With a mental live show, stated as a ‘must see band’ by yours truly at Crossfire and tipped to be the next big thing by Metal Hammer, UK band The Safety Fire are hot property right now. After putting out an insanely strong debut in ‘Grind The Ocean‘ earlier this year we needed to grab a chat with the eccentric band. Backstage at Hevy festival journalist Emma Wallace caught up with hilarious front man Sean McWeeney, and banterous guitarist Derya Nagle who were suitably dressed in Hawaiian shirts! Here’s what went down…
How have your festival performances gone down this summer?
Sean: Well today we played Hevy, and considering we were on at 12:30 I was pretty pleased with the turn out. I thought people would still be dying in their tents, but it was quite busy.
Deyra: Yeah I mean its always hard when you are a smaller band or on early in the day but that performance went well. I heard it was a lot busier than for the bands at the same time yesterday. Pretty pleased!
Sean: But the problem with playing so early is that you finish early and get drunk early and you still have the whole day and night ahead of you to drink!
Deyra: Just to point out, we aren’t alcoholics. We don’t drink before we go on stage. We’re good boys like that. At Download we played at like half eight in the evening, but we didn’t drink before that, and there was plenty of hanging around before hand that could have been taken up by drinking! Download was cool actually, we played before Gallows and Cancer Bats. It was rammed. It was ace.
Sweet! Guys, I can’t really ignore it anymore, what’s with your attire today?! Hawaiian shirts aren’t that metal!
Deyra: Well we are at a festival so why not eh?! Hawaiian shirts are where it’s at. The sun’s out today, and I think you can thank us for that.
Sean: The shirts have a nice little story behind them. We originally bought them all in Florida when we were touring there.
Deyra: And someone told us they have a magical power. And earlier on today none other than Andrew W.K. gave us the nod of approval. You know one of those looks that are like ‘Yes Sir, you look mighty fine.’
Sean: Indeed, it was actually a point and a nod. You can’t get better than that. These shirts were actually bought at a Salvation Army charity store on a highway. Someone might have died wearing this shirt. They cost the equivalent of about £1. And they are beautiful shirts so you can’t miss a bargain like that. So essentially, what we are doing to metal is bringing the Floridian sun over to England. I think it might catch on you know, they are gorgeous and I’d love it if people turned up to shows in floral shirts, i’ts injecting a whole lot of colour into a goth club. All the hardcore kids are in tie dye, but I’m not sure, you need something more formal, I mean these shirts have buttons. They might make an appearance on the BTBAM tour!
They are beautiful indeed…Well you’ve bought us on quite nicely to the tour. How are you feeling about that? Excited?!
Deyra: Its going to be a lot of fun! We know the Periphery guys really well who are on the tour. Playing at Shepherds Bush Empire will be special. We’ve played all sorts of venues in London, right from the bottom to some of the best.
Sean: It’s great to play to a passionate crowd after years of playing to one man and his dog.
Deyra: And to be on tour with Between The Buried And Me will be something else. We feel that musically we are closely matched. They’re one of those bands where we think our style is very similar and I imagine their fans will be open minded and listen to what we do and enjoy it.
Are there any bands out there at the moment you think deserve a plug?
Deyra: Let’s go with all our old tour buddies Rise To Remain and Bleed From Within.
Sean: No not Bleed From Within! I’m starting a tongue-in-cheek hate campaign against them so plugging them doesn’t really work! They are from this area in the north of England called Scotland. You can barely understand them when they talk. They say ‘Hello we are Bleed From Within’, but it sounds more like ‘Bleed From Wuthwon’ or something bizarre like that.
Deyra: Sean isn’t actually a dick. We take the piss out of them and they do it to us. We tend to do it in interviews the most. I think this is about round three of TSF v BFW. Scott, the pretty front man, stole a pair of Sean’s sunglasses, he didn’t like that very much. So now, we have a bit of banter with the guys, a bit of friendly beef. Make sure they find out about this though, make sure you get me in there quoted as saying ‘Bleed From Within are from Northern England’.
Sean: But yes, they are a great band. We’re just better haha!
Catch The Safety Fire on tour with Periphery and Between The Buried And Me at the following shows:
OCTOBER
1st, Reading – Sub 89
2nd, Wolverhampton – Slade Rooms
3rd, Glasgow – The Garage
4th, Newcastle – O2 Academy 2
5th, Manchester – O2 Club Academy
6th, Leeds – Cockpit
7th, Bristol – O2 Academy
8th, Southampton – The Brook
NOVEMBER
2nd, London – Shepherds Bush Empire