Bleeding Through

By Michael Crafter

Just for the record, your name and what you do in Bleeding Through?

My name is Brandan Schieppati and I sing for Bleeding Through.

Bleeding Through are about to hit Australia for the third time. This time it's on a festival tour. What do u expect from this tour and what

are the positives and negatives about doing festival shows rather than doing smaller club/bar shows?

Well we are all looking forward to playing these festival dates. I think that the positive about doing these shows is that we are going to be playing in front of so many people that have never been exposed to BT, so that’s a great opportunity for us. the only negative is that we love playing club shows, cause we are all about being close to our people.

The band has recently gone through a pretty big change. Founding member of the band, Scott, departed from the group and Jona formally of IKTPQ has joined. What happened with Scott and why was Jona a good choice with the band?

Well that was a really big change for us Scott and my self started this band together, but over the years saw his focus being torn away from the band. And he was having personal issues, which is fine because that is the basis of the band forming because I had personal issues but I turned them into my muse for the writing and creation. And Scott didn’t and he focus turned and we decided that it was time to go.

As far as Jona, we were on tour with IKTPQ in Europe and we got along great with him and he felt that his band was close to the end because they were on their third singer and he wasn’t going to stay so i think he was done trying to keep the band together. So just for the record we did not break up IKTPQ he offered to play for us cause the band was breaking up, and so far Jona has been great for the band.

Was Scott a big writer in the band and if so has Jona filled the gap with helping write new songs for the next record?

Scott in the beginning wrote a lot, but over the past 4 years he just lost the drive and would not be prepared when it came time to write the new records. so Brian and myself picked up the slack for the last two records. and for the new record it has been a good combo between Brian, myself and Jona, so Jona is writing some great riffs.

America and a lot of parts of the world are going through a somewhat change as far as music and how people are accessing it goes. More kids are checking out bands on Myspace and less are reading magazines to see who the new and up coming bands are. Bands seem to just add 30303030303 people and the next minute they are doing tours with some of the biggest names in metal. How does it feel being in a hardcore/metal band for so long and having bands out there having such an easy way to get out there and not working as hard on the road?

Well I think when we first started seeing this going on we would get bummed out. But the fact that all these bands didn’t have to work as hard as us and other bands that have been in the trenches over the years just means that they aren’t half as strong as us and they wont know what to do when their band goes through the ups and down that bands go through they will probably quit which I’ve already seen happen a lot. Plus BT is doing great cause we built this from the ground up and we have our people that stand by us, so I don’t really pay attention to these bands anymore ‘cause they are just part of the trend and I want to stay trend proof.

Obviously this has changed the music scene a lot across the world. Do you think it has affected bands that have been around as long as Bleeding Through?

I think maybe shows have gotten a little bit smaller because there are 100,000,000 shows ever night in every city ‘cause there are so many bands out there in the world, and most of them are really bad so that is a bummer and record sales have shrunk because the record industry has declined 40% in the last two years, but BT will stay through the bullshit and we are doing great and these bands will go away so it will be all good.

You guys toured hard on the last album. Recently supporting Slayer and Marilyn Manson and then a tour with HIM. Surely it would have got you guys out to a whole bunch of new people. How did these tours go and what was the reaction like?

Well we toured the states too much but not the rest of the world enough, but we kept getting offered such great tours. They were amazing for us. The exposure was amazing, and merch was the best, but for the next record we are going to focus a lot over seas.

When I was in the states last year you guys were starting work on a new album. When are you guys hitting the studio and what can people expect from the new record?

We have been writing bits and pieces over a while. We are going up to Vancouver, Canada to work with Devin Townsend in April and plan to have the record out in august.

With a lot of new Myspace 'bree' bands coming out all the time, it's kind of killed my faith in heavy music. Is there any new bands that are coming up that are actually worth checking out?

Fuck man I hate these fucking bands too man they are horrid, with the exception of some of them who have been around for a while. But the new bands are killing heaviness for me as well. So I’ve been listening to black metal a lot and that is getting me through my days.

The USA is known for a lot of violence at shows. I noticed this on tour and it's hard to prevent it. What happens when a fight breaks out a Bleeding Through show? How do you keep the vibe positive?

We just keep playing cause we feel if we stop we are giving those kids the satisfaction of the attention they want. So fuck ‘em they aren’t going to ruin our shows unless they try to fight us, which doesn’t happen. It’s hard to keep it positive. But not many fights go down at our shows because I think kids respect what BT is trying to do for kids. But it would be fun to bring my boxing gloves to the shows and challenge some of these kids that think they are hard. But I know that most of these kids are young and will realize one day that what they are doing is stupid.

It's obviously been a few years since the last record. Since then, half the band has gotten married. Life is moving pretty fast and settling down is just another part of life. What is life for you after Bleeding Through calls it a day?

Fuck, I haven’t thought about it ending any time soon, but I’ve gotten into other things in the music biz. I manage the band All Shall Perish, and I also gotten into the lyric biz, been writing and producing lyrics for pop stars. So there are a lot of thing I do which in the music industry but playing the music is my first love.

Any lasts words?

Stay posi and see you soon!

For more info on Bleeding Through and a complete list of upcoming tour dates head to: www.myspace.com/bleedingthrough or www.bleedingthrough.com