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I think that was when we were sitting just COVID

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just began and people all around us were losing their

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jobs and Janey and myself it was January twenty twenty

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and that's when the band started getting off with Legacy

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of Atlantis, and we were just sitting there realizing that

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we can quit our day jobs. And back then we

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were working as tutors in Russia. In Moscow, I was

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teaching English and she was teaching biology.

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I could see why because you have great.

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Because she's a doctor by education, a medical doctor, and

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she gave up the doctor's career just to play metal nice,

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And we were just sitting there. We no longer need

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students because the amount of music sales and merch sales

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that our fans have been providing for finally made it

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possible for us to live from the band. And it

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has been like that ever since. And we're eternally grateful

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for actually being able to live this dream thanks to

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our fans. And this has been our dream since childhood.

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You see. That's so exciting to me too that you

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were able to do it.

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And we are an independent band. We don't have a label,

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we don't have a manager, we don't have a booking agent.

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Wow, that's a testament to how great you are as

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an artist, because that's not easy to accomplish, you know.

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And I also attributed to because I'm also a motivational

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speaker that you just decided fuck it, you know, no

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other choice but to succeed, because when you have something

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to fall back on, you always do.

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Speaking of motivation, I'm a firm believer that you should

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burn the bridge when you reach you know, That's what

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I'm saying. Yeah, nothing to fall back shit, never have

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plan b's. I mean, we arrange all our lives around this.

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We don't have kids, We never had a proper job,

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although we could have. You know, you know, we are

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prepared to tour anytime. And I can tell yourself for everybody,

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like it's totally fine because it is fucking hard, and

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you have to sacrifice everything on the altar and nothing

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is guaranteed, so you have to sacrifice everything, but most

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probably you're not going to get anything in return. And

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you have to love the music so much, so much

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to be able to do ninety percent of the time

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boring business stuff that has nothing to do with the music,

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just to be able to spend that ten percent of

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time doing what you love. And if you don't love it,

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then you don't love it enough, you know.

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I always say, if you're not having fun doing that

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and doing this, like playing the gigs or write in

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the music. You're in the wrong industry because the rest

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of it and it could not be fun at all,

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you know.

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I think that you should always do only the things

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which are fun for you, Yeah, because otherwise you will

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be out competed immediately by people who are having fun exactly,

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because if you're having fun, you just gonna do it

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without getting paid twenty four hours a day. How can

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you out compete that? You can't impossible.

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And for me the listener and your audience, like, I

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can tell if you're having fun, and then I'll have funds.

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To transform Motion's great fun today.

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See like and Bloodstock is a great place to have fun,

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isn't it? But it's amazing. Tell everybody how they can

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connect you on socials buy your merch because they can't

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listen to my show, and let's say buy your mind.

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You're running a kickstarts to campaign right now for our

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new album. As of today morning, when I lost chest,

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it was eighty two percent funded forty four three hundred

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something pounds. Now it's a fifty four thousand. So it's

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kickstarts at impure lays dot com. Every pledge is welcome.

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We already working on this new album after this festival run.

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So it's going to be absolutely insane, something we've never

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done before, as I told you, with all the Shanter

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banding and everything. So yeah, and any streaming platforms, all

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social media, just type in parallels, you'll see it.

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I can't wait to hear the new music. And I

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say everybody should check it out, not only because you're

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a great artist, because of how you're doing it and

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you're totally doing a DIY and you're making it happen.

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Why because of what you said, Because you're having fun

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and you're true artists. So thank you for that. Thank

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you for playing at Bloodstock, and thanks for being on

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the Adventures of pipe Man.

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Thank you for your time man, and thanks to all

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the fans who keep supporting us.

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Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipelin. I'm

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w for CUI Radio.

From Moscow to Bloodstock: Imperial Age’s Journey and Defiance in Metal

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