RXPTRS at Download XXIII Donington Park - PipemanRadio Interview

0:04 Hey, you have learnt to true se Wow, crazy you. This is the pipe Man here on the Avengers Pipe Man W four c Y Radio, and I'm here with Raptors. I'm Simon, I'm in Sam, and I'm Harley Nice. The full gang, the whole gang's here. You know what part from that? You know what makes it difficult for press these days? I actually knew, but yeah, you know, sometimes you have to think a little bit. There's so many bands out there that bands like you have to do creative ship to have a band name.

0:48 You know, it's so true, it's so true. We make it kind of awkward for ourselves. But once you know it and the spelling, you'll you'll find it. You'll you'll you'll just keep coming back. Then. So my first question is how many press people have done interviews and say your name wrong or have no clue? You know what? The press has not been so bad. It's turning up at shows and everyone spelt it wrong like we've had We've had it in big lights before and it'd be like, there's no vowels in this, get that vowal out of here. It's uh so, I mean that it's more often than i'd care to get a comment.

1:29 But it's a good topic of conversation, I think. Exactly exactly because people people. I like people's interpretations as well. It's kind of fun because people will be like raptures. Now we're We're much more simple than that. We just like dinosaurs. So I was gonna say, is it like because you like Jurassic poet? It is? Literally, we were literally when we were coming up with the name we had I had a full book and had written names, and we were rowing them all around, filled this book, and we were trying to be clever about it, and we were taking into consideration things that would influence us and poems and movies and all of this kind of stuff, and we got so sick of it. By the end we'd gotten ages and we were like, we're like dinosaurs, raptors.

2:18 There it is, there, it is. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, let's let's not be clever about it. We just everyone loves on, I. Think, so I do ticket giveaways for a lot of festivals, So I think from now on that might be one of my contests that I do. If you can say their band name right, yeah, could win tickets to a festival. That yeah, that would be yeah. I think I think i'd be a good I'm sure there'll be many interpretations of it. Oh yeah, it would be. It would be so funny on my radio show to hear all the different interpretations. What do you think is the worst one you ever heard? Or the funniest one you ever heard? I know exact one is we eaten up in Edinburgh.

2:58 We are playing in Edinburgh. And. Quite often it'll be like r X pt E r S, or they'll add an O or an A or something in there. But this one put an E in it at the front. So we were were e rex erex? Were they horny or something? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, that's the after the watersheds the show. Yeah, so yeah, that one was particularly confused. We were like, that's new. Not even close. Yeah yeah, yeah, not even close. How do I think it's like an acronym? Like they think like they ask you, like, well, what does that stand for?

3:42 Yeah? Yeah. Initially when we first came back, people did say that what does the stand for? I don't Yeah, I couldn't even zen them off was the X. But basically I just thought if somebody saw the name would be really easy to google and people would find. Us very quickly. That is true though, right just type if you just. Typed in raptors, you're gonna get a lot of picture of dinosaurs exactly. So you're typing x PTRs, you're only gonna find us. And the only times I ever do talk about band names and interviews is like this because there's funny ship that happen. It's okay on ourselves, It's okay.

4:22 Hey listen whatever it takes nowadays to stand out above the crowd because there's so many bands out there, So if people are talking about it, they're gonna listen to your music, you know, for better or worse, exactly. So how does it feel to be here at download? It's insane. It's been absolutely incredible, and it's I mean it's only just beginnings and it's been insane. Playing our set to as many people that turned up was absolutely like life affirming. It was it's always anyone who's in a rock and metal band in the UK, this is the mac and this is the Holy Land. Yes, and so.

5:04 I think throughout the world because I'm from the state exactly, and I do festivals all over the US, UK and Europe. This is probably one of my favorite festivals to do for many reasons. It's not just that's the granddaddy and all this stuff, but how they treat you here. Yeah, that's huge. It is the Yeah, it's a whole. But it's not just the lineup. Obviously, the lineup is always awesome. It's it's it's the top top bollocks. But it's the Yeah, it's everything that comes with it, and it is that. It's the community that comes with exactly everybody that comes to download every year, like it's it's wonderful, so accepting of everybody, and you know a lot of people came to see us that maybe wouldn't have thought to have come seen as before, but left hopefully with a smile on their face as well.

5:54 I'm sure they did. So it's just to play to a download crowd as all has been the dream and because we are veterans ourselves, we come almost every year nice so to finally complete the dream. Is it weird to be on the other side of the stage. Absolutely absolutely, But it's, like Simon said, life affirming. You know, how did you guys get together? So we I mean we're all long term friends. That's important. Which is which is which is great? It was the one thing that we knew when we were beginning, that we knew the chemistry was already there, which is half the battle for a lot of bands. It's it's finding that that that niche that you have and and seeing everyone's again on the same way.

6:43 You're together all the time, like that you better get along. What's fricking hell? When yes, I mean you fan or bus and like you gotta do all that time, like you could kill each other. Well yeah, yeah, I mean we we come close. And but that's part of it. Like when when the cliche thing of saying no it is a family, families are dysfunctional too. We are truly, like I. Call it, it's like siblings, yes you know, yeah yeah, yeah, I wouldn't play in a band with my siblings. I'd probably kill them. Yeah, but we we So essentially we were all friends and we'd all played in bands or jammed with each other in other iterations. So me and Ian had been in a band together for years beforehand. You guys had jammed together as well, briefly and basically with our band.

7:36 We were got to a point where these guys were like like stepping in and we were like start a new a brand new project, and yeah it came together real quick nice, which yeah, it just it just felt right. And So for each one of you, who probably has a different answer, what was it that started your journey in not being even a musician, but in metal, in music to where you thought to yourself, this is what I need to do. I will go along the line because everyone will have a very different story. I mine was from stealing my older brothers records. Me too, Ah, yeah, honestly he had he had great taste when he was younger, and yeah, he's a family man now he's gone a little time because he when I was like six, I robbed Rage against the Machines, first album off him, and I was like, what's this I'm feeling. I was like, oh, it's a little bit of anger, It's a little bit of everything.

8:43 And yeah, even as a young age, I just loved then performing and and yeah, for me, I was like, this is something I want to pursue as far as I can go. H So me, I think for me bands like I think it was a Venge Sevenfold that really switched me over at the time. It was like I think the Foot like my first couple of gigs that I ever went to. I was like obviously experimenting with like what do I like? What do I not like? My first ever gig I went to was like snow Patrol. But then the second gig I went to was Avenged, and I was like, oh, here I am, Yeah, this is it. Here I am and yeah. That was the real turning point for me when when I've realized that, yeah, this is this is my people.

9:28 It's my people. So that was that's my answer, is Avenged. I think I used to get picked up every week when my dad's in and then he'd had a crank sy d in his pickup truck and it was just all of my favorite stuff. Now is stuff that he listened to nice I love And that's almost a little embarrassing, but I don't know, It's all good. It's it's normal nowadays. It's all dad rock. Now, it's normal. It's normal nowadays. I bring my kids and grandkids to metal festivals and put them in the pit, you know, so like that when I had and when I was a kid, no. For me, it was reading about Download Festival really and like Krang and Mount Hamma all the magazines two thousand and five Trivium. I saw a photo of that and was like, that's the coolest shit ever. And then yeah, my first big show was seeing Trivium and.

10:19 Love it from my area? Is it? Yeah? I live in South Florida, that's where we're from. Yeah, yeah, it was Trivian for me. I was like, cool, guitar is my thing and just lock myself in the bedroom playing guitar and to Trivium and yeah, and here we are and and we get to see Trivium tomorrow. Nice. Well, you guys fucking rock And you know what, I'm so happy you were here. A download and thanks for being on the Adventures of pipe Man. Thank you very much to thank you for listening to the Adventures of patemn on w for Cui regie no