“We were like the salesmen who refuses to sell their product on the internet, so we had to go away for a little while to appreciate things and come back with a new approach.”
The date is April 5, 2018 and the words “Nothing will ever be the same. Laid to waste all emotion. Forget my name” come blasting out of across the speakers. The voice is that of Brandan Schieppati, the song is ‘Set Me Free’, the band is Bleeding Through.
After a near six-year hiatus, the Orange County metalcore outfit returned with a track which sounded like the band at their peak. This was the first taste of what the band has to offer in upcoming album ‘Love Will Kill All’, and it is a record that frontman Schieppati cannot wait for the public to consume.
“2002 is back,” exclaims the vocalist when he speaks to Already Heard. “We have had people who have listened to that song and said it was like the first time they listened to Bleeding Through. People have said to us that we couldn’t have picked a better time to come back, but it’s not like we’ve planned it, it just felt right to us.
“People thought at the end, it was just the wrong time for Bleeding Through. We were a bit of an old-school thinking band back then, we didn’t really embrace social media. We were like the salesmen who refuses to sell their product on the internet, so we had to go away for a little while to appreciate things and come back with a new approach.”
When the band announced they were going on hiatus in 2014, there were many fans who thought that was the end and they would not see any new Bleeding Through material. However, this was not that case for Schieppati and Co, who insists that when things came to an end for the band there was no bad blood and this is why their return sounds so fresh and they have approached the new record revitalised.
Schieppati added: “I always thought when we stopped was that we will eventually do this again, so everyone in the band still stayed pretty sharp. I was just writing some songs and I thought this could be a Bleeding Through song. So I took a video of myself playing it and sent it in a group text asking what everyone thought and the reaction was ‘that’s awesome! Let’s go’. Everything came through really organically.
“When a lot of bands get back together, they would take a complete break from music, but for us that wasn’t the case, we didn’t end on bad terms. We ended because life happened, like people wanted to have families etc but had put that on hold for Bleeding Through.”
With seminal records ‘This is Love, This is Murderous’ and ‘The Truth’, many people’s gateway into the band and are still held in such high regard by fans. This is something Schieppati says really humbles the band and has been thrilled that fans have said the new material seems to slip seamlessly into the Bleeding Through timeline. But Schieppati admits things weren’t always plain sailing for the band and even though he was proud of the last two Bleeding Through records, 2010’s self-titled effort and 2012’s ‘The Great Fire’, the band were burnt out.
“I feel that for the self-titled record we felt pressure to do what people wanted us to do and then ‘The Great Fire’ we were exhausted,” added the front man. “But now we have come back fresh and coming into this we could just reflect. Before going into this me and my producer sat down and listened to every Bleeding Through song ever recorded, which sucks because I hate the sound of my own voice. But what it did was transported me back to my mindset of what I was feeling at those times and what I was thinking when I was writing.”
However, with new record ‘Love Will Kill All’ already gaining buzz and momentum around it, it seems like the band from Orange County have returned hitting the floor running. From the two tracks which have been publically released, the feedback is that Bleeding Through are back and it is as if they never left. Schieppati’s distinguishable vocals roars throughout and riffs which sound like they are about to punch you in the gut, metalcore is well and truly back and one of its pioneers is proudly waving the flag.
With a new album and announcing their first headline show back since the hiatus, the big question on many fans lips is will there be tours in the future? “We want to so bad, but we all have other things. I’m not saying we aren’t it will just be more difficult to schedule,” closes Schieppati.
If the passion that Schieppati speaks with is anything to judge by it seems apparent that this won’t be the last we are hearing from Bleeding Through.
‘Love Will Kill All’ by Bleeding Through is released on 25th May on SharpTone Records.
Bleeding Through links: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Words by Tim Birkbeck (@tim_birkbeck)
