Ingested are an astonishing band; the Manchester-based wrecking crew have been assaulting the UK scene since 2006 and has become one of the biggest UK modern death metal exports in the process. We sat down with vocalist Jason Evans ahead of the release of their unreservedly incredible new album, ‘The Tide Of Death And Fractured Dreams’, to get the full lowdown on this most prolific of moshpit slayers and to celebrate the art of northern anger.
We start off by asking Jason, a man who has 18 years in the game, how’d you do it?
“Just the love of the game, mate, to be honest. Like, this is what we were born to do. Do you know what I mean? This is what we’ve always wanted to do since we were kids. We started when we were teenagers. We wrote our first album when we were still in our teens. And now we’re in our mid to late 30s and about to release another one.”
And it’s a belter! But before we get onto that, you’ve just come off what has arguably been the most extensive death metal tour on our shores. I can’t think of one that’s stepped up as much as the Lorna Shore tour. You were one of the main supports. That’s incredible, isn’t it? Potentially the biggest death metal tour we’ve had in this country so far!
“Arguably, yeah. It was a huge tour. Last year, 2023, was probably our biggest year to date. The tours that we did were crazy. We did two UK and European tours, support tours that were probably the biggest tours that we could possibly do in our wheelhouse, in our scene. We did the Cannibal Corpse tour and then earlier in the year. We did the Lorna Shore tour late in the year, so it was like it was a crazy year. In between that, we did Australia for the first time, and we did a US headline tour, which was our most successful headline tour to date, so it was just a wild year. It was just crazy. We’ve got to top it now, haven’t we?”
How do you feel about death metal suddenly becoming a main stage, larger venue concern? We saw Cattle Decapitation on their recent, mostly upgraded tour and it seems at the moment that death metal’s bigger than it’s ever been. What do you think is the catalyst for this?
“I think there’s a couple of bands that have really sparked it off, which is always the way with any movement in any scene because I always think that it kind of goes in pretty much, 10-year cycles. Something like Deathcore will kick off, and then there’ll be a couple of bands that are really, really massive, and then a whole scene will explode because of these bands, and then it’ll kind of taper off. And then 10 years later, there’ll be another group of bands that connect with a younger generation for whatever reason and then it’ll explode again in popularity. It just always kind of does this, and obviously, I think with the rise of bands like, Lorna Shore obviously, Slaughter to Prevail, Shadow of Intent and Brand Of Sacrifice, with their popularity, what happens is, you do get your TikTok generation, there is a lot of that, with parts of songs going viral and stuff. Obviously, that gets seen by a younger generation, but then what happens is this younger generation has never heard music like this before; they then go, well, what else is like this? Do you know what I mean? Then there’s a trickledown effect to everybody. And then they come out to the shows to see the band that they like, and then they see other bands supporting them, and then that’s how fan sharing starts. So, for me, it’s a high tide that raises all ships.”
That’s very similar to what Signs of the Swarm have said to us. It took that one jump-off point, which is essentially a breakdown in a song (Lorna Shore -To the Hellfire). Everybody loved it. And then, of course, they’ve got Spotify now, so you don’t have to go out and buy everything; you can go check it all out instantly. This generation’s got it so good.
“I know, but if I’m being honest, I kind of miss that excitement of going into an HMV and not knowing anything about an album or a band and then just seeing an album cover in the metal section and going that looks like it has to be good and then buying it, and then not knowing anything until you get home and put it on. I kind of miss that because I think nowadays, although it’s much easier to consume entertainment, which is great, obviously, there’s just something about it. I feel like everything’s spoiled for me nowadays. I feel like I don’t have to work for anything.”
We get misty-eyed about only having 10 pounds a month to buy one record and listen to that one record all that month. If it was a dud, then it was a dud. You’d just have to wait till next month and try and do it again.
“Yeah, exactly, exactly, there was a gamble to it, it was like you were literally just going off, oh their logo looks spiky, you know what I mean, all there’s zombies on the front cover of this album, it’s got to be good!.” (Laughs)
One remarkable thing about your band is that you are so prolific! Since your fifth album, there’s been an album a year almost, is that right?
“Yeah, pretty much! Sometimes more.”
To give the readers some idea, the usual album touring cycle is at least two years, sometimes three. Are you writing while you’re on tour? Is that what you’re doing?
“We’re always writing, we’re always in a constant cycle of writing, and it’s never like a forced thing. Do you know what I mean? Because our guitarist, Sean, is crazy prolific when it comes to writing. He’s a riff machine all the time. Any spare time he’s got, his guitars in his hand and he’s writing. That’s awesome. Even when he’s standing on stage sound-checking, it’s crazy. So, we’re always at it. Whenever we finish writing or constructing an album, we just immediately carry on writing. “All right, that’s done, let’s carry on!” We’d recorded our previous album’ Ashes Lie Still’ then as soon as we finished, we’d already pretty much written ‘The Tide of Death and Fractured Dreams’. So ‘Ashes Lie’ got released in November 2022 and then four weeks later after that was released in December 2022 we went into the studio and recorded ‘Tide of Death and Fractured Dreams’.”
Is it true that it took you seven days to track the album?
“I think I did all my vocals in five. Well, the thing is, though, because we write so far ahead of ourselves, what we’re doing there is we’re giving ourselves basically a year of time. So we’ll write these songs and then for a whole 12 months, we’ll be recording them at home and demoing them and doing scratch tracks. Then we’ve got 12 months to tweak and fiddle with each song until we get it exactly how we want it. So then, by the time we go into the studio, we know exactly what we’re doing. It’s all muscle memory because we’ve been doing it for 12 months already, so that’s why we can smash through it.”
That’s such a great system.
“Yeah, it’s not only just being prepared; it means that we’re not spending shit loads of money in the studio for fucking weeks. We can do it all in a week because we know it. That way, we’re saving money as well because you know we’re not like fucking rolling in it by any fucking means. This is our career, and we can pay our bills, but you know what I mean? I’m not Rockefeller.”
We always tell young bands that being rich in music is to be treated as a myth; if you can pay the bills, you’re doing really well. In the days of bands writing albums in the studio, only the top tier can get away with that. Only Metallica can spend a year in the studio.
“Well, if you’ve got a record company who wants to give you a shitload of money so that you can sit in a fucking studio for weeks on end and write your album in there. That’s fine, but for us, we don’t want to do that because you’ve got to remember any money that’s an advance from a record label has to be repaid. It’s not just free money; it’s a loan. And that comes out of your royalties. So it’s like the less you spend, the less you have to pay back and then the quicker you can start getting your royalties. So it’s like you’ve got to be clever about it, the thing is nowadays as well for a lot of young bands, you don’t even need to go to a studio. You can record at home. It’s not as good as recording in a studio, but, if you’re just starting out or like when the lockdowns were happening… “
You can get your basics and pre-production done, and then you save a lot of time when you go to the studio, so yeah.
“Exactly! So it’s just about being clever. It’s just being prepared!”
Adapt and survive. That’s what it’s about these days. On this album, you have a couple of guest vocalists. What is great about this album is the fact that they’re not token gestures. There’s some thought behind these, and each guest brings something different to the song and enables the album to move into other avenues. I don’t know about you, but we’re not naming any names or anything like that, but one of our pet peeves is when there are a hundred guests on an album, and they all sound the same, and it’s not for any good reason. You’ve got Josh from Sylosis on the amazing ‘Expect To Fail’, and he brings a whole different angle to that song with the cleanly sung bits, allowing you later in the album to expand. It almost seems like those guest vocals are almost like vehicles to move it to a different place. Is that correct?
“Yeah, kind of. The way we do guest vocals is very different from other bands in our scene, I think. You were talking about pet peeves. Well, here’s one of mine…”
Right? Let’s go!
“In our scene, and it seems fucking exclusive to our scene as well. I can’t wrap my head around it. It’s like, all right, you’ll know what I’m talking about when I say it. Oh, you go on Spotify or YouTube and see a new song, whatever band featuring whatever vocalist. And you’re like, oh, sick. That sounds sick; I’m gonna put that on, right? So you’re listening to it, three minutes go by, where’s this fucking vocalist? Where is he? Where is he? And then it gets right towards the end, and there’s a breakdown. And for about 15 or 20 seconds, there’s the vocalist. And then the song ends, and you’re just like, what is the fucking point? You know what I mean? It’s just a waste of time. It’s artistically and creatively barren. And to me, it’s just like clout chasing, though, isn’t it? You know what I mean? You’ve clearly just got this guy at the end of your song just so you can have his name in your song. So that it does better in a fucking algorithm, or you get more clicks on YouTube or whatever it is. And to me, it’s just weak, man.”
It’s just not artistic, is it?
“No, it’s just crap and it’s obvious. So many bands do it, and it just pisses me off. But whatever, it’s their band. That’s what they want to do. Then who am I to fucking judge? But for me, it’s just void. And so, when we get guest vocalists, they’re a part of the whole song because it’s important to us that they’re a part of the whole song. The guest vocalists we choose, we choose them, not because of the name or whatever, but because of who they are as a vocalist, because of that vocal personality, the way they deliver their vocals, the tone of their vocals. So that means that not only do they have to compliment and elevate the song, but the song has to compliment and elevate them that makes sense of who they are as a vocalist. Because of the way we write, it’s not like we never force anything. So it’s not like, oh, we want to get this guy on, let’s write a song that’ll fit him. That doesn’t happen. So what we have to do is we have to wait until a song just naturally comes along. And then we’re like, this would be amazing with so-and-so. With Josh we’ve known Josh for years. Obviously, it’s like Ingested and Sylosis kind of grew up together in the same UK scene. So we’ve known Josh for years. So, it makes a lot of sense. But we wanted to work with him, but it was just waiting until the right song came along, and then along came Expect to Fail.”
Later in the album, you’ve got Mark Hunter from Chimaira, who brings a surprising almost Korn vibe to ‘In Nothingness’. It’s a pleasant surprise. It’s what we think a guest vocal should be—like, Oh my God, they went there! Mark Hunter, it’s great to hear him again. He’s a legend for a reason, so underrated, and we love Chimaira!
“Same, I love Chimaira so much. ‘Impossibility of Reason’ is one of the best metal albums of all time!”
We are definitely in agreement. As we listen to it, the album starts off taut and tight, as in the definition between the kick drums and the riffing, and that carries on for a few songs, and then ‘Expect to Fail’ makes it open up a bit sonically. As the album goes on, it sounds like it’s spreading its wings, and it ends on this lovely final tune where it’s like a clean vocal. It feels like a complete evolution through the album. Was that intentional?
“Yeah, absolutely. It’s totally intentional. So back in the day when we were first writing our first albums and stuff our mindset was, “let’s write ten bangers and stick them on a CD!” Yeah, but that was great because that’s just what our mentality was at the time; we were teenagers, and we were like, let’s just write 10 bangers! But as we’ve become so much more conscious of the story of the album, I don’t mean that there’s like a narrative going through the story, but I mean the journey the album takes you on when you listen to it in its entirety, there’s a clear beginning a middle and an end and if you listen to it all the way through these, peaks and troughs and ebbs and flows and calm in the storm, like right in the middle. Then you come back out into this whirlwind, and then right at the end, it ends with ‘A Path Once Lost’, and that sends you off into the sunset. It’s all by design. You can listen to it as a full album, and I love that.”
We love that because the album’s art is getting lost a little because people have the likes of Spotify, so they’re just pick and choose. On this one, you really do have to listen to it from beginning to end because everything leads to everything else, and it has this jump-off point. That’s incredible. We noticed something with ‘On Broken Wings’ on the last album. You did the video in one shot walking through the streets of Manchester, right? Is that a nod to Massive Attack and Verve?
“Yes.”
I thought so. I thought I saw that!
“We grew up listening to the Verve and shit, do you know what I mean?”
Find me another death metal band that will do that.
“It was a total nod to that, but it’s also more than that, it’s a nod to Manchester, which is a massive part of Ingested’s identity and always has been since the beginning. Such a big city. We’re so proud to be from Manchester like, we love our city so much. Just being like three working-class Mancs from, well, Lynn’s Welsh, but still, the point stands from council estates and shit. We wanted to show people where we’re from, who we are, like, you know what I mean? It never changed.”
It was so honest. It’s such a Manchester thing to do. Manchester has always been strong in any genre of music, whether it be indie music or back in the Factory Records era. What do you think makes Manchester such a creative hub?
“I think because it’s predominantly working class and it’s in the north. It’s like people take the piss going, oh, it’s hard times up north and shit. And it’s like, well, yeah, it always has been. We’ve never quite been as affluent as the South, have we? That’s not me being divisive or anything. It’s just a fact. That’s just what it is. So, I think when you’re in a big city in the north or living in council estates, which is like what the majority of Manchester is, council estates. It’s like you have to have an outlet like because look it’s like you’re either gonna go three ways. These are the three ways in there. Either you, you go and get a boring grey job, a grey building and a grey suit, a grey desk. Or you go into crime, robbing, drug dealing, or whatever, that’s another common one, or you find something creative. That’s why we’re fighters; we’re all fighters who were born fighters. It’s like you either fight or you just become a victim. That’s it, that’s why you get so many good bands from the North. You also get so many good boxers from the North because we’re all born fighters. You’re either gonna fight to get out of this, or you’re just gonna accept it and rollover. There are your options!”
We agree that’s where the passion comes from, and passion makes great art.
“If you’re spoiled, what have you got to complain about, you know what I mean?”
If you’ve got plenty to complain about, then you’ll write some really good fucking heavy metal music.
“It’s hardship, man; it makes you and hardens you. It makes you want to say fuck you to everyone else. That’s how we are. When we were growing up, like a band in the scene, we were like the black sheep of the scene. Nobody wanted to give us any help, we never got any leg ups or handouts, and we were never in any of the magazines or never on the radio or any of that shit. We were always told we weren’t good enough, or you’ll never make it, blah blah blah, and that like basically made us go, fuck you! And then we end up with this big chip on our shoulder, and this fuck you attitude, and now a load of spite in our belly. And that’s what we use to fuel ourselves now, to go, Nah, I’m gonna fucking show you all of you, that you were fucking wrong, and why you were wrong. That’s one of those things. We could have just given up, rolled over, taken it and gone, oh yeah, you’re right. Yeah, we probably won’t. But that’s not who we are. As fighters, we were just like, no, fuck you!”
So, talking of fighters… we will end our interview here with a guest question. We have a mutual friend, right?
“Okay….”
This question comes in from Josh Davis of the band Malice. He’s your merch guy as well.
(Laughs) “Yes, Gobber? What does he want?”
He said, ask Jason this question. You’re in the wild, lost without a phone and no sense of direction. You come down a path that leads to two different places. Both of them are guarded by wildlife creatures. There’s a bear, and there’s a mountain lion. Which one do you think you could kill?
“What’s our bear?”
We’ll say Grizzly,
“Mountain lion! A Grizzly Bear are you mental! If you just said black bear, I’d have gone, oh black bear like but grizzly bear, no chance, no chance!”
There we go, Josh. If it’s a black bear, fine. If it’s a grizzly bear, then a mountain lion it is! We’re trying to turn this into a regular feature where we get the bands’ mates to ask them questions.
“Amazing, cheers Gobbers!”
By the way, listen to Malice’s latest single; it’s brilliant. So, are you doing any festivals this summer?
“I think we might be doing one in Poland, but we’re kind of giving festivals a break this year. We did a lot last year. We were at Download Festival last year first time, how fucking bullshit is that, why has it took them that long to get us on Download man? Like, what the fuck you talking about, bro? So, then we got on stage and fucking smashed it out the park that tent was over full, yeah and everyone went mental, that’s because we were there with that fucking chip on our shoulder going, I’ll show you why you should have booked us a year ago!”
Northern underdog mentality!
“That’s it, that’s it. That’s fantastic, mate.”
Well, Jason, thank you so much for being with us. Is there anyone you want to shout out before you go?
“Yeah, I just want to say thanks to all our fans around the world. Your support is what keeps our lights on at home. So, whether that’s buying the album (pre-order the Tide of Death and Fractured Dreams, it’s out April 5th on Metal Blade Records.) Whether that’s buying merchandise or t-shirts, buying a ticket to the show or just streaming our stuff, watching our music videos, just keep doing that because that’s what allows us to carry on doing this crazy fucking thing that we’re doing. So, thank you so much. Also, like I said, the new album is out on April 5th; you can pre-order that through ingested.co.uk. There are plenty of merch packages, bundles, and vital variants, and then, on April 17th, we will embark on our UK and European headline tour. We’re taking out Fallujah, Vulvodynia and Melancholia with us. That runs through April and May. That’s going to be amazing. Tickets are flying out, so get yours before you can’t. Again, you can get tickets for that tour and all our shows through ingested.co.uk.”
We’ll see you on the tour; we can’t wait!
Interview By George Miller – https://linktr.ee/601music
Band Photos: Eduardo Ruiz
