Breed 77 Interview

Breed 77 is a band that is best described as "Flamenco metal" to most. Hailing from Gibraltar, Spain and Portugal, the quintet blends a nice fusion of classic heavy metal and traditional Spanish flamenco music to bring a rather unique sound and style to the genre of heavy metal.

Thanks to their incredible live shows and captivating stage performance, Breed 77 has gained a strong and loyal following over the years, enabling them to perform throughout the UK and Europe frequently.

Earlier this year, their sixth studio record - The Evil Inside - was released, and ever since they've been busy gigging to support it. This time, they supported Fozzy on their UK tour for the second time, and on August 14^th, in a comfortable seating area around the back of the Yardbirds venue in Grimsby, we had the opportunity to sit down and chat to three of the five band members. Here's what happened...

Leese : For people that are new to Breed 77, how would you describe your music?

Andre: Flamenco metal, basically heavy metal, traditional - between heavy rock and heavy metal with obviously the flamenco fusion to it. We all have different influences; our inputs work in a different way. I'm more of a metal guy... Some of the guys are a bit more rock, old school... a fusion of all that. I'll say classic heavy metal.

Joobs: What influences do you have as a band, main influences?

A: As a band, that's kind of hard to answer.

J: Or as an individual... say yourself, personally?

A: Personally, Metallica when I was younger, then later Machine Head, Slipknot, and so on...

(Pedro enters)

A: Pedro, obviously, really different influences. It's different for every single one of us.

J: (to pedro) Who influences yourself as a musician?

Pedro: Who or what band?

J: Bands... artists...

P: Yeah from classics... definitely Led Zeppelin to non-metal at all like Paco de Lucia. Some crazy progressive 70's like Camel and shit like that. Then, more metal like Metallica, all the way up to, I don't know, Opeth... I really like, by the way, Ghost I know someone is going to kill me for that but I really love the band.

J: Haha, you like it but no one else does?

P: I do, I do.

J: Cool. You have The Evil Inside out, which is your 6^th album now. That was out in March... How has it been received?

P: The Evil Inside had a really good reception from the beginning. I think we accomplished what we were trying to do, which is not repeating ourselves in any album. I mean, if you hear our back catalogue you will notice an obvious difference between albums, and I think we accomplished what we wanted. It's definitely not as metal as our previous work with Insects... It's like more hard rock; rock with an edge, and it's definitely going to have nothing to do with the next one. But, so far so good, especially in Europe. I mean our new label has done an impressive job there. We've just been touring in Germany, and very well attended gigs for our headline shows as well as our supporting stuff for DevilDriver. Yeah, so far we're very happy.

J: This is your second time with Fozzy, isn't it? The first time round...

A: First time was December...

J: Personally, I've been to shows on both tours and I've found that the fans are a lot more receptive now than the previous tour.

L: Now that you're playing more from The Evil Inside.

P: Yeah... Actually, our last video, "Bring on the Rain", is escalating... I can see that from the likes on YouTube. It is nice to see people are singing along to the words...

J: Even if they have written them on their arm.

(Note: We both had lyrics written on our arms at one of the shows so that we'd be able to sing along with the choruses to "Drown" and "Fear".)

L: The catchy choruses!

P: Haha! Down, down, down, down. Round, round, round, round.

J: We've washed it off now. We know the words now.

L: We have four or five songs that we know.

J: It is quite nice to think that you've got some catchy choruses that people can pick up on right away...

(Danny arrives with food)

J: Come in and sit down! You can eat at the same time.

Danny: You ask me some questions, I'll answer from here. I haven't eaten all day.

J: Okay. I've already asked the guys who their influences are... who are yours?

D: Maiden, King Diamond, Black Sabbath... pretty much classic metal.

J: Fantastic. I'll let you finish your food.

D: I haven't eaten all day!!

J: Neither have we. I might come over and help you in a minute.

D: Notice there's no shops here.

J: Nothing at all.

L: What's the music scene like back home? Do you play many shows in and around Spain, Portugal and Gibraltar?

P: Yes we do. Actually we're about to--

A: We're just about to go to Gibraltar and Portugal.

P: Yeah. Obviously, gigs are crazy, you know, and very well attended.

L: We don't hear of a lot of bands coming out of Gibraltar. Is there a big metal scene there?

A: He's the man to tell you the story! (points at Danny)

D: There's not really a metal scene; it's very small, but there's many bands there. Everybody's a musician, so we get a lot of pop bands... they're not very heavy.

J: So you're quite unique over there?

D: There's only one venue, called the Rock on the Rock, and that's it. Apart from that, just little bars where people play covers, but once in a while they do a big gig there in the town centre and there's like 10,000 people... like a stadium thing, and that's what we're doing on the 10^th September, which is National Day.

J: It's a big change from here, where you're playing to 100's to go to like 10,000.

D: Yeah, it's fun.

J: So you have the gig coming up... What's next?

P: We have the gig in Gibraltar... We still have a run of four gigs at the end of this month, then we're going to Portugal, back to the UK, then start writing songs for the new album which we want to release as soon as possible. Also, we are trying to squeeze another last run... another tour starting in the UK, most likely, and heading to Europe at the very end of the year.

L: Will it be a headline tour?

P: Yes. We're looking at that. We don't have any confirmation but we're strongly pushing for that. It's going to be the end of the year for us, hopefully the beginning of the next one too. It's going to be a fun year.

J: You said the next album is looking to be completely different, so do you have an idea of how it's going to go?

P: Simply because, as I mentioned before, none of our albums kind of repeat themselves so, we definitely wanna have something you know, very different. I think it's gonna be better but... you know. Edgier, heavier and punchier, definitely.

L: Our blog is called Invading the Pit, and basically it's written by female metal fans, for female metal fans. Obviously, as you can see from this tour, we like to travel to see bands. We're very dedicated. Because of that, and because we get to talk to and hang out with guys from bands, we get a lot of people that think "Oh, you must be groupies"...

A: What's wrong about that? (laughs)

L: Well, nothing if that's what people wanna do, but it's not for us! Also, we have friends who go to shows and they enjoy getting in the mosh pit, and they have guys that are like "oh, you shouldn't be here".

A: I don't like it. It's not a girly thing.

L: There's split opinions on it. People know what they're going into when they get in a pit. They know they can get hurt.

A: Yeah, but if you're a guy and you're in a mosh pit, and there's a girl there... It's no fun anymore. No one's gonna be hitting and pushing each other because there's a girl there. We've got to be careful.

J: I give as good as I get. I tell you what... the bruises I got from Download...

A: Guys don't want to hit girls... At least not me.

L: We've noticed at these shows there's kind of a split in the audience between male and female. Is there a divide overall in your fan base?

P: To be honest, our fan base, I would say it's 50/50. We have a lot of females.

D: Trannies too.

J: Come on then, explain that one.

D: We are equally at ease with everybody.

P: We have a wide spread fan base.

D: Anyone can like Breed, we don't care... even if it's dogs and pigs. There's nothing wrong with that.

J: So I can bring my cat along to a show?

D: If it buys records we're happy.

L: Come on, then... Who rocks the hardest... Men or women?

P: Both. I dunno, to be honest.

L: We've already established the girls like it... "Love you, Paul!"

J: Yeah, we've heard a few Paul chants.

P: The guys I think, mosh pit wise, they're like RAAAAAAAAAAH!

D: You can't say that, Pedro. Every guy's not exactly the same, every girl's not exactly the same.

P: Yeah, but I meant in general...

D: It doesn't matter the person, or what they are. Everybody is an individual person.

A: The craziest I've seen at a gig was a girl... It was a DevilDriver show when we were on tour with them two years ago... This was in France and she was wearing a massive hat, you know like those hats you wear at football matches or something? She was wearing one of those hats and was in the circle pit the whole time until Dez pointed at her and said "You! Come on stage!" and she was jumping, like FLIPPING, off the stage onto the crowd and she did that six or seven times in a row and even Dez said "You're the fucking craziest bird I've ever seen."

L: A lot of the time with things like that there's a lot of alcohol involved.

P: When alcohol's involved everyone gets crazy.

L: At the end of the day, as long as people are responding to what you're playing, it's all good, right?

P: Yeah, we feed off each other.

J: Thanks for your time, I think we can wrap this up now unless you have anything else to add or any more stories...

D: I think we've covered pretty much everything... illness, death on the road.

L: Yeah, like jumping over fences?

A: Yeah, I need to be sensible on tour. Crazy behaviour (grins)
(Note: There was no jumping over fences. The rumour was something we overheard from Matt from Voodoo Vegas. In actuality, Andre had surgery under his arm after contracting an infection on Saturday, and played a show every day from the Sunday. Trooper!)

J: Well done for motoring on, and going through each night. Obviously, we've been to all the shows... three so far. Each night you've gone longer before you've got the wince of pain like "ARGH! I can't go on!" How are you getting through that?

A: Painkillers, antibiotics, marijuana (smiles)

P: That's why he's smiling so sweetly!

(L to R: Paul, Danny, Leese, Pedro, Joobs, Stuart, Andre and tech/friend of the band, Rui)

Breed 77's album The Evil Inside is available to purchase now. For all updates and information on the band, check out their official website at breed77.com, and their Facebook and Twitter pages.