INTERVIEW - Blood Command @ ArcTanGent Festival

Amongst those beautifully British rolling hills called the Mendips sits a place called Fernhill Farm, that not too long ago was lit up by the whirlwind of heaviness that is ArcTanGent Festival. Even in the chaos of that lineup, the Norwegian/Australian group Blood Command stood out for their incessant energy, love of life and living, and their uniform of all Adidas, all the time, always. Sat down in the beating sun, Jake Longhurst chatted to lead singer Nikki Brumen and mastermind behind the band Yngve Andersen.

As the interview was taking place a little show of twelve months on from the release of their last album 'World Domination', it was only sensible to ask how dominant they've felt as a band across the world - and with nothing less than complete assurance, Nikki came back to say that herself and the band have been more dominant than ever before - with 16 European festivals attended across the summer, they've kept themselves very busy! Of course we had to ask about how excited they were to play ArcTanGent itself, and Nikki was throwing compliments everywhere about it - "I'm so excited, this festival... it's so well curated, it's so interesting and so different to other festivals I've seen!". She also made a point about the ludicrous lineup and how she didn't recognise half the bands playing, but that her friends pointed out as many bands she did know as she didn't which was a huge positive for her.

Yngve went further to make the point that ArcTanGent feels so varied and don't fit into a box, which matches the modus operandi of Blood Command to a tee and makes them feel right at home at the festival. Their latest album also doesn't fit into any one box musically, and whilst discussing it the pair remarked on how similar their music tastes are, so how easy it was for them to add little bits of many different styles across the album in whatever manner they saw fit at any given moment - as if cooking without a recipe and pure guesswork but still coming out with a Michelin star meal. They saw the album as an opportunity to dig into every possible inspiration, and made it as massive a collation of sounds as they could to try and make the quintessential Blood Command record.

Whilst going around this summer and touring 'World Domination', the band have been enjoying themselves away from heavy music by trying to learn all of Sabrina Carpenter's 'Espresso', and also writing some new music - if next year's hot girl summer anthem comes from Norway or Australia, then you know who will have written it! Sabrina was not the only one of the pop girlie triumvirate to be talked about though, as Nikki is having herself a brat summer as a diehard Charli XCX fan - the band's bus driver Metal Joe found out that she was a huge fan and managed to get her a triple A pass for her in Melbourne, and the week after her sister got her the brat crop top!

The brat crop wasn't allowed onstage with the band though, as it isn't Adidas branded, which we asked the band more about. Yngve, whilst so very casually brandishing a cigarette and a beer in true brat summer style, talked us through his mother's reasoning that all branded clothing was crap, that you would 'pay a lot for clothes that were not really that good'. Adidas however, was the one exception - 'that was worth the money'. This led the band to take it up as an honorary uniform in honour of Yngve's mum, and whilst the band don't have an Adidas sponsor (yet), they still proudly wear the trefoil and triple stripes any time they're onstage.

As we didn't have too long left, there was just time to ask one last question of the pair, to find out who might be their dream artist to work with. Yngve dropped Refused almost instantly, and whilst Nikki whistfully mentioned Wendy O. Williams from Plasmatics, who is no longer with us sadly, she backed up Refused as an absolute dream to work with one day. Keeping our fingers crossed, we'd love to hear a Blood Command collab with Refused, just after they've gotten that much-needed Adidas sponsor!

With that though, it was time to bid the colourful duo adieu and let them prepare for the violently energetic display we would see later that evening, in their bid to further their world domination that little bit more.

Words: Jake Longhurst

Photos: Johnathan Dadds