The Safety Fire

Can you introduce yourselves please?
We are The Safety Fire, a progressive metal band from London.

Can you give us a quick background to the band? When you formed, any CDs out?
We formed as The Safety Fire in 2006, though we’ve been at University for the last 3 years, so things have been a bit slow with shows. That said, we’ve been busy writing and developing over that time, and our EP “Sections” will be released shortly (exclusively on iTunes).

Why did you form a band?
It was something to do: we started playing together when we were 15 and things developed from there. We had all literally just got our instruments when we started so it was initially for fun, but then we started taking our craft more seriously. After a while, we got around to thinking about recording, and it went from there.

Which band or musicians have had the biggest impact on your life?
I guess that the whole band would count Tool, Opeth and Sikth as favourites. Their respective albums Lateralus, Blackwater Park and Death of a Dead Day were all records that changed our outlook on where we might take out own music. As such, they have had a huge influence on us, though we have never deliberately aimed to sound like them (though it would probably be too hard anyways!). Apart from those, I’m sure each member has their own band or artist that has influenced them. Personally, I’m a big Alice in Chains and Mastodon fan for example.

Can you describe your sound to our readers?
Hmm, that’s not an easy question to answer! I would say our sound is definitely heavy, though it frequently switches between frenetic and scatty to ominous and lumbering. We like to incorporate a lot of different things, so it’s kinda difficult to pigeonhole. I’m not sure if we would be called heavy metal. Heavy prog maybe? I don’t know.. listen to the tracks on Myspace and you’ll get the idea!

Describe your live show to us..
Every time we play, we go out to give our best performance and show. We are still trying to find the balance of going mental on stage and playing as accurately as possible. There have been countless times we have smacked each other in the face with our headstocks or fallen over invisible walls. We have been told that we sound like a rhino and hippo rutting. Rutting really hard. I hope that intense visual translates into our live shows as well.


Tell us about your first gig together?
I think the first show we actually played as the The Safety Fire was at a house party in 2006. For some reason there was a drum kit and amps setup in the living room where everybody was. Someone suggested we should play, so we did. A hundred people who were previously listening to party anthems were now being subjected to our progressive stylings. That was a fun/weird experience.


Any funny gig stories you can tell us about?
That would have to be one gig we played in Brighton where someone invited some strippers to the gig and after everyone had gone and the bands were packing away their stuff, they started putting on a show (a FREE show) for everyone left. That was a great night! Many photos were taken…

What are your goals with the band?
I guess like any other band really – to be able to make music and keep playing shows, hopefully all around the world, for as long as possible! Everyone dreams of making it big and having a massive tour bus and snorting coke off a stripper’s crack every night, but we would be quite happy sleeping in a tiny van (snorting coke off a stripper’s crack) as long as we were on our way to another gig where someone wanted to come and hear us.

What do you think about the rock scene at the moment?
I think there are some cool bands in the UK at the moment, but possibly not the greatest scene. There are obviously a lot of metal and rock fans, as rock clubs seem to do pretty well, but the turnouts at most UK underground shows aren’t great. I’m mainly talking about the scene in London, as I can’t pretend I know about many other cities’ scenes very well. But there are some great bands coming out at the moment such as No Made Sense, Rise To Remain, TesseracT, HAARP, Mutant etc etc… too many too mention.

What are your upcoming plans?
Right now we are focussed on getting the album finished and then taking it from there. We’re hoping to do a couple of tours in late spring/early summer, but nothing has been confirmed yet. We just want to gig as much as possible… After a long time in the studio, it’ll be nice to stretch our legs out a bit and see some sunshine!

Which member of the band has the most annoying habit?
Calvin’s sweating. Not exactly a habit, but it might as well be as he does it so much! Gets on all our stuff.


If you had a question for any musician out there alive or dead, who would it be for and what would the question be?
It would have to be Prince, and I would ask him “Where did you get that sweet ride for the front cover of Purple Rain?”.

What advice would you give someone thinking of forming a band?
Form a band with like-minded people. If everyone has different ideas of what direction to take things, or what they want to do with the band it’s only going to cause problems later on. Try to have a laugh, there will be many more downs then ups!

Thanks for your time. Anything else to say, plug, complain about, promote?
Check out our EP, new merch and video blogs coming up over the next few weeks! Ta for talking with us.

Interview by Rob Sayce

Myspace Page – http://www.myspace.com/thesafetyfire