The BIG Über Rock Interview: Kaya Tarsus (Blood Youth)

Written by Rich Hobson
Saturday, 17 February 2018 12:08

Blood Youth are the sharks of the hardcore scene right now, constantly moving from gig to gig, festival spot to festival spot, support slot to support slot.

Talking of the latter, Rich Hobson managed to corner vocalist Kaya Tarsus before appearance in Birmingham, where they were opening for While She Sleeps, to find out how 2018 is looking for the band and where we can expect to see them next…

We had a very busy 2017 so it’s been good to get a little bit of time off haha. We just needed January off because we’d been away for so long, so we took this month to regroup and write, because we don’t do much writing on the road. So January has been our writing month and chilling month, but literally soon as February hits we’re back on the road.

You guys have had a pretty wild ride since forming in 2015, not least because you’ve been able to play Download, Groezrock and get great support slots…

One of my friends is here today actually; we played in a band together from like 13 years old until we were 20, but life happens and we couldn’t do anything anymore. So I’d been playing music for a long time anyway, playing to empty bars to no-one, then this just happened. It’s been a real whirlwind and it gets hard to keep track of everything we’ve done. People ask me ‘how was this show?’ and its like ‘oh yeah, we did do that!’

It’s refreshing to find a band with hardcore leanings who are open about the fact they want to be big, and play big shows, because there are so many bands who are precious about it.

Ever since Blood Youth started I’ve been like “I want to play Wembley”. I want to play massive arenas – and I’m not saying that as a money sort of thing, I believe we can do that and I want to do that. Otherwise, what’s the point in anything?

Where abouts are you guys in terms of the plans for the year right now then?

We did so much last year and we’re hitting the end of the album cycle now. 2018 we’re going to tour, but we also have to write – so once this ends we’ll be writing for like a month. Then it’ll be a headlining tour in Europe, which we’ve never done before, then festival season starts and we’re back on that. We’re just doing what we can, but we tour so much that it’s important that we get writing breaks in too.

So you’re writing for the new album right now then?

Literally right now, yeah. Constantly sending each other ideas, me and Chris [guitars] do the majority of the writing but we all have input and it all starts from somewhere. We’ll probably start demoing soon – but I might be getting us in trouble saying that!

Lyrically, what are your biggest influences?

I just write about what’s going on in my life at the time. I got into a state on the last album where people couldn’t talk to me – not even my family – because I needed to be in a gross mindset. [During] ‘Beyond Repair’ I was going out every night and partying, on my own. Because I just needed to know what it was like and that’s how I was at that time, trying to rid myself of this really dark depressing path of waking up on weird people’s floors in houses I didn’t know. On this album I’m trying different things, but I always want to write about what I’m doing and what I’ve been through – the beauty of it is people coming up to me like ‘I’m going through that as well!’. I get loads of messages about how it speaks to people, so I want to write songs that say ‘yeah, I get you’.

You’ve supported a pretty wide litany of bands, everything from metalcore and pop punk to rap metal. Does that help widen the scope of what you want to achieve?

From the beginning we’ve said that we won’t put ourselves in one pigeonhole and say “this is the type of band we are – we’ll only play with hardcore bands”. We’ve supported PVRIS and Neck Deep before, that was one of our first ever shows, so it’s always quite interesting to see what comes along and that’s how we’ve managed to go from that to Prophets of Rage, Caliban, While She Sleeps… We’ve always wanted to be able to do that.

Do you think that the bleed between bands in genres right now is beneficial to a band like yourselves then, that music is less about scenes and more about great bills?

Yeah I think so. I feel personally that heavy music has had a massive boost for the past 12 months. A band like Code Orange who go from things like ‘This Is Hardcore’ to the Grammys is just so sick. And it opens doors for other bands; even the people who are frightened by it – it’ll get them talking. It reminds me of the old days of Slipknot. When you’d look at them and be like ‘oh god, those masks’ – if you’re scared by the music you either end up loving it or hiding and never listening to it again.

How much of a scene was there when you first came around?

I don’t really know; I lived in Spain. I say this story a lot, but it’s a big part of this band’s history. I gave up on music completely; I had done the band thing, tried it and it didn’t work out. I moved out of the country to be a different person, do whatever I could to not be a part of the world I was leaving behind. I felt so cheated by it, like it was a girlfriend I never wanted to speak to again – “how could you do this to me?!” All I ever wanted was to be in a band and it didn’t work out, so I went to work in an office. I literally got a call to come back and got asked if I wanted to do some stuff with Chris and that became our first EP. All of a sudden it snowballed and our first three months as a band we were playing Download, then supporting Architects on a tour, then Beartooth. It’s been like that ever since and hasn’t stopped – we’ve learned not to ask questions.

But that’s not answering the question! There were lots of bands in the scene, much like now, but I don’t think there were many that went from being on our level and having zero fans to going and doing something like playing Download. I think it’s been refreshing for people – like “if you can do it, so can we!” and we’ve always wanted to be that band for people.

What do you think has been the most beneficial for you so far – festivals or support gigs?

I think the festivals have been. Our first ever show as Blood Youth was after we recorded ‘Inside My Head’ was at Takedown Festival in 2015. It was our first ever show! We’ve had a great team behind us who are really invested and want to see it do well. All our team are Blood Youth fans; yes, they work for us, but they want to see us succeed as well. They’re the ones making it happy. Our attitude as a band is “this is all we do” – right from the start we knew we had to take it seriously. If you want to be in a successful band – and I’m not saying this like we sell out arenas every night – but you have to make it your life, whatever you do. If you want to be a body builder you have to be in the gym every day, we’re on tour all the time because we want to be the bodybuilder equivalent as a band.

How beneficial has fan culture been for you as a band then?

Amazing. People got what we wanted to do right away and festivals have come a long way in helping us with that. Fifty per cent of the time you’re playing festivals and most people don’t know who you are, so after the show it’s great to have people still come up to us like “I saw you at Download and I’ve been a fan ever since”. We’ve got very passionate fans and they get it, so we’re thankful about that.

How much do you think the mentality in hardcore has changed over the years?

I’ve always had a love for hardcore music, I remember falling in love with Black Flag and being like “I’m a hardcore kid now – I’m only gonna listen to this.” I always used to go little shows, but as you grow up your music changes and I listen to everything now. Last night I was listening to jazz – music changes so you start coming in with different influences. Chris only listens to heavy music – Cannibal Corpse and Slipknot – I listen to that stuff as well, but I also love The 1975, so you can see those influences pop up in our music. And like I said – we don’t want to be pigeonholed as a metal band, or a hardcore band – we do our own things. I don’t like it when a band says “we’re this!” and then you listen and all of their albums sound exactly the same.

So what’s your take on the Suicide Silence situation then, that they changed their sound and had a massive backlash?

I used to love Suicide Silence, but I fell off the map a bit with them. I’d also look at a band like Bring Me The Horizon – I have no beef or anything with any band that does that, because this is what music is. I hate it when bands have the same sound on every single album; on our second EP we opened it with an acoustic song. We’ve always been like that – we don’t give a shit if people think we sell out. Do what you want! Who are these people who think they have a right to tell a band how to sound?

Do you think bands owe anything creatively to their fans?

You only owe them what they put in to the band. We wouldn’t be anywhere without the fans, so every band owes them something, but I don’t feel like bands should be torn down for trying different things. I think “you tried it, I don’t like it – but whatever”. I’d hate for our passionate fans to suddenly be like “we hate your stuff now” just because we sang on a track – it’d be like “guess what, this track is ONLY singing”. We’ll have songs where there’s just screaming – if you like the band, you like the band.

‘Beyond Repair’ is out now via Rude Records.

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