This year’s Boardie Takeover was a day earlier than usual. Mark Bestford caught up with Takeover openers Fury to discuss their favourite bands over the Festival weekend and their touring plans for the rest of the year
You guys opened the Boardie Takeover. What was it like not being in a tent for a change?
Becky Baldwin “It was surprising. Because I mean, we thought that it was going to be raining at first because like we looked at the forecast, we like, Oh, great, it’s gonna rain. We’re gonna be a tent. Everyone’s gonna come in. So we’re great. And then we were outside. But also, the good luck was that it didn’t rain. Well, I think it did. Maybe it did a little bit, but it was good weather. And but it was great, because I think more people could actually come in and look than it would have been in the tent anyway. So yeah, it was great. Like it was a bit of a smaller stage than I think the previous years have been, but we made it work and it was really great.”
How do you think the sound was like, with it being in the open with just the containers for the baffling?
Julian Jenkins “It sounded alright to me.”
Tom Fenn “We had good feedback from it.”
Nyah Ifill “We had good feedback that we could all be heard, which is always a hard thing with four singers. But it works really well.”
Jake Elwell “I think the sound guys were just on it. I think they’re just like, it’s been a couple years, they were just like, let’s go, we’ve got this. And they were really, really quick with it. It was real good.”
So what have you guys got planned for after Download?
JE “Just more tour dates, to be honest. We’ve got Europe towards the end the year. We’re playing You UrRock Festival in Switzerland, which is like our second home at that point. And then ending the year with a good Christmas bash.”
NI “We’ve got some Irish dates as well.”
BB “Uprising in Leicester as well. It’s another festival we’re doing.”
JJ “Yeah, playing, gigging as much as we can. Making up for lost time.”
TF “Making up for lost time.”
At Download, any other bands you’re looking forward to seeing, or have seen?
JJ “Maiden!”
JE “I just went to see Malevolence, absolutely amazing. I absolutely adore them and they’re a fantastic band. I literally had to check the time and like crowd surf over just to get here for interviews.”
You were part of the tsunami then.
JE “Yeah, there was a lot of people. I got punched in the jaw. It was great. I loved it. Wicked band”
JJ “Yeah, obviously Megadeth, Black Label Society, Deftones. I’ve never seen Deftones, so. Sepultura, of course. Yeah. But yeah, yeah, it’s a great lineup. It really is, it’s a great lineup this year.”
BB “Especially today, because, I don’t know, we like a lot of old stuff. We’re like, boomers, when it comes to our music choices.”
JE “Speak for yourself.”
BB “Okay, but Jake isn’t, but I’m definitely into the boomer music like era. I love it. Give me Iron Maiden, Megadeth and all this stuff. And I’ll be happy.”
Do you have any new music coming out?
BB “Well, we just released the Born To Sin album. So like, there’s a lot of new stuff there. I guess it’s like writing time again soon.”
JJ “For the rest of this year the focus is on mostly playing, gigging, and getting out there. And then you know, we sort of talked about maybe in the sort of January, February sort of slump then maybe we’ll get into a rehearsal room and do a bit of writing then. It makes sense, but we’ll see. I mean obviously we’re effectively touring two albums at the moment because the Grand Prize came out the start of lockdown 2020. And so we haven’t really probably toured that until this year. And then we’ve got the new album as well, so there’s no real rush to do anything new but there’s plenty of ideas coming along so.”
BB “There’s a lot of songs that haven’t been played live yet because, you know, we haven’t really had the time to do so. But yeah, it’s hard to pick a setlist at the moment. But we’re thinking of doing a rerelease. We haven’t really spoken much about it, but we’re like, planning to bring out one of our older albums out on vinyl. And we’re going to rerecord one of the songs and maybe release that. Maybe we should do a video for it that’s on top of a mountain.”
JE “Oh my god, Imagine. That would sound so good on top of a mountain. JJ, do you know any mountains?”
JJ “Yeah.”
JE “Yeah, good.”
BB “I know a guy whose got a mountain.”
JJ “The Malvern Hills, that’s it. I always know a guy.”
With all the touring you’re doing at the moment, how are you finding all the travel then?
BB “We’ve been quite lucky, we got a van, because we’ve always, like, driven in multiple cars, and it kind of sucked. But now we’ve got a van and Julian tends to do the intensive drive after the gig so I can have as many ciders as I like, and it works really well. But yeah, it’s nice to just be out doing it again.”
JJ “We’ve got some long drives ahead with going into Europe. In the UK it’s like three or four hours or I but in Europe we’re looking at ten hours, and so it’s gonna be a bit of a slog, but it’s gonna be fun.”
So with all those hours driving you’re going to have one hell of a playlist to listen to on the way then.
TE “I’ve got that covered.”
BB “Tom is good at playlists.”
JJ “He’s pretty good at playlists, he knows exactly the right thing to put on at the right time.”
NI “Sometimes we’re all in a slump and listening to fast and heavy music would just ruin us, and he puts on the power ballad playlist and it’s perfect.”
Interview and photos by Mark Bestford