Through most of 2008 Blessthefall didn't have a lead vocalist but since then, with new recruit BB Bokan; they've picked up right where they left off and are now stronger than ever.
With sold out shows in their home state of Arizona, and a second album released in only a matter of days; I caught up with this enthusiastic group just before they embarked on their headlining tour across Europe.


R13: You're currently signed to Fearless Records, what do you have to say about this?
BB: Well, we signed to them a couple of years ago now, and it's been awesome; they do such a great job down there and their all very hands on and take all our opinions very seriously, we all worked really well together; especially in promoting the record and ideas for tours, and all that stuff.
We all kind of put our brains together.

R13: So, 'Awakening' has just been released, how are you feeling; are you glad with the response you got?
BB: It's been awesome; this industry is so up and down, bands disappear all the time and then they come back, and who knows.
It's honestly like awesome to put out a record and do better than our last. We jumped 25 spots higher on the billboard, our last one was like at 56 this ones like at 31, so it's amazing to see that progression. We're not blown up massively, but two years ago we had a headline in London and played to 200 people, and now we sold this place out (London Relentless Garage) 638, a month ago. We could have maybe have gone bigger.
I know You Me At Six where playing in London tonight. We have a lot of cross over fans its crazy, I mean kids could have gone there, and kids were even saying, ah I had to go to this show instead, or they came here instead and it's just awesome to see that we can do this well, with such a popular band playing in the same city.

R13: How does 'Awakening' differ from 'Witness'?
BB: It's a bigger monster; we took our sound that we found and just built on it. Its bigger and better, the melodies are better, it's got kind of a raw sound to it which is really cool, it doesn't sound like it's very digitally produced, and a lot of kids noticed that too and were like "man it's so raw, it hits you really hard" and I'm like cool, awesome.

R13: After Mike Frisby's departure, you completed your line up with the addition of Elliot Gruenberg; has his addition to the band made any difference to your sound?
BB: Elliot's a great guitar player; he has some big shoes to fill. Mike played a real big part on stage and off, and he's one of our brothers and we wish him well but, Elliot we've toured with a couple times and he was in a band called Before Their Eyes, and rite a way we were like let's call Elliot. And he shreds, so him and Eric can harmonise riffs together, something that we've never been able to do before, like technical riffs, stuff like that, which makes our band that much even better.
I can't even wait until the next album, so then we can really do something crazy, because he was in the band a little bit before we started, we were half way through the album when he joined. He's a great musician and a good kid.

R13 Out of the ones you released, which do you feel got the strongest response.
BB: It's been crazy they have all had great responses, promised ones and bottomfeeder had such good responses, especially live; live its like insane, especially now the records out, kids know the songs and its cool on this tour seeing how we started playing at the beginning of the tour no one knew it, and were just like oh cool and partying, and then we played our older songs they knew them, and now the records out; slowly but surely more and more people are singing along and stuff. It's awesome.
I think I want to say it's pretty equal; bottomfeeder probably gets a little bit more as it's been out a bit longer.

R13: So, you've done the UK before haven't you?
BB: Yep
R13: So, how does it feel to be back?
BB: Amazing, we've been looking forward to this day the whole tour. It's cool cause it's like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, Europe is awesome, mainland Europe, there were some shows that were insane man that were so cool, Paris last night was amazing, but we all couldn't wait to get to the UK, as all our shows are doing so well, all the kids are just as awesome here as they are out there, it's just something about being here, maybe its cause they can all speak English, and we can order a sandwich with no onions on it. (Laughs)

R13: So which show is the one you've been most looking forward to?
BB: London, this is our first one that sold out like a month ago, and we were all like holy crap that's incredible, that's going to be insane.

R13: Are there any countries you've not yet toured but would like to?
BB: Let's see, we've been to almost everywhere, we haven't done a South East Asia tour, we're actually going to go there later this year, so that's going to be a treat. We've been lucky enough to be able to go across the world and have fans everywhere, its unreal.

R13: How do US fans and Europe fans compare; who are the most hardcore?
BB: You know what, US has some gnarly places, but I feel like when we get here kids haven't seen us in like a year, so they just lose their minds. They're in line early, and some say they've been here since noon and I'm like what...!?? So I feel they are more excited as they don't get to see us as often.
We love it out here, we honestly do; we're actually working on coming back a lot sooner than we planned so we'll see.
The thing is, we want to build a fan base here the way we have in the States, and it's working and it's cool to see more and more people getting into your music, and hopefully we'll be around more often.

R13: Have you had any strange experiences involving a fan(s) or any strange touring experiences?
BB: Of course, a lot of them (laughs).
One time I was trying to pee out the back of the van while we're moving on the highway, really fast, and I opened the door whilst Eric's holding my belt, and I stepped out on to the trailer and I started to pee, and the wind blew the pee all up into our faces, we have it on video it's on one of our blogs.

R13: What has been your best touring experience so far?
BB: So far since I joined the band or just in general?
R13: Yep, so far?
BB: So far, damn, there's been so many amazing ones, I'd say one of them was to go to Russia and playing Moscow and St. Petersburg; just seeing hundreds of kids out there, can barely speak English singing your songs. It's just unreal.

R13: You recently took part in the All Stars tour and recorded your album instead of participating in Warped Tour 2011; do you feel this was the best choice?
BB: You know, I don't regret it at all, it was an amazing tour, it was more personal, whereas warped tour there is loads of stages.

R13: Would you like to play Warped Tour?
BB: Yeah. Warped tour there is so much competition, there's bands like Devil Wears Prada, Asking Alexandria, August Burns Red, just all these bands in our genre, and if we go on at the same time as any of these bands, our fans are like split in half.

R13: You worked again with Elvis Baskette on your new album, what was it like to work with him again?
BB: Awesome, he's like our brother man, it's like going back into the studio with one of your best friends, it's really relaxed, we're like "what's up dude, alright cool let's get started".
We all know what we want from each other, we know how to push and pull, what buttons to push, and this time me and Elvis got to sit in a separate room, while they were recording and we got to do pre-production on vocals, which I've never done before, which was really cool. And he was like show me all your ideas show me all your lyrics, let's work on them, let's get them solid, and then we did a week of that and then we just banged all the vocals out in the actual studio.

R13: If you were to collaborate with anyone, who would it be and why?
BB: Probably Michael Jackson, Alive or dead (laughs). I'd probably say I'd love to collaborate with my Fiancé, she's an amazing singer.
R13: Is she a musician as well?
BB: Yeah, she's got this amazing voice, and she can play piano and guitar and all that stuff.
R13: maybe a duet?
BB: One day, I think that would be something really special. And we want to do it, we talked about it and we want to do it for us and not for all the fans, and if we did something, it be because we both wanted to.

R13: Tell me a bit about your experience playing the Daily Habit?
BB: Oh yeah, it was rough, it wasn't our best performance, we're not a very good TV band.
R13: You'll always have good ones and bad ones though won't you?
BB: Yeah, I'm so grateful that we go to do it, as it was great exposure, but we got woken up at 7 in the morning and we had to start performing at 10am and I can barely talk at 10am, so my voice was like shot and I wasn't too happy with my performance. We're a very crowd energy driven band, and there was like maybe twenty people, and there were some fans there but they were like off screen.

R13: When featuring on Punk Goes Classic Pop you covered "Dream only" by Aerosmith, why them and that song?
BB: It's just an amazing song and it's something so different from Blessthefall, and we just didn't want to scream and sing like every other band in our genre, who just go like oh we'll pick a pop or rock song, and we'll scream or sing and throw in a breakdown. We were like let's keep to the original but give it a bigger sound to it, Eric did some crazy soloing, and we had crazy really big sounding drums, and it just made it sound like a bigger anthem.

R13: Who do you draw your influences from?
BB: you know, band wise, I'd have to say Blink 182 they're my favourite band, growing up and seeing how they answer questions in interviews and the way they are on stage, and how much fun they have. They just don't take themselves very seriously. And their like massive, they're not rock stars they just wear like t-shirts and shorts and skate shoes. They are great role models, they're not trying to be cool, they don't wear sunglasses inside and all that stuff their just them. It's awesome to see them back.

R13: How does the writing process work for Blessthefall is it all individually done or do you work as a group together?
BB: Eric usually writes a very good amount, he'll come to the table with a song or a whole bunch of guitar ideas, and be like ok guys check this out, let's map this out together, and we'll put the song together, good for me and then me and Jared will sit down, and I'll put melodies and the lyrics down and work with Jared on the screaming parts and stuff, it's a good process.

R13: What are your plans, for 2012?
BB: to get married and take over the world. Getting married is a pretty big deal so been working on that, and obviously the record has just come out and we got a whole other cycle, we're going to do a tour with a band called We Came as Romans.
R13: Heard of them, they're good.
BB: Yeah, they have blown up, it's really weird. It crazy seeing bands come out of nowhere, like them and Asking Alexandria, they have literally come out of nowhere.

R13: There are so many bands in the same genre, you have to try push the boat out don't you?
BB: Yeah, and that's what we're trying to do, not to give into any clichés, like what the scenes are doing, we try and stay away from the overly produced vocals, auto tuning and stuff, or the techno breaks downs, like Enter Shikari started that off, their one of the first bands to do that, and like everyone took it and copied it.

R13: If you weren't making music, what would you be doing?
BB: I'd probably be training, killer whales at a water park.
R13: Really?
BB: Yeah, I think that would be really awesome. I'd love to do marine biology

R13: Describe Blessthefall's sound (in 3 words)
BB: Gnarly, Epic, Shredded.

R13: For first time listeners what can they expect from a show?
BB: lots of energy, some kid asked me the other day if our shows were pretty violent and he wasn't sure if his mum would let him go, I don't think its violent, they just get crazy, I mean we like it to get crazy, we hate barrier's, I just love when everyone is close and feeling it.

R13: Lastly, what would be your advice to bands starting out who want to break into the Hardcore/ Metalcore scene?
BB: Practice, practice, practice, be yourselves, don't think you have to do something that's trendy right now because it's trendy right now, it's the band that goes this way that stands out. A lot of bands came out doing exactly what we were doing but watered down. So I feel like we had to stick to grass roots and we route more metal notes rather than playing watering it down and playing basic chug breakdowns, we threw riffs in there and better vocal melodies, and stuff like that. It's hard to set yourself apart, we're growing slowly, as a lot of bands go up and see the top get the money then they fuck it up. I feel like we're gradually making our way and maybe one day we'll make Wembley.
R13: You'll get there.
BB: It'll be amazing, hopefully we can come back out here and do a really big support tour then come back out here and headline. Even if we could come out a do an even bigger tour and reach more people, as it's hard to do that. I feel like we are earning our respect rather than just shoving it down people's throats, than doing that something's cool right now, I think we'll get there.