Exclusive Interview: Blight Town talk writing and recording their self titled EP!

How does the writing process of a new Blight Town track start? Melody, riff or rhythm first? “Definitely the riff first, we usually start with guitar parts and bass then meet up and structure the song until we have something we can work with!”

You have a complexity to your sound that is both progressive and catchy; how do you go about getting the balance between those two elements right? Have you ever found yourselves having to strip a song back for vocal parts for example? “Thanks! Yeah, sometimes we do have a habit of over complicating things and having to cut it back a bit. Our latest single is one of the first songs we’ve done that has repeating sections. Jake tends to add the vocals last so he can fit the vocals around the guitars for that reason” 

The EP was recorded, mixed and mastered by Myroslav Borys at Jigsaw Audio who we know from his work with Confessions of a Traitor and Last Hounds; how did you go about choosing to work with him and what was that experience like? “We had heard of him through a friends band and knew that he had worked with some great artists. Once we had recorded Jejunum with him we felt that we really got the sound we were trying to make. It’s a really good laugh at the studio too so going in is always really fun. He pushes you to experiment with sounds and parts and always gets the best out of us!”

If you had the opportunity to bring in a guest for a single track, who would you like to work with and why? “I think we’d all have slightly different answers, any members from Dance Gavin Dance, Loathe, Deftones or Tera Melos would be great but we’d open to anything if it was a musical fit!”

For us gear nerds out there, can you tell us what you’re using gear wise (pedals, strings, drums etc) to get your sound? “Pedals wise Sam uses an Ehx phaser, an Ehx tremolo a drive and an analog delay. Will uses a boss delay, a digitech whammy, line 6 m5 multi fx and a line 6 DL4. We like to have lots of sounds to choose from and add modulations and delays and things. We use loop pedals for a couple of glitch type effects or to keep something playing while not needed to actually play guitar. Scott uses a dark glass compressor overdrive that’s pretty much always on. We opt for a lighter overdrive on guitar than a lot of bands so we like to have heavy gritty bass in there to fatten the sound”

What difference would it make to you as a band if you could land an endorsement from a gear manufacturer? “It would be incredibly helpful and really cool. We use fender amps and a lot of squire/fender and Ibanez guitars and basses. Squire stuff can be a really great gigging guitar especially with a few upgrades. Thanks for having us!”