The first heat of Metal 2 The Masses Ireland kicked off on Saturday the tenth with 6 kick ass bands hell bent on destruction, ripping the stage apart. On the night Within Without secured the crowd vote with a high octane performance that was one of the highlights of the evening. The judges vote went to Theories Divide who had a cracking level of crowd interaction.. The remaining bands, the ball crushing Victimised and the intriguing Words That Burn definitely pushed the winners hard and have to be in with a shout for this year’s wild card final. Damage Assessment and Crossfire definitely will take huge positives from their M2TM experience and can only get stronger in the years to come.
PlanetMosh had a quick catch up with Within Without and Theories Divide in the aftermath.
Within Without – Michael Murphy
For people hearing about Within Without for the first time. Tell us about yourselves?
Within Without formed in May 2014 in Dublin. While we call ourselves a ‘hard rock’ band, we are very much an amalgamation of many diverse genres with each band member bringing something different to the table. All four of us come from a very different place when it comes to writing and we try not to confine ourselves so it has lead to a very interesting and distinct sound. We’ve been gigging since the end of October, so not long at all, but we’ve been received so well by so many people, it’s been pretty staggering. We’ve played some great gigs with great bands around Dublin, and we’ve got some very exciting ones in the pipeline for 2015.
We’re hitting Westland Studios at the end of January to begin recording our debut EP with John O’ Kelly. We’re hoping to have that ready for release in April 2015.
This is your first time playing Metal 2 The Masses. How was your initial experience of the first step on the road to Bloodstock?
It’s been really cool.. We’re not the kind of band you’d normally associate with Bloodstock and for us thats was the main attraction of entering! For me especially, it’s always refreshing to see something slightly different at a festival like that and I think we’d actually fit in quite well! We also saw it as a great promotional tool. Getting through to the semi final on a crowd vote took us all by surprise I think, given the bands we were up against but it’s given us serious confidence for the future knowing that we can hold our own on a stage with bands that have been around a lot longer than us. The heat itself was so well run too so there was so little stress on us aside from having to just play. But we see it as just the first step in the competition so we’re just determined to turn the place upside down for the semi final!
Within Without won the crowd vote at Heat One, guaranteeing a Semi Final place. How did it feel getting to the next stage and what can we expect in the Semi from you?
It felt great actually! Especially since it was a crowd vote, we must’ve won people over on the night and that’s always a good thing to be able to do. We were surprised at winning but we knew we were up to the standard of bands so it was a nice shot in the arm to have people like what we do though to vote for us!
Well we should have our first batch of merch by then so there’ll be that anyway! We’re also hoping that our EP will be available by then. There’ll definitely be a couple of new songs mixed into the set that we have been working on recently. We’re currently in full scale pre-production for recording on January 23rd, then we’re hitting Mr Bradley’s in Cork with our friends The Devil Wants Her Swagger Back on the 24th and supporting Radio Room in Workman’s in Dublin on the 26th. After that, writing will be our focus. The four of us have so many ideas and half finished songs that we’re itching to get working on. 2015 is going to be very exciting for us.
Theories Divide – Garrett Muldowney
This is your second time playing Metal 2 The Masses and last year you finished runners up. How was your experience last year and how is this year’s competition shaping up?
Last years m2tm was a great experience for us as a band and we enjoyed every minute of it. Its always great playing with the top bands in the country and seeing the sheer amount of talent and diversity in the Irish metal scene today. The final was an incredible night and we didn’t get to bloodstock but we got the crowd vote which was awesome! Coming back this year even more determined.
Theories Divide were the judges choice at Heat One, guaranteeing a Semi Final place. How did it feel getting to the next stage and what can we expect in the Semi from you?
It was such a relief getting through the first stage. Even at these early stages the bands are all top notch and its so hard to have to go up against all of them. The semi we’re going to up the game again and hopefully bring an army of people down to make it a whopper gig. We unfortunately will need to get a new bass player between now and then but we’ll work our absolute asses off to make sure the performance is nothing less than top drawer from us.
Metal 2 The Masses Ireland Heat Two takes place on Saturday January 24th
Photos by Down The Barrel Photography for Metal 2 the Masses Ireland in association with Overdrive