Good evening, and thanks for the interview! I really enjoy reading, especially Tolkien, Norse Mythology, and general fantasy. I like exercising fairly regularly, and am partial to a game of Tetris!

I’m the lead guitarist (well I say lead guitarist, Micah and I share lead roles to an extent but I tend to be selfish and just write loads of solos for myself into songs!) and vocalist, and at the moment I do the majority of song writing. As I previously mentioned, Micah Douglas is the other guitarist in the band, and he does some backing vocals too occasionally. Harrison White plays drums, but he also makes some awesome contributions to song writing. Ben Janes is our bass player. He constantly insists my bass lines are too boring, and as such, he writes all of his own ones! But they sound good, so I can’t complain.

I’ve had a lot of bizarre musical phases in my life, some of which may be a shock! My first passion for music was in the Nintendo games I played when I was a child. Zelda, Pokemon and Mario all had excellent music! I got into classical music for a while as well, which is unsurprising as I spent my childhood playing Trombone. At one point I became a massive Japan geek, so I listened to a lot of Anime soundtracks, but directly before I got into metal, I listened to Indie/Pop rock I heard on the radio. Terrible, I know!

If I recall correctly, it was Inhuman Rampage by Dragonforce. They were the first Metal band I got into, probably because they brought together the video game music I love with the fantasy elements I’ve always enjoyed. Plus, they just seemed pretty damn cool! I don’t feel quite the same way any more, but I still think they’re a solid band.

My first was a Jackson JS30KE. It was only £200 if I recall correctly, and was damn good for a starter guitar! I still have it, but I’ve tuned it ridiculously low, for if I’m in the mood for some Djent. I’m still a Jackson man, and nowadays I play a DK2 Trans black. It’s a fine guitar I must say, the Seymour Duncan pickups provide some real versatility that is vitally important for the ever changing sound of Bleeding Oath! I also use an old beaten up Fender Stratocaster too, but this is mainly because I like having a guitar tuned to standard tuning, as opposed to my Jackson in D standard. One day, we plan to use 7 strings for bleeding oath, but for now, 6 are enough!

As previously mentioned (to humorous effect), Dragonforce were the first metal band I liked, so obviously Herman Li would be high on the list. Having never been exposed to much “heavy” music, his fast, technical solos completely blew me away, and I wanted to be able to emulate that right away. Mikael Akerfeldt (Opeth) was another huge influence, and pretty much set me off in my course to incorporate more diverse influences into Bleeding Oath’s sound.

Harrison and I went to college together, so when the band’s original drummer left, it was natural for me to ask him to join the band. Micah and Ben were both recruited online.

What an experience! It all started when I noticed quite a kerfuffle of people posting “vote oath” all over the Gill and Beez facebook page! Upon further examination, I discovered that we were one of 10 bands selected by Metal Hammer to go to a public vote that would allow us to support Evile! It was at this point that I remembered I’d entered Bleeding Oath into the competition, though at the time I wouldn’t have expected we’d get that far! It was at that point that I decided that if we got that gig, it’d be a huge break for us, so with the help of very many loyal and warm hearted fans, a massive campaign was launched, urging the public to vote for us! I even put up posters in my college. By the time of the voting day, I was immensely excited. Luckily, the campaign worked, and we won the vote, though the other bands all did well!

All the bands were very friendly and seemed like great dudes. However, one thing I will never forget is Matt Drake (Evile) offering me a platter of sandwiches. Unfortunately, we were due to go on stage in a matter of minutes, so he claimed that he would put them in the fridge. The fridge, however, was in a room labelled “Evile only”. Very clever Matt, very clever indeed! I’ll get my rightful sandwiches somebody, or die trying…

Personally, I think it’d be amazing to open for Cynic. If only to bathe in the resplendent glory of Paul Masvidal’s mind.

It’s not nearly as exciting as we wish it was actually; our band’s old bassist picked it based solely on the fact that it sounded like a “cool name”. Actually scratch that! I was swooping like a Nordic spectre through the grim forests of Norway, when I encountered a mossy stone, covered in frost, but pulsating with malevolent energy that I could only imagine in my most extravagantly gruesome nightmares! I grasped the stone with my claw of a hand, feeling the dark energy within pulsing through my very soul! I let out a primal, beast-like raw in an unintelligible language, that roughly would be written in English as “Enk’llayved!”. Feeling the earth begin to shake from the sheer epic might of the occasion, I stared at the stone, and beheld the most sickeningly evil runes I had ever cast my eyes upon! What did they say!? BLEEDING OATH! Or it might’ve been the first story, I forget.

I must admit, I don’t listen to a whole lot of Black Metal nowadays, but some of my favorites are Enslaved, Burzum, Immortal, Dimmu Borgir, Sigh and Emperor. I could go on and on with my inspirational Prog Metal bands; Opeth, Dream Theater, Cynic and Between the Buried and Me are all right at the top of the list, as well as Protest the Hero, Periphery, Animals as Leaders, Meshuggah, Devin Townsend, Gojira, Haken, Heljareyga, Ihsahn, Leprous, Xerath… quite a few!

What some would say is trolling, I would rather refer to as… “being myself”! I’ve always been a fan of humour and jokes, and though people on the Gill and Beez page thought I was a bit of an idiot at first (although admittedly, I am a bit of an idiot), eventually, everyone realised that I wasn’t really being serious. I’m quite an open minded person nowadays!

Well, we’ve definitely got enough material for it! All I can say is, keep your eyes and ears open, and you may be in for a surprise…

Thank you for interviewing me! Bleeding Oath live is a wild ride through more sounds than you can imagine, with brutal opportunities for moshing, scorching solos and sweeps, tender soft moments of brief sanity juxtaposed with purely psychotic melodies! The riffs are head-bangable, the time signatures are beard-strokeable, and our Djazz and Djent will have you djitterbugging until you djrop!