"Interview: Lazy Man's Load, Bent By Sorrow | @ Piraeus Club | 12.05.23"

Lazy Man's Load and Bent By Sorrow in a revealing interview.

With the upcoming festival in mind, tell us a bit about your thoughts on this show. Tell us a little about how it came together. Have you played with these bands before?

LML: ‘Hey!!! Truth be told, it's been a while since we organized and put on a headline show of our own. It's been a good year since the live presentation of All Hat No Cattle and the events that happened in between didn't allow us to dedicate the time we'd have liked to properly prepare for a headline show. But now, on the eve of Rock Wave Festival on July 7th, we want to turn the page called All Hat No Cattle, and there's no better way than a live show. So for us as LML, it came out of the need to show the audience what's coming next, both musically and aesthetically.

With Bent By Sorrow we haven't shared a stage before, but better late than later. It's been a burning wish of ours to play with them, since they're renowned for their explosive live shows as well as for being such cool guys. We're really happy they accepted our invitation.'

Bent By Sorrow: ‘We think it's going to be a powerful live show. The invitation came from Lazy Man's Load who we thank a lot, the guys wanted to do a live together and for us it was a great opportunity to do it alongside them, since we also believe in the work these guys do as a band!‘

Describe your most special musical experience. Some live show, some musical memory, something funny…

LML: ‘Haha, do you have a free day to sit down so we can tell you? I think from every live show there's something we remember, something it left us with, something it taught us, something we took from it. We usually talk about the funny stuff, but today we'll share the shared feeling we had when we first stepped onto the Fuzz stage. It was essentially also our first "big" live show in terms of crowd size. We knew the crowd would be huge since we were opening METAL HAMMER's X-MAS PARTY for Nightstalker and Suicidal Angels.

But still, nothing can prepare you when you're a "virgin" in such circumstances. So we went out, on a big stage, in front of a big crowd, scared shitless — and I won't swear this holds true for everyone metaphorically… we finished the first song drenched in sweat, but it helped that the crowd was still trying to "accept" us. And well, by the second song it must've clicked, we'd passed the "exam" and now they were shouting and clapping with pleasure. Well, you never forget that as a band. We've said it before and we'll say it again, the band grew up that day.‘

Bent By Sorrow: ‘Something that happened recently and gave the band a big confidence boost was our two back-to-back shows in December '22 — with Nile at Fuzz and with Domination inc at Gagarin — where for both shows the offers to play came just two days before. We remember that two consecutive Mondays, out of nowhere the phone would ring and two days later we'd be playing. It had its fun side, but on the other hand we have to be ready at all times!‘

Tell us your thoughts on the music scene in Greece, regarding the genre you represent.

LML: ‘Thoughts… ok. We could name-drop all the sacred monsters of our scene, but we'd risk unintentionally leaving someone out, so we'll just say that we proudly declare we're proud of the Greek scene, which is mainly what we listen to, we hope we represent it worthily, and above all we consider ourselves to belong to it. The people who work in it, the people who serve it, and the bands that represent it have a certain swagger. They're a different breed of people, cool, genuine rock 'n' rollers. What can we say about the Greek scene?? Thankfully there were those who paved the way and showed us how it's done. The audience, because of all these sacred monsters we mentioned before, is demanding and strict, and rightly so. An open-minded crowd that filters out and rejects the sloppy stuff, and we like that. We find it challenging, it motivates us.‘

Bent By Sorrow: ‘We believe the music scene in Greece is both growing and evolving more and more. Lots of worthy bands doing well both at home and abroad. As for us, we love music and the broad way it's placed within our songs, we say we play Alternative/groove metal without that really saying much. Our sound is hard and tight, but we always, always remain fans of melody.‘

Tell us a bit about your style and influences. How was the band formed?

LML: ‘2017, the planets aligned. LML back then only had bass, guitar, drums. They were recording and rehearsing material. Meanwhile, τζόνι (guitar) was in various bands with Roxx (vocals). τζόνι's friendship with bill (bass) brought the two gangs together and the rest is history. Influences now — if I told you there are members who listen to everything from Motley Crue to Katatonia, from Bonamassa to Black Sabbath, would you believe me? Still, the key is that whatever each and every one of them brings to the band ends up being LML at the end of the day. And that's the lucky part, if you like — we call it chemistry. So, this polyphony has only done good for the musical side of things, since there's no shortage of ideas, nor of inspiration for that matter.‘

Bent By Sorrow: 'The style and influences come from everywhere — punk, new wave, thrash, rock, metal… etc. We've listened to so much that all these styles are in there somewhere. On more specific paths, as far as our sound goes, for years now we've loved the Swedish and American scenes in metal, and those are definitely in there too as playing influences within our songs. There's a musical diversity, we'd say, that comes out through musical brushstrokes.‘

Tell me a bit about the band's future plans. Upcoming live shows, upcoming albums…

LML: ‘Lots of plans and shows, stay tuned to our socials because a busy summer is coming, and an even busier autumn for LML. So besides the upcoming show at Piraeus Club Academy on 12.5, Lazy Man's Load will appear with over-the-top joy and no small amount of nerve at the iconic Rock Wave Festival on 7.7.2023. We're planning a few more summer shows that we can't announce yet. But what we can announce, and what we've been dying to finally share with you, is the release of our new, second full-length album this autumn — the date of which, however, can't be announced yet… it'll drop any week now, so stay tuned, because it won't be the only big news this summer…‘

Bent By Sorrow: ‘Right now we're recording the band's fourth album, which this time will be a full-length LP. Our plans are to travel as much as we can and play the material from the new record, which we'll soon be finishing. The show at Piraeus academy club with Lazy Man's Load is our nearest upcoming live show. On 12/05/2023 we're expecting you all there.‘

To wrap up, tell us what those of us who make it to the festival can expect.

LML: ‘Honestly, whatever we tell you won't be able to prepare you for what we're preparing for you. What we can say is that we'll be presenting the biggest set we've ever played, as well as new material that will be heard live for the first time. Come, come early, and leave the rest up to us. War is coming…‘

Bent By Sorrow: ‘A warm atmosphere and a very powerful show that will definitely get your heads banging.‘