Exclusives
[Interview] Chatting With Heaven’s Basement Drummer Chris Rivers
Filthy Empire, the debut album from UK rockers Heaven’s Basement, has only just come out but it’s already making waves and causing a stir. In my own review, I heralded the band as the Guns N’ Roses of the 21st century and that’s a claim that I’m not going to back down from any time soon. It’s not fair to say that they have an element of danger about them. Instead, it’s more appropriate to say that this band is like an action movie exploding left and right without a single care as to what is in its path.
To celebrate the release of Filthy Empire, we landed an exclusive interview and drummer Chris Rivers where we chat the new album, future plans, and what it means to be signed to Red Bull Records. Check out the interview and their latest video for “I Am Electric” below.
Bloody-Disgusting: Tell me a bit about “Filthy Empire” and the story that led up to this album.
Chris Rivers: We recorded the album in LA with John Feldmann as the producer. The build up to recording this album started in 2012 when we signed our deal with Red Bull Records, by this time we had a good 3 years of touring a million stories to write about. You only get one chance to record a debut album, we had opportunities in the past to record but we never wanted to rush the process. By spring 2012 we felt like we were in a position where we wanted to get in the studio and record the album so we decided to take a trip to Los Angeles to meet various producers, it was an audition process as such. We met this guy called John Feldmann and instantly hit it off, there was a chemistry that just clicked with him.
BD: Heaven’s Basement is a band that is known for lots of touring. What is about the road that appeals to you?
CR: We’ve been on some awesome tours over the past few years, every single tour has a whole load of stories from it. it always been our bread and butter, a live band is what we are in its essence. Along with writing music being on the road is the highlight of being in a band for us guys, getting to travel the world, visit amazing places and meet people everywhere. Every night is a friday / saturday night for us on the road.
BD: You’re signed to Red Bull Records, a brand that is known as high energy, both figuratively and literally. How do you think their brand fits with your style and, vice versa, what do you think you bring to the Red Bull brand?
CR: Red Bull and Heaven’s Basement are a great match, the mentality is the same, high energy, risk, attitude and ambition. We’re all about doing something new and making our own path, not following any trend or style that might already be out there.
BD: The video for “Fire, Fire” is pretty grim were one to watch it without audio. What made you decide to go with a video that showed so much destruction and chaos?
CR: We felt that those images matched the energy and sound of the song, we chose Fire, Fire as the first single as it shows almost every part of the Heaven’s Basement sound, riffs, solos, melody, groove, dynamics. We want to keep people listening so this mentality reflected over to the video as well, we want to keep people watching, those images do that and keep a dangerous feel to the song.
BD: What are the hopes you guys have with “Filthy Empire”?
CR: The album has only just come out, right now we’re in our favourite place which is on the road. We’re hoping to tour this album for the next 2 years. There is a whole world out there for us now to discover and people to discover us. Our music can appeal to fans of all genres of rock so hopefully our music will make connections all over the world which will set us up even stronger for the second album.
BD: You’re playing Rock On The Range in May. Any other US tour dates planned?
CR: Yes, we can’t wait for this show, we’ve just played our first ever North American shows with Buckcherry, it was an awesome experience! We’ve also been announced for Carolina Rebellion and a few other festivals which will be announced really soon.
BD: Making a bit of a jump, are any of you into horror? If so, what are some of your favorites?
CR: I think Aaron is a fan of some horror stuff! If anyones into Horror they should check out a promo clip for the album we released a month or so ago, we basically ripped of the famous scene from The Exorcist haha, check it out!
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Director Sébastien Vaniček has been set to helm the next Evil Dead movie, but up first from the filmmaker is the creepy crawly spider horror movie Infested. An exclusive new clip gives a discomfiting closer look at the spider terror, and it’ll make you intensely afraid of all bathroom drains and fixtures.
Infested will induce a new wave of arachnophobia this week; the spider horror film arrives on Shudder on April 26, 2024.
If you’re brave enough to face your fears, watch the new clip below to get a feel for the unrelenting wave of spiders that the characters (and the audience) will face in the film.
In the film, “An underprivileged suburb has been thrown into chaos following an invasion of venomous spiders. Ordered to be placed in quarantine, the project sees inhabitants living on lockdown alongside terrifying spiders that are becoming bigger and bigger.
“The story revolves around Kaleb, who’s about to turn 30 and has never been lonelier. He’s fighting with his sister over a matter of inheritance and has cut ties with his best friend.
“Passionate about exotic animals, he comes home one day with a venomous spider and accidentally lets it slip away.”
Théo Christine (“Suprêmes”), Finnegan Oldfield (“Final Cut”), Jérôme Niel (“Smoking Causes Coughing”), Sofia Lesaffre (“Les Misérables”) and Lisa Nyarko star.
Florent Bernard co-wrote the script.
In his review out of Fantastic Fest last year, Bloody Disgusting’s Trace Thurman raved that Infested (aka Vermines) is “one of the best spider attack movies in years,” noting in his 4-star review that the creature feature uses practical spiders – REAL SPIDERS – as much as possible. Thurman also wrote that the spider horror movie is “full of moments that will get under your skin (I kicked my legs up more than a few times in my screening).”
The spiders will be everywhere in Infested, are you ready?
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