Alcest are excited to announce that they will embark on a headline tour over the Latin American region in February, 2027. Check out all confirmed dates and venues via flyer below. Read more…
As Bloodstock gets closer, we delve deep into the line up to find out more about some of the bands playing the New Blood and EMP stages at this years event.
Today we chat with Carrier
Please introduce yourselves.
My name is Kris and I am the vocalist of CARRIER. Thomas (Totti) is our drummer, Jonah our bassist, and Seb & Matt are our two guitarists.
How would you describe your sound?
Our style of music is very inspired by 2000’s era metalcore, that also bleeds into the early 2010’s. We are very inspired by bands such as Bleeding Through, Parkway Drive, The Devil Wears Prada, Like Moths To Flames, Counterparts etc. We love to combine this however, with our love of hardcore too. There’s a fair bit of Malevolence, Terror, Stick To Your Guns inspiration in there too.
Our goal with our music is to almost bring back that early 2000’s/early 2010’s feel with a combined love of both older metalcore and hardcore, all whilst telling a story as well. The way our songs are put together in both a studio and live setting are designed to tell a story more so than being a collection of songs.
Our debut album ‘I Will Show You Misery’ came out in April of this year and we believe that when you listen to it, it almost becomes an immersive experience and a story that you can follow emotionally and sonically.
How did you land your spot on the Bloodstock bill?
We landed our slot on Bloodstock by winning the Devon & Cornwall M2TM, which we are so unbelievably stoked about, we can’t wait!
How tough was the competition this year?
It was a very tough competition this year. You have to give credit to every band that entered and the other bands we came up against in the final. Bury The Hordes, Stealth Moose & Parlay.
I say this in every interview and CANNOT stress it enough that the Devon & Cornwall music scene is so criminally overlooked for the amount of talent that we have down here. More light needs to be shown on it.
What does playing at Bloodstock mean to you?
It means so much to us and we’re so excited. This will be our first major festival appearance and to be on a line up with so many giants of the scene is incredible. We intend to rock up, be as professional as possible, grab this opportunity by the horns and give it everything we possibly can.
For people who’ve never seen you live, what can they expect at Bloodstock?
They can expect a lot of energy. We’re a band that thrives off giving off as much movement and energy as possible whilst performing. We hope that if we give off the energy on our side, then the crowd will reflect this and do the same so that everyone is having a good time.
We’re not a band that has a lot of silence in our sets. Spaces in between songs are filled with soundscapes and interludes, we do this to try and keep the audience engaged. It also helps us maintain that element of telling a story through our live set.
You can expect Lots of riffs, big breakdowns and massive singalongs!
What day are you performing?
We are performing on Friday on the New Blood stage.
What other bands are you looking forward to watching at Bloodstock this year?
Bleed From Within, Body Count, Lamb Of God, Fit For An Autopsy, Overpower….just to name a new!
Playing the New Blood Stage is just the first steppingstone in a bands journey. What’s next in your plans for world domination?
We have quite a busy 2nd half of 2026. We’re going to be around the UK & Ireland playing shows in Stoke, Leicester, Helston, Cardiff, Exeter, Bethesda, Dublin, Belfast, Plymouth, Grimsby, Hull, Liverpool, Nottingham and perhaps a couple more!
As we look into 2027, we will be looking at more mainland Europe, beginning to record our next album, and hopefully maybe some more festival appearances if all goes well…
Are you camping with the fans? Which campsite are you heading for?
We will be in artist camping. We’re looking forward to meeting everyone, getting to know the other bands and just overall having a good time.
You’ve gotta keep hydrated at Bloodstock, what is your drink of choice for the weekend?
For me personally, until we play it will be water and perhaps an energy drink! I can’t speak for the others, but from being down south, we all love a crisp cold cider!
Czech pagan folk metal act Cales is ready to return with eighth full-length offering, Unexplored Territories, on September 6th. Two new songs from this outing can be listened via Bandcamp player below. Read more…
Swedish power metal slaves Dragonland revealed that their long-time guitarist Olof Mörck has decided to leave the band due to busy schedule with Amaranthe. Read more…
“The doldrums” sounds like a dark room with no windows and no lights. You step inside, lock the door behind you, and extinguish the final seam of light beneath it. At first, the darkness appears empty; then the mind begins furnishing it with everything you hoped to leave outside. Fear searches for something concealed nearby while dread waits for it to reveal itself. Angst returns to the same unanswered question, passion strains against confinement, love becomes fixation, and anguish grows louder because there is nowhere for any of it to go.
Beyond that imagined room, the word describes a spell of listlessness or despondency, a period of stagnation, and an equatorial region of calms, squalls, and shifting winds. In its nautical sense, opposing trade winds converge near the equator, leaving sailing ships trapped on windless water. The sails collapse, the hull ceases to advance, provisions diminish, and the crew can see the horizon without drawing any closer to it. The ship and the dark room share one cruelty: an exit can be imagined while remaining unreachable.
Goth and post-punk have made lasting music from precisely these states. Fear tightens the bass into a narrow repeating figure; dread occupies the interval before the next drum hit; angst gives the lyric a question it cannot answer; passion swells through distortion; love supplies the reason to remain; anguish comes from recognizing the pattern while continuing to obey it. Black Doldrums is therefore an unusually exact name: music for the locked room and a ship adrift at sea, where the mind returns to familiar pain because familiarity can resemble shelter.
Appropriately, London trio Black Doldrums’ latest release, Repetition, centers on the inability to break a pattern. The song is the lead single and opening track of the band’s third studio album, Repetition Compulsion, due November 13th, 2026, via Fuzz Club.
The record completes Black Doldrums’ interconnected “State of Mind Trilogy,” following their 2022 debut, Dead Awake, and 2024’s In Limerence. The three albums consider the psychological forces that shape identity, memory, and human connection, with the creative and personal partnership between founding members Kevin Gibbard and Sophie Landers providing their emotional center.
As Gibbard explains: “The songs are either about Sophie, for Sophie, or inspired by her.”
“Repetition begins with a funereal synthesizer exhalation, a dusky bass tone, and a beat that lands with the bodily insistence of a heart awaiting bad news. A cold guitar figure enters in clipped phrases while bell-like electronics toll far back in the mix. Gibbard’s vocal melody brushes against the severe romanticism of The Sisters of Mercy’s “Marian,” while his softened, reverb-heavy timbre evokes Neil Halstead from Slowdive if he were dragged into a goth club.
With each cycle, more haze collects around the vocal until the recording seems to lose its walls. Landers becomes increasingly audible behind Gibbard, turning confession into divided speech. The bass later steps forward with the high-register gravity of Peter Hook on Joy Division’s Closer, particularly the downward pull of “Twenty Four Hours.” Its dense, overdriven attack also evokes Simon Gallup during the Cure’s Pornography-era tour, when his bass occupied the front of the mix as a blunt rhythmic force and a source of dread.
Gibbard explains the song’s origin:
“The song came from an idea to challenge ourselves to write something around one riff and something dirge-like. It also fit the theme of the album and the topic of repetition by literally experimenting with repetition in the musical sense. The opening line – “is your mind split in two” – is something taken from our conversations on our many long walks around London where Sophie was talking about the psychological term splitting. It seemed to fit the feel of the song and theme of the album so much so it now opens up both the album and our live shows. I consider it very much Sophie’s song because she was the source of inspiration and that’s why we have her backing vocals fairly prominent to create a dual vocal effect. I also had the after-thought to have Sophie mime the first line in the video which is actually her line anyway.”
The phrase “is your mind split in two” brings the album’s psychological framework down to one troubling image: a mind unable to reconcile its opposing halves. Landers’s backing vocal gives that division a second body, allowing the song to behave like a thought hearing itself repeated from elsewhere. Its central riff follows the same principle, returning with enough force that familiarity becomes confinement.
Filmed by Landers and Gibbard, with the final cut crafted by Landers, the scene begins with Landers gazing directly into the camera, silently delivering the line that sparked the song. Her high-collared white blouse, black straps, braided hair, dramatic eye makeup, and black lipstick create a striking contrast against a nearly empty black background. Gibbard appears dressed in black, with close-cropped blond hair, his face illuminated by pale blue and green lighting.
Their portraits alternate between clean digital images and footage rephotographed from a monitor. Vertical scan lines stripe Landers’s face; clipped highlights bleach her features into white and violet; soft focus, projection, and offset copies divide her image across the screen. Gibbard receives similar treatment as his head drifts in and out of the surrounding black. Close-ups of fingers working a bass guitar and a solitary illuminated snare interrupt the faces, then return according to the song’s circular logic.
The clip’s most pointed image is a small porcelain pig figurine dropping into the frame and shattering against a black floor. Landers later restores it through editing, only for the descent, impact, and dispersal of its fragments to happen again. The sequence becomes a compact illustration of repetition compulsion: an object returns intact so that the original damage can be recreated. Faces, gestures, instruments, and breakage recur with slight mutations, making repetition the video’s visual grammar as well as the song’s foundation.
Watch the video for Repetition below:
Repetition Compulsion takes its title from the Freudian concept describing “the unconscious tendency to recreate familiar emotional patterns, destructive behaviours and inherited cycles from the past.” Across eleven songs, Black Doldrums examine the ways these patterns enter relationships, memory, political life, and mental health.
“The album invites listeners to confront the echoes of the past while questioning whether those patterns can ever truly be broken,” says Gibbard.
The trio draws upon ’80s gothic post-punk, synth-pop, and darkwave, alongside the film music of John Carpenter and Vangelis. Analogue synthesizers, chorus-treated guitars, and driving rhythms give the record a cinematic scale while preserving the melodic directness established across the previous two albums.
Repetition Compulsion arrives November 13th, 2026, on 180-gram neon-yellow vinyl limited to 350 hand-numbered copies, 180-gram ultra-clear vinyl, and CD. Pre-order the album here.
Kevin Gibbard and Sophie Landers formed Black Doldrums in London as a two-piece, combining Gibbard’s guitar and vocals with Landers’s drums and vocals. Their early work drew heavily from dark psychedelia, drone, reverb, and the physical economy of playing as a duo. The addition of bass expanded Black Doldrums into a trio around the recording of Dead Awake, giving the songs a more pronounced post-punk structure.
Released through Fuzz Club in 2022, Dead Awake established their colder and more direct studio approach. Its 2024 successor, In Limerence, examined romantic fixation, loss, and the unstable interior life of a relationship. The band subsequently toured extensively across the UK and Europe, including arena dates supporting Archive and their own headlining runs. Repetition Compulsion brings the trilogy to its conclusion while extending those personal questions into inherited behaviour, politics, memory, and mental wellbeing.
Throughout the Warped Tour’s decades-long existence, it has seen its fair share of bands. Assuming that number is in the thousands, there must be an equal number of distinct stories of being on the tour throughout the older traveling circus version of the past and the more uniform music festival version we have now. This year, we decided to speak to some Warped Tour rookies and veterans to hear about their experiences on punk rock’s most enduring festival and how it’s affected them as a fan or a performer.
Rookie: Mike Chaiburi (Whispers) – Octopus Stage
Image courtesy of Warped Tour
Formed in 2014, Whispers is a hardcore band from Bangkok, Thailand. They’ve been slowly building a fanbase since then. Dubbing their sound as Bangkok Evilcore, they frequently combine music rooted in 1990s metallic hardcore with lyrics influenced by Buddhist proverbs focused on realism, human nature, and self-reliance. Click here for more info and links to tickets for Whispers’ upcoming tour dates
Dying Scene: What’s been the most surprising thing about Warped Tour so far, good or bad?
Mike Chaiburi: As a kid, I watched a lot of this when I was thirteen or fourteen. Now today, it’s just happening. I’m here on the Warped Tour in Long Beach. It’s crazy. It’s very crazy for me.
Dying Scene: What did you think playing Warped Tour would be like before you got here?
Mike Chaiburi: I never thought about it before. I can tell my mom about it. She’s really excited. All my family back home is excited. Before I came here, I stayed in Bangkok for 10 days because we had just done the European tour. We had a gap of twelve days between our day off in Bangkok and Warped Tour. The whole time I was like, “Warped Tour is going to happen in the next two weeks. I’m so excited.”
Dying Scene:Have you played any other shows while you’re in the States?
Mike Chaiburi: Yeah. We just did San Diego yesterday. The first show was in Corona. We’re going to LA. Awesome. Awesome. We have eight shows this time. We’re going to finish in Portland. It’s a hardcore fest, too.
Dying Scene:What do you hope fans remember about your first Warped Tour run?
Mike Chaiburi: Yeah, I just want to see people moshing. I just want to see everyone having a good time and everyone enjoying our set. I hope it’s going well.
Veterans: John Tran and Adam Lorbach (Home Grown) Years Played: 1998, 2002, 2003
While Home Grown did not play a set at the Warped Tour this year, Adam Lohrbach and John Tran are Warped Tour veterans from the late 1990s and early 2000s, stemming from their breakthrough album Act Your Age (1998) and their time on Drive-Thru Records, a label whose acts were very influential on the evolution of the Warped Tour itself. Home Grown is still riding high after reuniting in 2024. Here’s hoping they’ll be on a Warped Tour stage in the future. Keep up with all the excitement here.
Dying Scene: You guys have a lot coming up in the next year with the 25th anniversary of Kings of Pop. Are you guys releasing new music next year, or are you going to wait for the year after?
John Tran: No, I think we’re going to release some new music this year.
Adam Lorbach: We’re going to have to do some drops here and there. A couple of singles, maybe, but there’s plenty of material. We’re just waiting for the right time, but some singles this year, for sure.
Dying Scene: How has Warped Tour shaped you guys musically, professionally, or personally?
John Tran: Well, I mean, Warped Tour 1998 was the first time we did the Warped Tour. So if you can sweat it out in a van in the South and still survive and be a band, that means you’re probably going to make it. We did. It definitely built resilience in us. Oh, 10-hour drive? No problem. Overnight? Yeah, okay. No showers in five days? Okay…
Dying Scene: What do you feel is the biggest difference between Warped Tour then and Warped Tour now?
Adam Lorbach: We just got here, so…
John Tran: It’s still a giant cluster
Adam Lorbach: It’s still hot
John Tran: Port-o-potties are probably really hot and sweaty and stinky.
Adam Lorbach: I’ve heard more tracks from here than the stage, but I mean, it looks cool, man. It’s awesome seeing everyone still on the scene, walking around, dressed like they were in 2002.
Dying Scene: Did any bands become long-term friends with you guys because of Warped Tour?
Adam Lorbach: Oh, yeah. I mean, that’s part of the reason why we’re here. We just want to come back and say hi to some of our old friends: Reel Big Fish, The Starting Line.
John Tran: Simple Plan’s playing, Hoobastank’s here. MXPX is playing. Early November. All the Drive-Thru bands.
Adam Lorbach: We just want to be out here; it’s our hometown.
Dying Scene: Is there a Warped Tour set that you guys still talk about after all these years?
Adam Lorbach: I mean, the one that sticks out for me is the Drive-Thru Records stage one. That was a pretty special moment in time. You know, you didn’t even realize it so much when you’re in it then, but looking back, it’s pretty cool with all of our friends always traveling to the same place, going out to have dinners, just having good quality time together. It’s pretty special.
Dying Scene:Is there a part of Warped Tour’s culture that feels essential to you and something that has defined the tour?
John Tran: Honestly, Warped Tour, to me, back in like 2000, no, maybe like 1990-something, had skateboarding. Skateboarding, you know. If all the skateboarding culture was like pop music, that’s what we grew up on. It definitely defines who we are, and who we are today, for sure. I love skateboarding. To this day, I still love punk rock music.
Adam Lorbach: I think it’s pretty cool having the legacy artists. It’s kind of like how Warped Tour was back in the day, always giving a spotlight to new artists, people to come up. So, all these different side stages give people a chance to see you that they might not have otherwise. I love the ethos of Warped Tour. It has a blend of both, so you can have fun with the old music, you know, and sing along. You might discover something new here.
Veteran: Mike Davenport (The Ataris) – Years Played: 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2009, 2013, 2014, 2017, and 2026
Image courtesy of Warped Tour
This year sees The Ataris play their ninth official set with the Warped Tour. Last year saw the band release their first bit of new music since 2011, “All Souls Day” and “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” with the promise of an album in the near future. While putting the finishing touches on the new record, the band has been playing the festival circuit, including stops in Mexico City and Montreal for the Warped Tour. Keep up with the Ataris here.
Dying Scene:One of my favorite Warped Tour sets I saw the Ataris play was 2002.
Mike Davenport: It was a killer set. It was a surprise set. We were supposed to be on the Warped Tour, but we were making the So Long, Astoria record, so they called us over to play there just to surprise everybody.
Dying Scene: It was like a small label’s booth, wasn’t it?
Mike Davenport: Yeah.
Dying Scene: Do the Ataris have any type of Warped Tour ritual you do when you guys play?
Mike Davenport: We did our first Warped Tour in 2000, and then we’ve done eight after that. My favorite part is the barbecue. We love the barbecue. We love hanging out with everybody. The coolest thing is my friends. Even today, it brought me back because I’m going in and I’m seeing Basement over here and Bowling For Soup over there and all of my favorite bands.
Dying Scene: What’s the lineup for the band right now? Is it the So Long, Astoria lineup or is it a bit of a hybrid?
Mike Davenport: It’s a hybrid. It’s me and John and Kris and then our drummer’s Dustin. Not Kid (Chris Knapp). We’ve had Dustin (Phillips) jump back in. He’s been with Kris on and off for the last 10 years.
Dying Scene: What’s changed the most about performing pop punk live since your early work tour?
Mike Davenport: I’d say it’s slick, man. All of these digital LED backdrops. A lot of the bands that my kids listen to, pop-punk bands, have a lot of screaming in them. We didn’t do screaming in our day. That’s something that came with that next generation of Hawthorne Heights and Sleeping with Sirens and Pierce the Veil.
Dying Scene: Is there a Warped Tour set you still talk about all these years later?
Mike Davenport: We loved Warped Tour 2003, San Diego. That set was insane. It’s immortalized on the 2003 Warped Tour DVD. If you ever see it, the sun was going down, we were like the last band playing. You just see people until you can’t see people anymore for days and they’re just crowd surfing.
Dying Scene: Is there a part of Warped Tour’s culture that you feel is essential to it, something that’s defined the tour?
Mike Davenport: I just think that, like Kevin Lyman, he was our first manager, and he’s always run Warped Tour like a bro’s thing. These are all his bros. He’s still sitting back there in his tent, hanging out and just enjoying the moment. And it’s about enjoying life and playing music with friends.
Dying Scene: Do you have any advice for first timers that they never listen to?
Take chances, take risks. You’ve got to take risks. No risk, nothing’s going to happen. I know so many great bands that were too afraid to get in the van, to go on tour, to sleep in the van and rough it. That’s what we did, and that’s how we got bigger. All of my friends’ bands, they did the same thing, and they are here today. The people that don’t take risks, that are afraid, you don’t want to lose your job at Taco Bell or whatever you’re doing, that’s not living. Living is taking risks.
Rookie: Rae and Addison Scott (rosecoloredworld) – Ghost Stage
Image courtesy of Warped Tour
rosecoloredworld is making their debut this year on the Warped Tour. Long Beach was their second date after playing the tour’s Washington, D.C. stop. Blending raw emotion and pop punk, a lot of their songs focus on topics like mental health and community. A great combination for the Warped Tour and its ever-evolving ethos. Catch up with rosecoloredworld here.
Dying Scene: What did you think playing the Warped Tour would be like before you got here?
Rae: It’s way cooler than whatever I thought, that’s for sure. It’s an amazing community, and the fans have been very awesome to us.
Dying Scene: Did the stage you were assigned to shape your set at all?
Addison Scott: The stage was amazing. It was more than anything we could have hoped for.
Dying Scene: Have you had a “Oh, Shit I’m playing the Warped Tour” moment?
Rae: Yeah, right before we went on. I think it all hit us.
Addison Scott: We played DC a month ago, and it definitely was crazy.
Dying Scene: What do you hope fans remember about your first Warped Tour run?
Rae: I hope they feel hopeful, and I hope that they remember having a ripping time with the people they came with.
Dying Scene: Did Warped Tour shape your trajectory as a fan or a musician?
Addison Scott: Yeah, both. I mean, I grew up on the scene, and it definitely is how we are, and who we are.
Rookie – Seth Girard, Thomas Sullivan, Jack Wensky (Good Sleepy) – Vans Stage
Fresh off the release of their second album, Constant Humming, Good Sleepy made their Warped Tour debut in Long Beach this weekend on the Vans Stage with a late afternoon set. Before they grace the stage at Warped Tour’s Montreal, Quebec dates, you can catch them on the road. For more info, check out their official website.
Image courtesy of Warped Tour
Dying Scene: What did you think playing Warped Tour would be like before you got here?
Thomas Sullivan: Honestly, I had no expectations. I wasn’t really sure what it was going to be like, but it definitely exceeded all my expectations. I tried to go into it with a clear mind, but yeah, it’s been so sick.
Seth Girard: It’s funny, this morning I was chatting with everybody, and I was like, “Oh yeah, you know, like 12,000 people,” and everyone was like, “No, it’s like 80,000.” So my expectations were blown out of the water.
Jack Wensky: For me, it’s like, I don’t know, I went to high school, so I had an expectation of what it was going to be like. It’s a lot different than I anticipated.
Dying Scene: Did Warped Tour shape your trajectory as a musician or a fan?
Jack Wensky: My entire music taste is definitely based on Warped Tour, especially from 2016 to 2018. That’s when we were in high school, and all the bands playing Warped Tour were our favorites. They helped us get into this type of music and even start our own band.
Dying Scene: Did the stage you were assigned to help shape your set at all?
Thomas Sullivan: Not really, going into this, we only knew the time. We didn’t know our stage until about two weeks ago.
Dying Scene: Have any bands helped you navigate the chaos?
Seth Girard: We have a lot of friends playing today, a lot of people like telling us what to expect and stuff. Shoutouts to bands like Hot Mulligan, Arms Length, those are some of our good friends. They’ve definitely helped us out.
Dying Scene: What do you hope fans will remember about your first Warped Tour run?
Seth Girard: That it was fun, hopefully. Hopefully, they had a lot of fun; they had a good time.
Jack Wensky: That’s really all we care about is everybody having a good time.
Veteran – tiLLie – Years Played: 2017 and 2026
Image courtesy of Warped Tour
tiLLie has made a name for herself in the intervening years since her 2017 Warped Tour debut, having played other festivals including Slam Dunk and Rock for People. This year finds tiLLie rocking the Rex Stage and bringing her electronic-tinged pop-punk set to fans of the Warped Tour. Fans can catch tiLLie on the Warped Tour’s Orlando, Florida stop in November. For more info, please check out her website.
Dying Scene: Did the stage you were assigned to shape your set at all?
tiLLie: No, I don’t think so. You don’t really find out until pretty late what stage you’re going to be on, so I think you have to go into it with what you’re bringing, and the rest you have to figure out when you get there.
Dying Scene: What’s been the most surprising thing about performing at Warped Tour, good or bad?
tiLLie: I don’t know what was surprising. I think for me, the surprising part was being on the same bill as Third Eye Blind because they’re one of my favorite bands, and my older brother got me into them when I was like a baby. He unfortunately passed away, but I think it’s been so amazing to have this opportunity, and I know wherever he is, his mind is blown, and my mind is blown.
Dying Scene: Did Warped Tour shape your trajectory as a fan or a musician?
tiLLie: Absolutely, yeah, I grew up listening to this. I was definitely more of a Fueled By Ramen girlie. I listened to some of the harder stuff, but I saw Paramore when I was really young at Warped Tour, and that was huge for me.
Dying Scene: Is there a part of Warped Tour’s culture that you feel is essential to you?
tiLLie: I think the community around it, the fans. I just think, especially nowadays, this new iteration of it is a really safe space for all types of people. I think we’re all a little bit outcast and maybe the weirdos, so it’s nice to all be here together and share that and not feel so alone.
Dying Scene: Have you made any friends this year?
tiLLie: I don’t know if I’ve made new friends yet. I’ve seen a lot of friends like Honey Revenge and Nova Twins, some people I’ve played with before. No, I need to make some new friends.
Rookie – Brian McShea (Good Terms) Door Dash Stage
Image courtesy of Warped Tour
Long Beach was Good Terms first of two Warped Tour dates with their next show being Orlando, FL’s stop on the Warped Tour. Their inclusion on this years tour coincided with the release of their record, Burnout Deluxe. Find them on the road before they make their next appearance. More info, here.
Dying Scene: How many times have you been to Warped Tour as a fan?
Brian McShea: I came last year, and then before that, in 2018, was the last one. That was the first one I went to. The guitarist in my band went to like fifteen in a row. I remember watching Warped Tour Wednesdays on Fuse, but I felt too young to go, and I didn’t know anyone doing that kind of thing. I was fourteen or fifteen, and I was into jazz. I was kind of out of it for a little bit, and I missed a lot of music that I now love.
Dying Scene: What’s been the most surprising thing about Warped Tour, good or bad?
Brian McShea: In my band, the other members have a lot more experience performing at festivals for other artists and I’ve never done that. I didn’t know what to expect. Showing up and having your merch going one place and your gear going a different place and you’re going to a different place and you will meet up with it later on. It’s pretty fascinating watching all those systems work.
Dying Scene: To see how the sausage is made?
Brian McShea: Yeah, I was the kind of kid who loved watching gears and conveyor belts and shit. Watching all that shit play out is pretty satisfying. Other than that, how fucking tired I am. I was here last year, and I had a lot more energy and emotional energy. It really took a lot out of me. I’m trying to meet our fans, I’m trying to do all the things for our band. It was like, I didn’t get to be in Warped Tour as much, which is fine. I mean, it’s the most Warped Tour we’ve ever done. That was definitely a new thing.
Dying Scene: Did Warped Tour shape your trajectory as a musician or as a band?
Brian McShea: Warped Tour Wednesdays on Fuse was all the music that got me started on guitar. Green Day and Fall Out Boy were really big bands for me. All the stuff that would have been on Fuse at the time came my way. I came across Taking Back Sunday, Underoath, and all that. That’s where I got started. I stepped away from it as I got into other genres of music, but it was definitely that foundation. I think there’s always been this punk rock ethos I’ve looked for in everything as I’ve gone on. And it’s everywhere. You have to look for it in other genres a little harder, but sometimes you have to look for it here, too.
Is there a part of Warped Tour’s culture that feels essential to you, or something that defines Warped Tour?
Brian McShea: Pick up anybody who falls down. Those are definitely words to live by. I don’t think that’s exclusive to Warped Tour necessarily, but it is a big, important part of how today functions. I think walking around and seeing all the different kinds of people. There are pop-punk kids, there are hardcore kids, there are metalcore kids. There are people with spiked hair, there are people with tucked-in shirts. There are all sorts of people here, and we’re passing through each other. We’re bumping into each other. You’re making friends in lines for things.
Thanks for your time, everyone. If you missed Dying Scene’s review of the Van’s Warped Tour Long Beach, click here
It’s been seven years since No-Man, the art rock duo made up of Steven Wilson and Tim Bowness, released any material, but, according to Bowness, that’s about to change!
The pair last released an album in 2019, the prog-disco-tastic Love You To Bits, itself the pair’s first album in 11 years, following 2008’s Schoolyard Ghosts.
Writing on social media, Bowness revealed that “the belated follow-up to Love You To Bits is now well underway. There’s a lot of recording and writing still to be done, but we’ve already created interesting templates for a couple of album projects.
“SW has been experimenting with solo material of mine; I’ve written melodies and lyrics to music Steven presented me with, and we’ve also been re-recording some of the band’s older works. While we’re covering many a No-Man approach (from poignant ballads to twisted pop to electronic excursions to art rock heart of darkness), the completed album is going to have a structure and sound all of its own. It’s a fantastic and somewhat surreal sensation being able to hear the band’s DNA coursing through new songs in the late 2020s.
“The upshot is that No-Man studio album #8 is coming and with any luck it’ll arrive in time to celebrate the 40th anniversary of my first meeting and recording session with Steven (June or July, 1987, in case you’re wondering).”
At the same time, Bowness offered an update on his next solo album, which will be titled 30 Year List and is a continuation of the story started on 2017’s Lost In The Ghost Light.
“The album is the polar opposite of Powder Dry,” he says. “Co-written and co-produced with Bobian Hulse, it’s mostly rich in arrangement, coherent in approach, consistently melancholy in nature, and awash with gifted guest players. It also features a 20-minute track.”
30 Year List is expected to be released in early 2027.
