Dan Hillier
Ingested have been back at it with relentless speed since touring came back to life following the pandemic, how does Jason feel to be back on stage? “Amazing” he responds without hesitation. “It’s been fantastic. Lockdown took away musicians’ biggest bread and butter with two years out of touring and it’s been hard, but rather than sit around and moan about all of it we’ve got our heads down and prepared for live shows coming back”.
He was certainly right about that. Ingested didn’t wait to get back into touring once restrictions lifted. They’ve had runs with Bleed From Within, their own headline UK tour and six weeks with Fit for an Autopsy in the USA to name a few of their endeavours. Jason is more than happy to keep busy though, saying that after lockdown “we had to make up some ground, we’ve got to make up for lost time”.
With 16 sold-out shows on the US tour that Ingested completed with Fit For An Autopsy at the start of this year, Jason felt that audiences had been more receptive to live music than ever before. “I think the thing about the pandemic is that bands and fans alike, or anyone involved in live music, we really got shown that we took it for granted. It all got taken away. Now that it’s back everyone appreciates it so much more and it’s been amazing, you can tell that everyone’s hungry for it!”
The Ingested frontman is no stranger to being idolised by fans, the slam king himself has been at the top of UK death metal for years. That said, Jason describes the response by fans to their return to live music and their latest single release as “humbling” saying that the band were “blown away by the fans on the last tour with Fit For An Autopsy”.
On the note of the US run with Fit For An Autopsy at the start of this year, you can tell that the bands share great friendships. Jason describes the bands that they’ve toured with recently as “like brothers, we’ve known each other for years and spent so much time on the road…they’re like family.”
Touring is hard work though, as Jason points out, and says that having “great people around you…that pick you up when you’re feeling down, it makes it so much easier”. Other things that make touring much easier according to Jason are Lucozade, Vimto and Mars bar milkshakes, going so far as to say he thinks Lucozade or Vimto need to sponsor the slam crew to keep him stocked up – hopefully they’re listening.
Moving onto speaking about their music and off-tour work, Jason divulged some tasty nuggets of information on their next album. “It’s been done and ready for ages now, we recorded it summer last year and it was all finished by Christmas. We want our debut album with Metal Blade records to be the biggest yet… it’s a 10-track album, and our last single ‘Rebirth’ isn’t even on it… and its coming out later this year”. So Ingested fans are going to be treated well before the end of 2022, and according to the slam king “there are some amazing guests on it too”.
Jason is audibly and visibly excited just speaking about the new album. Grinning, he states that it is “unapologetically Ingested, it has got everything that fans love about Ingested with loads on top of it”. He still loves their last album Where Only Gods May Tread, saying “we’ve been searching for what makes Ingested. With that record, we found that” but he seems sure that the next release is exploring that even more.
Where Only Gods May Tread dropped at the start of what some might call the rebirth of deathcore, and Jason thinks that extreme bands becoming more popular is helping the whole genre. “A high tide raises all ships, one band getting big in deathcore helps everyone in the genre”. He thinks that scenes and genres working together and building sounds with each other is great and helps pull fans into supporting more bands. “We always – especially when we were in the slam scene – got lambasted for touring with deathcore bands, supporting them, or using deathcore breakdowns in our music…I was like, are you mental?! If one band gets attention or gets big in a genre it’s good for all bands” The slam king clearly has a love for all the heavy genres out there which are creating new music and experimenting at the moment, which is something everyone loves to see.
He’s is clearly a huge fan and supporter of heavy music. The interview was closed off by the Ingested frontman explaining why it’s important to him. He knows that it’s such a useful release for so many people – “I would rather people come to our shows and release their energy and aggression in a positive manner and in a community than be out in gangs with knives or fighting in the street. Instead, they can get rid of their aggression in a safe environment with friends, in a place where if they fall they’ll get picked up”. Very little needs to be added to that statement, all readers that are part of the community of heavy music will know exactly what he means.