The beaming faces say so much. They tell just what it meant to Pryma to play the Boardie Takeover on the Wednesday at Download Festival. The Kent crew did themselves proud so who can blame them. We chatted to them well into the Sunday and they were clearly still lapping up every moment.
So what was that experience like for you, playing the Download Festival Boardie Takeover?
“Oh man! We are still on cloud nine now. Everything, the crowd, the pyro, the atmosphere, the sound, it was mental.”
It all a little bit emotional at one pint didn’t it?
Gaby (vocals): “I did have a little cry on stage, a first time for that. I had a look round at the lads and thought about all the hard graft and then to go and play the stage we did the other day. All the bad times and the hard times, and then we’re stood on a stage at Download.”
And like you said pyro too.
Gaby: “I have a short term memory thing and I forgot we had pyro. My eyebrows nearly went!”
You’re starting to get a lot more attention from the media now and are constantly building your fan base. Does it make it all worthwhile seeing that evolution and progress happening for the band and being given opportunities at events like this?
“A million per cent. The fact that we have interviews here, although we have done them before and they are becoming more frequent now, it’s still a bit strange for us. It’s a culture shock, we’ve gone from asking to being asked. It’s very much a fish out of water feeling, especially here when we got into the artists area where you have a chance to rub shoulders with people we grew up listening to. That in itself is pretty surreal.”
For those unfamiliar with your sound, where do you take your influences from?
“It probably started with classic rock, like Foo Fighters. But where we are now more Kublai Khan (TX) and Malevolence. We’ve grown up with very different tastes but collectively listen to similar things. Gaby loves Queen and Freddie Mercury, she grew up listening to Amy Lee and Evanescence.”
Gaby, you have quite a presence, do you take some of your moves and how you’ve developed your stage presence from those artists?
Gaby: “Not moves but one of the most amazing people to watch on stage even if you don’t like him is Freddie. He is bonkers on stage. He takes up all the room, and seeing that confidence, that’s how I want to be. But I’m just a bit odd and do what I want up there. I just wing it.”
What have you guys got coming up for the rest of the year?
“We’ve got a little tour going on in August with a great band called Recall The Remains. We are with another great band called Bright Black on that tour. We’re also playing Ramsgate Rock Festival in October. Florence Black are headlining one of the dates on that.”
Listening to your sound and how you’ve developed you could argue alternative music as a whole has developed similarly. It’s got a lot broader including taking influences from outside of the traditional alternative areas you’d expect. Do you think it’s a good thing to embrace so much?
“Yes, every band is completely different and it’s so good to hear such fresh bands coming through. We might go on a tour with a band that are completely different to us but it’ll work so well because that audience will get so much from it. Take playing Download on Wednesday, our sound compared to the other bands playing that same stage as us was completely different, they were all different. The audience were loving it.”
And the way fans can listen now has given them a way to get out of that almost having to or being expected to listen to a narrow style of music that was the case for previous generations. And you don’t have to just buy a whole album now either.
“Yes, it seems to be something that out fan base likes, they like the idea that we are drip feeding them singles. And that means we can put a lot of love into one song. So we have a single that we have been working on for a while, all our love has gone into it. Our fans can then say right I’ve heard this for a couple of months I’ll have something new now.”
Festivals like Download have also progressed their booking haven’t they, to take into account the fresher sounds and musical landscape generally?
“Well we’ve played it, haha! It is so cool to have new bands coming through. One band will do something that’ll make them go viral on Tik Tok, it’s switching it up. The genres are not only multiplying at an exponential rate they are developing at such a rate it is making the industry more interesting. This is the time to be rising up through the ranks.”
Who are you most looking forward to seeing or have seen this weekend?
“Kublai Khan (TX), Architects and Linkin Park. We missed Limp Bizkit because we went and recorded our new single.”
With Download being well known for its weather fluctuations give us your festival survival tips.
“Bring a blow up mattress that doesn’t deflate in two seconds. A million blankets and a million layers of clothes. Bring something to keep your stuff waterproof while you set up your tent. Or just not camp and get a campervan.”
Interview and photo by Gary Trueman