Not All Who Wander Are Lost: On Bad Blood's Latest Single "Fade Away," Their Musical Journey, and Dealing With Self-Worth.
Everyone often deals with dark feelings of self-loathing, guilt, or maybe may even suffer from low self-esteem. While most of these emotions are often fleeting, this more often than not dovetails into depression. But how do we know when our emotions have gone too far? It often becomes blurred, and we often do not know who to turn to when this happens and spirals out of control. We want to believe that it's easy to come clean about these emotions, but the truth is, it not always is.
We often feel judged for the feelings we have that are not always easy to put into words. We keep them bottled inside, causing a state of turmoil most do not even realize till it's too late. Industrial metalcore band Bad Blood wants to address these hard to reach emotions in their latest release, "Fade Away." While the track is a hard-hitting instrumental mix of massive vocals, dark instrumentals, and ethereal atmospherics, behind it is a track that shows that you always have someone to turn to. Bad Blood is here is to shed more light on their latest single, "Fade Away," their journey, and why it is always important to speak out when you need help.
Bad Blood’s “Fade Away” Single Cover Art
I want to thank you guys for being here! I always enjoy new acts contributing to this blog series. So I want to start by asking, how did Bad Blood get started? What was your vision for this back then?
Well, three out of the four of us who have been close for ten plus years have always been involved in music some way or another. We met our fourth through a separate project and we all just clicked! We all had the same very loose ambitions to make music for fun and have a good time, but slowly it started becoming more than that. We started seeing this as a more serious project.
What was your scene like back then? Did you find your sound fit your current demographic or was it something you had to push through?
Unfortunately, when we formed COVID-19 was already an issue, so there wasn’t much of a “scene” per se. We just kind of wrote what we felt at that time, what sounded good to us, and it just came naturally.
What are your musical influences? How do you implement that into band sound?
We all come from both very similar and very different musical/influential backgrounds. Our inspirations range from bands like Linkin Park, 3teeth, Motionless In White, Bring Me The Horizon, Korn, and many more. We try to pull something from all of our separate influences but try to make it our own simultaneously, basically we write what sounds and feels right to us and hope it resonates well with the listener.
Your new single "Fade Away," where is this coming from lyrically for you? Instrumentally the industrial vibes, heavy guitar, and electronic atmospheric elements are interplaying well with each other. It keeps things very engaging. It's great stuff.
Thank you, we appreciate that very much. Lyrically this song came from a very dark personal state of mind, but very real and all too common in our youth. Instrumentally, it was written to play on more of an upbeat fantasy state, almost dreamlike, but keeping a dark undertone.
You guys released a few singles back in 2020, "Malevolence," Victim," and "Heavy Lies the Crown." In what ways do you feel this single differs from those releases creatively and recording-wise? To me, there is a bit more melodic freedom and atmospheric liberties taken as opposed to your earlier tracks, where there was a heavier framework, the guitar, vocals, and the atmospheric choices, felt like it had a massive instrumental intent and hit with a purpose. Is that fair to say?
Very fair, our other songs were blunter with the message and emotion behind them, whereas this time we wanted to leave more mystery for the listener to interpret as they see fit. It is a drastic change from the norm for us as a band but in a good way. It allowed each of us to showcase our talents and make them present from start to finish.
What do you want people to take from this release?
All of our songs have a greater message to them than just “we make cool music,” so the lyrical content is referring to self-hate or harm. We just want people who feel negatively towards themselves to know that there is always someone out there who knows and understands where you’re coming from. To not be afraid to reach out to someone for help.
What have you learned and taken from this? How have you evolved as an artist?
We have definitely all grown as artists through this release process in many aspects, but mostly, it’s helped us understand where we want to be as a band and how we see ourselves as artists both together and individually.
How did 2020 change you as an artist? In what ways? How did you bring that into your music?
2020 put the importance of the writing process and strategies into perspective just because of how hard COVID-19 impacted the music industry. It taught us a lot about being patient and how a well-written, recording, and releasing process can be more beneficial than cranking out songs every week.
What is the outlook for 2021?
Going into 2021, we have a plan to stay focused on reaching others with our sincere lyrics, moving through topics as much as we can. It is hard without being able to connect to anyone face to face like we would like to, but we will continue to do our part to spread awareness to real-life issues most deal with but are too afraid to be open about.
We appreciate you taking the time to get to know us, it means a lot.
Thank you.