Bleed From Within set to impress at festival

Jun 4 2009 by Chris Clements, Hamilton Advertiser

A TOP Lanarkshire metal band are gearing up for their first appearance at this year’s Download Festival in England, just as the views of their Myspace profile reached the one million mark.

Bleed From Within are a five-piece outfit comprised of members from Hamilton, Stonehouse and Larkhall, and are due to release their debut album, Humanity, at the end of July.

And they are now getting set to play to around 100,000 people at Download – Europe’s largest rock and metal festival – on Friday, June 12.

It’s a long way from the band’s humble beginnings, forming at Hamilton’s Universal Connections back in the summer of 2005.

“It’s amazing to get one million views online and then to be playing Download. No one ever thinks when they start out that they’ll ever get as many people listening to their music, so we’re really excited,” said Craig Gowans, guitarist with Bleed From Within.

The 20-year-old Stonehouse lad said: “We all met at Universal Connections as we went to the youth club there. I was already into music, learning guitar at Larkhall Academy, but it helped meeting like-minded people who were also into metal.

“We had all played in bands before but we got together and decided to start up our own. We started playing gigs around Hamilton, in the youth club, and even in Glasgow. They were all small gigs but we began to get a name for ourselves in Glasgow, and more and more people were listening to us on our Myspace site.

“More people got interested in us, even further afield than Glasgow and we started getting gig offers from down in England.”

Alongside Craig, Bleed From Within’s members are: 21-year-old singer Scott Kennedy, of Larkhall; David Lennon (20), of Hamilton, on guitar; David Provan (21), from Hamilton, on bass; and drummer Ali Richardson (19), who is from Hamilton.

The band’s biggest exposure so far has been their three-week UK tour, supporting metal band Trigger The Bloodshed, but their upcoming slot at Download will dwarf all previous gigs.

Craig said: “We’re very excited. We have never played anything as big as Download, so this is going to be a major step for us.

“We’re glad that people are reacting well to our music. Metal fans are quite difficult to please, especially in Glasgow where they have really strong opinions about what they like and dislike. You really have to do something special to impress people there, and we feel like we have done that.”

To listen to the band’s music and to view their new video, visit their site on www.myspace.com/bleedfromwithin.

Their debut, Humanity, is released on Rising Records on July 27.