It’s 2000trees weekend! Hooray. Three days of debauchery at Upcote Farm near Cheltenham, alongside 120 of the best rock bands around – including Upset faves Lower Than Atlantis, The Menzingers, The Front Bottoms, Nothing But Thieves, Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes, Deaf Havana, Mallory Knox – and Fizzy Blood, who also have a new EP coming up.
Hey Benji, how has 2017 been treating you so far?
This year so far has been awesome, yeah! We’re currently on our first tour of this year which is the biggest we’ve ever embarked on, and we’ve played a few great one-off shows such as a showcase for independent venue week with The Wytches and a rammed show at the Brudenell Social Club for BBC Introducing Leeds. It was a mad party, haha.
So you’re playing 2000trees soon – have you been before?
Personally, I’ve never been, and I don’t think the other’s have been either, so it’ll be a first for us all. But we’ve all heard great things about the festival, and I’ve been keeping an eye on it over the years, and the line-ups just keep getting better. Our friends in ALLUSONDRUGS played there last year, and they said that it was definitely one of their favourite festivals to date.
What’s your favourite thing about playing festivals like 2000trees?
The fact that everybody is there to just have a good time. I’m not saying people don’t turn up to gigs to have a good time but the overall vibe is very different I think. We’ve only played on a couple of large festival stages so far but when we have it’s always been a blast, and the crowd are always well up for it! The midday beers help I think…
Are there any must-have items you try to take with you?
Beers.
Are there any bands on the line-up you’re looking forward to catching up with, or seeing play?
Loads of bands actually although I doubt I’ll be able to catch them all. One of my favourite bands that I really only discovered because they were on the same flight as us when we were jetting off to SXSW are Get Inuit and I’ll definitely be down the front when they take to the stage.
Are you going to hang around all weekend to soak up the festival atmosphere?
I’d like to yeah. We’re very busy boys at the moment, so we’ll see if the festival gods look upon us with favour over that weekend and allow us to stay the whole three days. Any excuse innit, haha.
What do you think makes the perfect festival set?
I’m not really sure it’s too different to any other set. Although I reckon you’ve gotta, bring out the party vibes a bit more. Everyone’s there to have a laugh so just play to it. Conviction is the key word here.
What else have you got coming up this year?
We’ve got our second EP on the way later this year which we’re all insanely excited about. We’ve recorded our last couple of singles in a different way to how we recorded our first EP and while we’ve been proud of everything we have released as a band. We felt that there was something missing. So we’ve gone back to recording the core of all the tracks on the new record live to tape and pouring on the rock ‘n’ roll gravy in generous amounts afterwards. It’s a much more refined process than it sounds! Haha. In terms of live performances, I think we have a festival appearance every weekend until the End of July which is fantastic. There’s some more tour dates in the works and a couple of other things going on behind the scenes, but we’ll let you know as and when.
2000trees takes place at Upcote Farm from 6th-8th July. Visit twothousandtreesfestival.co.uk for details and tickets.
