Interview | Rosen Bridge
I caught up with the metal quintet to talk about their UK tour, their explosive new single 'Rituals' and the growing Welsh music scene
It’s been a whirlwind of a week for the metal quintet, Rosen Bridge, after they released their brand new single, ‘Rituals’, featuring guest vocals from Ali Angelini of Blind Summit.
Born from a group of friends on the north-west coast of Wales, Rosen Bridge, have always used their music as an outlet for navigating deeply personal and sometimes hard topics, and their explosive new single is no different.
Between featuring on BBC Introducing Rock and rounding off their ten-date tour with Rituals (Kerrang! Radio Winners, Download) and Where Oceans Burn (RADAR Festival) they haven’t had much time to sleep, but the guys are enjoying every moment of it.
Grateful for all the love they’ve received back home and overseas, they’re excited to show a new side of their music.
I caught up with Alex Woodall (Vocals), Marcus Williams (Guitar) and Eddie Edwards (Guitar) to hear all about it.
Lauren: Hey guys, how are you doing?
Alex: Not too bad, quite tired now, we’ve just got off stage.
L: You’re just rounding off the second leg of the tour, how was the first?
Marcus: Amazing.
Alex: Yeah, it was amazing. A lot of driving, but really really awesome. I just think it's a massive achievement to go overseas to play shows, especially coming from North Wales - it feels like a really big milestone for us
L: Was that your first time in Ireland?
Alex: First time ever for me personally.
Eddie: I mean I’ve been, but not as a band - it’s completely different. For many of us, because we concentrate so much on the band those options don't really become available, and for it to become available through the band is really amazing.
L: What was the reception like there?
A: The reception was really, really great. In our last show at Cork people were literally singing the lyrics back to us, and we sold the most Merch we’ve ever sold in one night.
L: That’s amazing. Did you expect that, did you know you had a big fan base over there?
E: No, absolutely not.
M: It really was amazing, we can’t wait to go back!
L: And you started the tour off in Bangor - your hometown. It always looks like a good time when you’re back there.
A: Yeah, we started off in Bangor doing a hometown show to warm ourselves up a bit - it was wonderful. We also had Redwood Avenue [playing] with us who are good friends and they haven't really done shows for years
E: They reunited for that show.
L: That’s awesome
E: Yeah, which was amazing and all the boys they were on the top of their game.
L: Are they going to stay together now?
E: Who knows…Bryn’s got a pretty Oxford accent now. He's not very Welsh anymore, so we'll see….
L: The fans in Bangor are they people who come from afar?
A: The people of Bangor are really receptive and amazing, and more bands should definitely play there because it doesn't get the attention it deserves.
E: 100%. If you're a band and you're out there and you want a place where people are just going to receive you for the effort, for the effort of being a band that’s travelled to do that for them, they will fucking love it, because they're just the kindest people.
M: It’s also lovely for us because obviously most of us don't live in Wales so when we do come back we see people. I saw people that I haven't seen for years. It’s a brief moment of reconnecting.
E: That’s what it’s all about.
L: That’s so great. You’ve obviously been playing it since the start of the tour but the new single ‘Rituals’ is officially out now, congratulations!
It’s my favourite one yet and personally, I think it’s the best one yet. I don’t know if you guys would agree with that.
M: We’ll take that!
L: Aside from being full of great breakdowns, it also has the subliminal messaging which you guys are known for. Can you tell me a little bit more about what’s behind it?
A: The writing process was probably one of the most personal ones for me.
I think the last couple of years I’ve really come to terms with my autism and I've wanted to highlight that I have OCD and I really think the song gives me a lot of clarity on it. It makes me feel like, you can turn something negative into a positive […] We're all human beings at the end of the day and I hope other people who have Autism or feel outcasted feel that too.
E: I mean, it was a love song originally but I think it ended up turning into loving yourself. There are a couple of lyrics in there that might not seem like it and the breakdown is really heavy but overall it’s actually positive.
A: That’s the great thing about it because it’s not very blunt, you can interpret it in many different ways.
M: Our music is very rooted in emotion and all the songs that we have mean something. Whether it's the lyrics or the emotions of the melody. It's all something that helps us.
L: The lyrics that really get me are ‘Helplessly and Hopelessly’. Every time I hear that I’m like damn, because it really could mean anything to anyone, especially in the context of ‘addiction’.
E: Yeah, the start of the song and the things about the addiction relate to a lot of other songs we’ve got going on. Because it’s a long song, proggy song, we try and make the songs link together in a way […] The same themes that we touch upon in ‘Rituals’ are going to be the same theme we touch on in other songs.
L: When you collaborated with Blind Summit did you establish that ‘these are the lyrics, this is what the song’s about?’ How did they connect with you?
E: We got in the studio and had a good time. There was no predisposition of ‘this has to be like that’, we listened to what Ali had to say, we had the things that we wanted the song to be about, and that was it. She was fantastic.
A: Ali, was very easy to work with.
M: She’s an amazing singer and Blind Summit are good friends of ours, it’d be cool to have them feature on more tracks.
L: You had a great show at the New Cross Inn and it’s been a while since you were back in London…just going to put it out there, I don’t think you played enough songs…but you know
A: Because the songs are so long we decided to take ‘Shallows’ out of the set. For us, personally, it’s such a slow song to play during the set.
E: We just want to keep the energy going
A: It takes the energy out of the crowd but it also takes the energy out of us as well. I feel like the set we have at the moment is really fast-paced and it's all about being all systems go.
L: People will definitely notice that high energy with ‘Rituals’. There’s no delayed intro, it starts immediately and it’s like these guys mean business.
E: That’s the aim really because the more people listen to ‘Rituals’ and enjoy it for what it is they’ll enjoy the live set too. ‘Rituals’, I don’t want to say “poppy”, but more accessible (well, more accessible than the other songs). For it to be so long, we need to make sure we keep people’s attention. Whether that’s the attention of the people who just want to go nuts or want to hear a really good pop song. It's quite difficult to find that balance.
M: We’ve always loved progressive music and that will always be a part of us but I think going forward stuff will probably be more like ‘Rituals’, not poppy, but more…
A: Stripped back
E: The aim for us in the future is to do a three-and-a-half-minute song — which is what a lot of people want to listen to — that does all the dimensions that we do in a six-minute song. That’s our goal and that's a challenge for us.
M: That’s the lesson that we’ve learned from the songs we’ve created so far and what we’re going to do in the future.
L: You’re playing UK Tech-Fest on Saturday, what do you want to be known for after people have been to see you live?
E: We’re happy if we’re playing a heavy show and people don’t want to hear the clean stuff; they don’t want to hear the interludes, they just want full force the whole way through. We want to make sure we’re there for them.
Then if we play another show where we know people are there to hear the beauty in the songs and the little dimensions that we have, we can change it up. So like the D&B remix that went out recently - anything like that that’s a little bit of beauty in the chaos.
M: We try and cover as many styles of metal as we can and if people don’t necessarily like a certain type of it we’d still like them to be like, ‘That’s pulled me in, Wow! I was really impressed!’
L: What about you, Alex?
A: I always think, 'I’d like to be known as a band from North Wales that went out there and did something and people will talk about us and be like ‘Rosen Bridge they’re really cool, they went out and they did that’.
M: Back in the day [when we started], there weren’t really that many Metal bands and now we’ve started to make a name for ourselves more bands have come forward and the North Wales music scene is growing at a rapid rate and there are some great bands coming out of there now!
L: That’s wonderful - thanks so much guys!
Stream ‘Rituals’ on: