![\"\"](\"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/tumblr_inline_n9n3zcLhgk1qztcot.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
For Milton Keynes\u2019 progressive metal act\u00a0TesseracT<\/strong>, Sonisphere<\/strong> 2014 marked a new beginning for the quintet. Having parted ways with Ashe O\u2019Hara weeks before the band\u2019s appearance, the band have been re-joined by former vocalist Daniel Tompkins and are now set to tour the UK and Europe later this year before beginning work on album number three.<\/p>\n As Already Heard<\/strong> learned, the future is bright for TesseracT<\/strong> as new material promises to continue the band\u2019s evolution to becoming more melodic yet as intricate as ever.<\/p>\n Fresh from opening the Apollo stage on the second day of Sonisphere<\/strong>, we spoke to bassist Amos Williams for a detailed talk on how the band reunited with Daniel Tompkins, their third album and their upcoming UK and European tour with Animals As Leaders.<\/p>\n AH: Can we get your name and role in the band?<\/strong> AH: So how have you found Sonisphere so far?<\/strong> AH: Have you had chance to watch any bands so far?<\/strong> AH: Are you going to be here tomorrow as well?<\/strong> AH: Is that what you enjoy about festivals most? That you get to see friends you don\u2019t see often?<\/strong> AH: You played early on the main stage. How did you find it playing so early?<\/strong> AH: Because you only played for half an hour. Do you think that is enough time to make an impression?, especially on those who aren\u2019t familiar with Tesseract?<\/strong> AH: You mentioned Dan (Tompkins) rejoining the band. How did that come about?<\/strong> AH: Just good to be back together.<\/strong> AH: How has Dan adapted to the songs from ‘Altered State’<\/em>?\u00a0Because obviously he didn\u2019t sing on that album.<\/strong> AH: I\u2019m guessing you\u2019ve began work on the third album. How has it been going along?<\/strong> AH: In terms of sound, it is going be along the lines of ‘Altered State’<\/em>?<\/strong> AH: To sort of bridge the 2 together?<\/strong> AH: Like you mentioned you\u2019ve got the UK and European tour in the Autumn. Are there any countries or cities you\u2019ve looking forward to going back to?<\/strong> AH: It\u2019s all about the food and the beer.<\/strong> AH: You\u2019re touring with Animals As Leaders. Are you friends with them?<\/strong> AH: How do crowds differ in North America to over here?<\/strong> AH: What size venues are you playing in the UK?<\/strong> AH: To finish this off. For people reading this, why should they come and see Tesseract in the Autumn?<\/strong> TesseracT<\/strong> will be touring the UK in November. Support comes from Animals As Leaders<\/strong> and tickets are on sale now.<\/p>\n November TesseracT<\/strong> links: Website<\/a>|Facebook<\/a>|Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n
Amos: Hey whats up. This is Amos. I\u2019m the bass player in Tesseract.<\/em><\/p>\n
Amos: Sonisphere is probably the best festival, well for me at least the best heavy festival that you\u2019re going to get in the UK. It is just really well laid out, you go from one band to another. There is a lot of variation as well. It is not like the same old stuff, and they tend to get quite exciting bands as well but different acts from all over the world, so it is fantastic to come here and see. Tomorrow (Sunday) is awesome, you\u2019ve got Devin Townsend, Protest The Hero, Karnivool, and Dream Theatre; it is going to be such a good day. <\/em><\/p>\n
Amos: Today I\u2019ve had no time at all. I turned up at 6am, that was annoying, and then I was playing at 11am and then I\u2019ve had no time at all to see anybody. I;m maybe going to catch Slayer later. Last time I saw Slayer was fantastic. Unfortunately Jeff Hanneman has died since then, so that sucks but it\u2019s still Slayer though. Obviously Dave Lombardo is not going to be playing drums but it is still Kerry King and Tom Araya. Slayer was a big thing for me when I was a kid. So hopefully they\u2019ll be good.<\/em><\/p>\n
Amos: I\u2019m going to try and come back tomorrow. I just want to see my buddies in Devin Townsend Project, Karnivool and Protest The Hero. I hate to say but I\u2019m really not that fussed about seeing anyone else. It is just that when you\u2019re a touring band, you make friends, really good friends with people. Like today, some friends of ours, The Safety Fire, were playing, and I had no time to see them because I was just too busy. I love hanging out with my friends. You get to see them once every six or so months because you\u2019re working so you try and make as much of the opportunity. I just saw most of the Devin Townsend Project, I was like, \u201cOk dude stay here. I\u2019ll be back in 4 hours when I have finished with press, and I will come and see you.\u201d We only see each other at random places. Last time I saw them was in Norway 4 months ago, and we spent about 10 hours together. Just hanging out and having a good time. They are like family to us, but because obviously they\u2019re Canadian and we\u2019re from the UK, we rarely get to see each other but only on the road. You\u2019ve got to make the most of the chance. <\/em><\/p>\n
Amos: Yes that is it. It\u2019s my favourite thing because random people you haven\u2019t seen for a couple of years is perfect.<\/em><\/p>\n
Amos: We were really surprised. We were thinking \u201cthe weather is a bit bad, it\u2019s really early\u201d but we had a massive crowd. Even more so, it\u2019s light so you can see them. In the dark you can\u2019t see them, only 10 or 20 rows. We were lucky. There were thousands upon thousands people there, and we had quite a few fans which is even better. It\u2019s really nice to see people wearing our t-shirts, so that kind of makes you think you\u2019re doing something right. Main stage is an achievement in itself, but playing the main stage with people watching, wearing your t-shirt, singing along, that makes you feel like you\u2019re doing something good. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Amos: Well yeah, I kind of hope so. That is what a festival is all about, it\u2019s playing to the people who don\u2019t know you, especially when you\u2019re on the main stage. Because I\u2019m sure most people there are like \u201cI want to see Iron Maiden. I\u2019m waiting 10 hours to see Iron Maiden.\u201d So you\u2019ve got to try and really slap them in the face, and be like \u201cIron Maiden are cool but what about us?\u201d So hopefully those guys enjoyed what we did. We certainly tried our hardest. Today was cool. It was a bit stressful back with the new\/old singer, so it was fun. It was stressful, but a lot fun.<\/em><\/p>\n
Amos: It just wasn\u2019t working with our previous singer Ashe (O\u2019Hara). We were getting to a point where he was unhappy, we were unhappy; creatively and on stage. It is really difficult to put somebody into a situation that is very established because vocals are something quite universal. Everybody is in to vocals straight away, then there is the guitars, then the drums. It has always been quite hard for someone to take over Dan\u2019s role when he left. Fortunately we\u2019ve stayed very good friends with Dan. When it came to the point thinking it wasn\u2019t going to work with Ashe, we managed to say, \u201cOk your life is now in a certain situation where you\u2019d be happy to try and work with us again, so lets do it.\u201d And we were so lucky we picked up where we left off. It is almost like the last 3 years haven\u2019t happened. Things are very comfortable. We know each other extremely well. We\u2019re able to make those little jokes with people you know really well. It was just so much fun on stage. We were just lookign at each other, me and Dan, all the way through the set saying \u201cthis is good fun\u201d and smiling.<\/em><\/p>\n
Amos: Yes really exciting. It is very promising for the future.<\/em><\/p>\n
Amos: Yes. He\u2019s comfortable with it. \u2018Altered State\u2019 is a lot less \u201cmetal\u201d than \u2018One\u2019. From one respective, it is actually quite difficult because there is a lot of intimate stuff, so you have to have a lot of control over your voice for that, but in other respects it\u2019s easier because he doesn\u2019t have to do a lot of screaming and all that. We kind of always wanted to move away from that, the heavier vocals, and now that we are established with Altered State\u2019. Dan is quite excitied about that. The rest of the band have been into the idea of moving away from heavy vocals, but Dan is very much not interested in it. We don\u2019t want to sound like Meshuggah. If anything we want to sound like Duran Duran, just to drag that out into the ether. We\u2019re more interested in melodic, clean vocals.<\/em><\/p>\n
Amos: We got about 4 or 5 tracks. We might release something in September. We\u2019ll see. We\u2019re going to spend the next couple of months working on stuff, and then probably start recording in January. So hopefully we will be able to do something soon before the tour later this year. We\u2019re touring in September, October, November throughout Europe and the UK with Animals As Leaders, so hopefully we can release something in September. We\u2019re thinking quite early in September but we\u2019re not going to fix ourselves to that. If it doesn\u2019t happen, it doesn\u2019t happen but we would really like it to happen, just to reassure people that we\u2019re still Tesseract.<\/em><\/p>\n
Amos: No it\u2019s going to be more along the lines of album 3. We will probably release a track that is quite similar to \u2018Altered State\u2019 just to make it easier for people.<\/em><\/p>\n
Amos: Yeah, but the next stuff will be whatever we decide to do. It\u2019s not going to be fucking Fear Factory or Slayer, we\u2019re still going to be fairly epic, fairly melodic, but it will probably be slightly different to \u2018Altered State\u2019 in the way that record was different to \u2018One\u2019 but it still sounded like Tesseract.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Amos: It\u2019s going to be awesome. I\u2019m really down with France. My fianc\u00e9e is half-French, half-Belgian so I\u2019m so looking forward going back to Paris where her family is from. I get to hang out with them again. I\u2019m also looking forward to going back to Belgium where she has family. Belgium has the best beer seriously. Beer, food, chocolate, there is nothing in the world that beats Belgium. I could stay there forever. I\u2019ve done a small beer tour, pub crawl of Belgium. I say small, it took me about 2 weeks but it was amazing. Antwerp has the best bar in the world. It is a place called Kulminator. It is just perfect. They know how to live, but also Italy. I really love the food in Italy. I engage how much I enjoy a place by how good the food is. I\u2019m not been keen on Germany, the food is not that great. German fans are amazing, really loud but I kinda prefer France, Belgium, and Italy. The food is absoultely awesome and the beer too.<\/em><\/p>\n
Amos: Yes absoultely. Perfect.<\/em><\/p>\n
Amos: Yeah we\u2019ve actually done about 2 months touring with them in North America. It was us, Animals As Leaders, and Between The Buried and Me. It was a fantastic tour, so cool but so hard as well. Everyday doing a show then travelling for hundreds of miles but they are really cool guys. I got on really well with Animals As Leaders and Between The Buried and Me. I did some voiceover work on \u2018The Parallax\u2019, Between The Buried and Me\u2019s last album, and on their live show they had me introducing them in every city, and the last DVD. They\u2019re the best guys. They\u2019re so cool. It is a shame we\u2019ve not done anything with them over here, but I\u2019m really looking forward to working with Animals As Leaders again. We were in LA, where they are based at the moment, a couple of months ago and they came out to our show. We were like \u201cthis is cool, lets do some touring again\u201d, so it is going to be fun. Show them Europe, show them all the sausage Germany has to offer, all the crabs France has to offer, and all the shit food England has to offer. <\/em><\/p>\n
Amos: We\u2019re so much bigger in North America its ridiculous. We sold out a show in LA recently, a massive show. We are so lucky we get to play normal shows in New York. It\u2019s weird. We\u2019re just bigger in America than we are over here. I guess America just gets progressive metal. They like it, where as over here it is a bit more underground. Then you go to Europe, we\u2019ll be headlining Euroblast in Germany and that is a couple of thousand people, so it\u2019s pretty cool. Hopefully doing a show like this, to how many thousand people it was today means we build a reputation over in the UK. It is just sad that it is our home, we just do so much more in LA six thousand miles away. I\u2019m not kidding, LA is fantastic and I love the fact that we can go over there and play to huge crowds but it\u2019d be nice to do it in the UK as well.<\/em><\/p>\n
Amos: In the UK, it\u2019s going to be anywhere between 500 and a thousand capacity venues. London is about a thousand, that should be pretty cool. It is just weird that the last time we played in New York, that was about 16000, it so weird.<\/em><\/p>\n
Amos: Well we will really work as hard as we can to give you the best show possible. It\u2019s weird because we are quite relaxed but at the same time we\u2019re quite interested in the details, so I can guarantee you will not see anything like we\u2019ve done before. Hopefully it will expand your horizons of music. What we do is influenced by other people but what those influences are, aren\u2019t that mainstream, so I hope we can share really cool music with other people who like Meshuggah, Pink Floyd, Deftones, Tool, or Jeff Buckley. So if you\u2019re going to stick them in a blender, mix it all up, then hopefully we\u2019ll show you something you\u2019ve never heard before.<\/em><\/p>\n
3 Talking Heads, Southampton
4 O2 Academy 2, Birmingham
5 Sound Control, Manchester
6 Scala, London
7 Cathouse, Glasgow
8 Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
9 Thekla, Bristol<\/p>\n