PipemanRadio Interviews Cage Fight at Bloodstock Open Air 2025

0:04 Hey, you have done too. Yes, that's true. For see ww cray you. This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c y Radio and I'm here with. Well from kg fright play base in kg fright. So pleasure to be here. Don't be sorry. You just did a fucking killer set here at Bloodstock Man too. Kind man, too kind. But yeah, yeah, absolutely loved it today. Unbelievable, great crowd, pretty grateful to Bloodstock Fini. Yeah, I mean listen, I have heard a buzz around here in the media area about. How great your set was out there. So what was it like looking at the crowd so early and they're just fucking up?

0:51 Yeah? Really like enjoying your set. Yeah, just everyone had their coffee this morning. What can I say? They were just everyone was fucking on it ten forty five and there are no excuses, circle pits and fucking all sorts. It was great. Unbelievable. Blow your mind at a festival at ten thirty and ten three and. Circle t Yeah, it blows my mind because I just exhausted watching them, let alone actually fucking doing it and being there. Right, it's great. Yeah, that's a testament to your music and why you're here at Bloodstock. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, like was so so grateful to the response that we've had. And Bloodstock for us is such an important festival to us and just as people as well as the band, and we love it and we love the community that they've built here as well.

1:35 It's absolutely fantastic. So have you played Bloodstock before? Yeah? So we did the Sophie Stage in twenty twenty two, okay, and that was again, that was unbelievable, Like we couldn't believe how many people turned out for us. It was about forty degrees and it was like one of the the hottest blood Stock I've been to still, just just like you just sweat and you don't stop. When you're on stage. You're in the zones. You don't even know till afterwards sometimes and you're like, oh, yeah, I have. To die, that's it. Yeah, exactly, you just got you just go for it. I mean, we played in Germany a few weeks ago and I think it was thirty five degrees and the stage was in the sun and we were just like melting And I don't normally eat before I go on stage, but I had something to each I was like, I'm not being the guy who passes out on stage, like it was so hot.

2:23 You don't want to stand there. You know, we're fucking heavy metal band. You don't just stand there and do your thing. You've got a move, You've got to get involved. And I thought, I'm not being the guy who collapses, right. I do hell First every year and it is always so freaking hot, And I like, I wonder how bands like Garry even play like that. Yeah, oh god, don't. I don't envy them wearing all that gaup. I'm unbelievable. Fair fucking play to him, to be fair. Right, So what you've played here twice now, yep, of course you've known about. What do you love about Bloodstock? Love the community. I love the fact that everybody here is so friendly. Like I was watching I hear a couple of years ago, watching Typsicon playing a koic frost set, and the guy just collapsed in front of me, and the guy stood next to me just ran over and got medics pretty much instantly, and it took a little while, but security got in and the medics got in and they helped him out, and they got him out and one of the guys said to him, you know, like, you saved that guy's life because he could have fucking died.

3:22 And for me, I stood there and obviously it's one of those things we don't know what to do. And this guy acted. He didn't even think. I thought, and he didn't think. He just acted and he went and got help. And yeah, and it's that. It's the community. It's every they didn't even know each other. It's just you help each other out, and everybody's here to look ad for each other. Someone falls down in the pit, you pick them up. Whatever it is. Everybody here is good people. And I love it. You know that their slogan is metal by the fans, for the fans, And I think that's so true because at the end of the day, we're all metal fans first, before we're musicians, before we're doing pressed or whatever we're doing, we're all here because we love the music. It's the thing that it's the tie that binds us, as it were, it's the thing that brings us all together. And that rings really really true at Bloodstock, there is no diluting it.

4:02 It's twenty five thousand people and that's it. Twenty five thousand die hard metal fans and no one else. And I love that. I do festivals all over the world, and to me, this is the one true metal festival. Yeah. Yeah, and the fact. That's DIY even makes it more of a true metal festival. Yeah. But you're right. People have this concept of metal heads who we're scary, angry people, and it's like the exact opposite. You want scary angry people go to a country show. You're so right for all the black clothing and the black hair and the fucking moody looks, and it's just not representative of the people and who they are.

4:42 It's catharsis, isn't it. You come to a metal show because you realize that your life can be fucking tough sometimes, and you go to a metal show because if you actually feel better, you get it out of your system, and we love it, and you think of the work They do have metal to the masses as well. But it's amazing. Bloodstock is an unbelievable community, but they're now fucking planting that community in other communities to create these unbelievable sub areas of the UK where now I'm from North Hartfordshire. I grew up ten minutes from Club eighty five, who run Metal to the Masses hitching And there's seven bands playing this weekend who are from Club eighty five that have been through Club eighty five. They're playing the main stage, they're playing the Sophie Stage, they're playing the new Blood stage.

5:24 And that is testament to the work that Metal to the Masses does. It creates that community, It creates those that new era of musicians where, you know, if we're not going to all get consumed by AI, we need kids to start playing guitar and learning the drums and playing bass, and nobody's going to owe what they are if we're not exposing them at music venues to this kind of music and bringing it through and building these communities. So yeah, I absolutely love it. Can't be hardly enough for Bloodstock, to be honest. What you just said is what I love most too. Is like, if they didn't do Metal to the Masses or anything like that in any metal community anywhere, there would be no more metal. You know, you one those younger bands and give them exposure and a chance. And I've talked to a lot of those bands, and the most amazing thing about those bands that play military masses is that they all think they weren't gonna win. They all think the other band was gonna win. They're not in competition. They all cheer each other on, and then when they play here, they're like so like grateful, you know, opposed to absolutely entitled.

6:34 Yeah. Yeah, And the competition is so good, it's so fierce. Every year we go to the we go to the final, and you sit there and you're like, well, who the fuck is it gonna be? Which one is it? Because there's so many good bands every year they get all the way to the final one. The thing is that so many bands that I've seen people. Get really disheartened on social media when they've been eliminated in the semi finals, for instance. But I've seen bands who get eliminated in the first round who end up playing Bloodstock anyway because their music was so good. It's not the only route to play in Bloodstock. There are other channels and all the bands who play are phenomenal. I would recommend talking to someone the other week and I said, what advice would. You give to the young bands coming through? And if you want to play remotely heavy music and.

7:19 I'm not talking about metal, I'm talking about anything that's alternative rock onwards all the way through to extreme metal. Go and play Metal to the Masses. I've seen soft rock bands play there who blow me away and they've won loads of new fans over and they become part of the scene and part of the community. And you better believe it. That Metal to the Masses is filled with promoters who probably work at that venue and they'll probably want to book you, and they might work at another venue and they're scouting for new bands. So it's become part. Of the scene, become part of the energy and really put in and the more you put into it, the more you get out. And what I love too is if they don't make it through, the judges give them tips to get better. Yeah, like where the bands they dog do today. They didn't make it through last year, but they played this year because they followed.

8:07 The tips that were given to them. And then it is such an important part of it, because where do you get that guidance from Unless your dad was in a metal band, who's going to really put their arm around you and say, oh, this is what you're great? But I suggest you do this and listen. And I wish that we'd had something like that when I was a teenager, because we turned up and we played bang average show after bang average show because there was no one there to go look hold on. This is how this works, and you should do these bits and mail to the message as soon as the band's well. Even when a band's successful, they're more than welcome to come to you. And I've judged many times and they say, you know, what can we do to improve it'say, okay, I'll be brutally honest with you because I like you, because I want. To help you. This is what I think you need to do to take the next step. And then you see those bands come back the next year and you're like, oh my god.

8:53 Maybe they didn't listen to me, but maybe they listened to the next guy. Maybe they listen to someone else, but they've had all of that wisdom, they've all all of those people who have said I've been there, I've done it, and this is what I think works. And when they listen and when they take that on board, it's a community at the end of the day, and people on there to kick your band down or to speak badly of them, they're there to help you to progress because high Tide races all ships, and we want all metal bands to be unbelievable because we all. Benefit absolutely one. What's next for you, guys. We dropped a new single, I Hate Your Guts on Wednesday. It's not about my president, that would be too easy.

9:35 We dropped our Wednesday. We released our own beer on Saturday last week, so pick your Fighter beer now available through Radio City Beer Works. Got a Hot Sauce drop in next week, and more exciting stuff coming in the future. So we're really excited to get some new music out there. To everyone. I love all your song names are fucking phenomenal. Why fucking about? Why beat around the bush? You know, it's just that this is it does what it says in the tin. This is what we're going for, and we want our music to be catharsist for people. Everybody's been through fucking shitty times and had shitty experiences, and we want everyone to know that we've had that too, and this is what worked for us. This is how we came through, and a lot of the lyrics we've done recently it's about resilience. It's about overcoming the really dark shit, the horrible shit, but also facing it head on and calling it what it is and saying it how it is and calling it out.

10:25 What I love about this is I wish people that were not into metal actually read the lyrics of songs because they all think it's the opposite. But it's very empowering, it's very cathartic, it's therapy, and it's positive. It's not negative like people think. They twist it around because maybe they hear a word or two, or because they look, oh you're you look evil or you know exactly. Yeah, bands like Slayer, who I went to their first show ever. You sang out with them and we would sit there and laugh that people thought they were actually devil worship, yeah, or pro war and. They were speaking against all that shit.

11:06 Yeah yeah. And as soon as you as soon as people hear that vocal, they think, oh it's inaccessible, Oh this isn't for me. This is negative, angry music. And yeah, maybe sometimes it is negative. Maybe sometimes it is angry, but also sometimes it is positive and it is all about just one thing in front of the other. Sometimes perseverance is the best way to summ it up. And that's what we're all about. And that definitely sums up being a musician, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right, Like it's not easy. That's probably I would say if I were to give advice as a judge, that would be my number one. Piece of advice. Yeah. I always say it takes twenty years to become an overnight success in this business.

11:49 Yeah yeah, that's so. True, right, it's so true. For every time that you're successful in something, you're gonna get kicked down ten, fifteen, twenty times. It happens. And it's not how hard you get hit how many times you can go up and keep moving forward. We have all music stuff, whatever you want to do, whatever you want to do, fucking merchandise, press, doing the music, doing the front of house, whatever it is. You're gonna get shitty experiences. You're gonna have shit times, but it's all about just getting up, putting a fucking smile on your face, and. Then doing it again the next day. Because you love the music, you love the community, you love the people. No doubt. Well, I love that you bring us music that can help us through all these fucking rough times because right now, I never thought we would be worse than the eighties, okay, and I never.

12:38 Thought the songs in the eighties. All you had to do is switch the names and it would be relevant today. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, So thank you for giving me therapy and everybody else here therapy because but people don't realize about being out there in that pit. Is that's where you let it all out and you can smile and feel better. Yeah yeah, yeah, that's it, and that's what you know, that's kind of what we're here for. Really is it helps us, and if it helps everyone else along the way, then fucking the more the Maria. There it is. Well, thanks for being here at Bloodstock, thanks for all you do for the metal community, and thanks for being on the adventures apart then. Car and thank you very much for having me. It's been a pleasure.

13:20 You got it is. Michelle Kerr was my press officer for my entire fucking career here in the UK, my entire career with Machine. She recently passed away and it was a very, very sad day. And I can tell you the reason that I'm going to tell this story because she was family. She was Bloodstock family, she was heavy metal UK family. Most of the bears that you know and love you probably heard of because of that woman, right, there slive, knots, layer, machinehead, trivium kills which engage hey reed, you name it. She helped lift everybody up man. She helped lift everybody up, and in so many ways, she helped make this entire music scene, this incredible, beautiful community that lives here at bloodstock Man. She helped make it so. Ladies and gentlemen, please make some noise from Michelle Kerr.

14:32 Thank you for listening to the adventures of plate Man on w for CUI Radio.