With their new album ‘Condemned’ released at the end of last year and a tour in February supporting Tarja, Backseat Mafia caught up with Clint Bredin, lead guitarist and founding member of the British metalcore band Beneath The Embers.
Hey, first off, thank you so much for taking the time out from what must be some full on prep work for your upcoming tour with the legend that is Tarja to give me a glimpse into the Beneath The Embers mind, but if we could just rewind to the early days and the moment you met Lewis for the first time and Beneath The Embers was created, I’m just wondering, how did you guys meet and what was it that brought you both together and kept that connection strong?
So its myself (Clint Lead Guitar) and Spence (drums) who are the two founding members, we played in a covers project together for a good while before BTE and it was there where we decided to pursue original music. We started to write some stuff and it was Spence who discovered Lewy via Musical social media where Lewy had posted about wanting to join a Band. Lewys influences where in line with ours and he was local so I reached out to him and arranged a audition to one of our original songs to see what he was made of. The rest is history now!
Fairly early on you were signed to Metal Massacre Records which must have felt like a huge deal, what did it feel like to be picked up and signed to such a well respected label so early on in your career?
First it was my brothers original independent label ‘Oakfield Records’ that gave us our first opportunity and wanted to work with us to get the first EP out. My brother Luke had herd the first four songs in working form and wanted to support us getting it out there so pushed us hard to make it happen. Luke then wanted to concentrate on us as a band opened a purely ‘metal’ aspect of his little label which we are still with to this day. Luke like our sound engineer Josh are essentially band members for want of a better explanation. They are involved in all aspects of what we do and have been since the beginning but each one of us has a role to play, guitar, drums, sound engineering, record releasing etc etc to serve the wider BTE mission and team.
Your debut E.P, ‘Ashes’, was met with rave reviews. You must be so proud to have that in your arsenal and to be able to call it your own. On the back of that, it has been echoed in several reviews that you have a certain Maiden/Metallica esque about your sound. What would you say are your own personal main influences but also the main influences of the band as a whole. Do you all have pretty much the same tastes when it comes to your influences or are you all fairly eclectic in your preferences?
The bands personal musical tastes differ massively from American hard rock to black and death metal with everything in-between. There are of course some cross overs but two thirds of the band come from a certain generation so I will assume some of our pre programming will sound familiar in some way. We don’t write to fit anything or a sub genre we write what we like the sound of then just put it out there and hope people like it too.
The colossal ‘Condemned’ is upon us, and as you have now had a couple of months to let it settle in and soak up all the impressive reviews that have been rolling in for it, what is your favourite track on the album and are there any you cant wait to unleash into the live arena when you hit the road in February?
Personally I wouldn’t say I have a favourite song on the album, theres ones I liked recording, ones I love to play live and some I like to practise more than others. Its all relative to what we have going on. However I would say that the music to Condemned was written before Lewy joined and what he auditioned to. We recorded a version for the Ashes EP but it just wasn’t as good as the others at that time so didn’t get released. Im glad now it didn’t because that song was our beginning and is now the title track of our first full length album, so all thats pretty special in my opinion.
Touring with Tarja is a massive opportunity for you to reach out to bigger and more varied audiences, how did landing the gigs come about? How come you are only with her until Paris, it would have been awesome to see you travel across the continent on the full tour.
The Tarja opportunity is thanks to our management at Metal Music Bookings and the dates are just what we where offered at the time (2019) clearly COVID has caused this to roll to 2023. I would suggest at that time we where and I guess still are a little bit of a unknown entity at that level so this tour will allow us to put our stamp on a bigger stage and show people what BTE are all about.
This tour must surely have ignited the fires within the band and lit the touch paper in respect of playing live again, have you got any more tours in the pipeline or even any summer festivals on the horizon?
Short answer yes there are announcements inbound very soon so stay tuned to our socials and website www.beneathembers.com so you don’t miss anything!
Last but not least, just out of interest, what have been your top three albums for 2022?
Beneath The Embers – Condemned obs!
Mammoth WVH – Just wow live!
Mutiny Within – the whole back catalogue. There singer Chris is our producer and his vocal ability is off the scale, we love him and his music.
Thank you so much for taking the time out to touch base with me and let us into the Beneath The Embers world. I for one cannot wait to be front and centre in a few weeks’ time.
Make sure you come say hi at the Merch table! Clint.
Check out the bands recent single Set Me Free, below:
Find out more via the band’s Website or Facebook
Beneath The Embers support Tarja on her forthcoming UK tour:
Feb
- 1st – Glasgow – Garage
- 2nd – Wolverhampton – KK’s Steel Mill
- 4th – Manchester – Academy 2
- 5th – London – Electric Ballroom
- 6th – Paris – La Cigale
Tickets are available here
