Beau Bokan Of Blessthefall Talks To Stereoboard About Touring, UK Festivals & Starbucks (Interview)
Thursday, 19 January 2012
Written by Marcus Colley
Beau Bokan is certainly a character. He took over as the frontman for Blessthefall in 2008 and since then has helped push them ahead of their peers with two very strong albums. Here they are just about to perform at Rock City, supporting Asking Alexandria. Stereoboard spoke with him on some topics including Starbucks and UK Festivals.
How are you liking the UK?
Awesome, we were here 3 months ago so it kinda feels like we haven't really left. We have our favourite places we go, Nando's and stuff so we've actually become pretty comfortable out here. It's cool.
How many times have you toured in the UK before?
It was a headliner last time, we came out with August Burns Red before that and we did a headliner before that and then I came out here with my old band Take The Crown, so at least five times.
How does it feel to support Asking Alexandria?
It's rad, they're great dude's and they treat everyone with a lot of respect despite peoples outlook of them being dickheads, they kind of have that persona but they're the nicest dudes. Super cool dudes, we're very proud to be part of this tour.
What caused the change of direction in your new album, Awakening?
Yeah absolutely, well when we did Witness the band had grown a lot. When they wrote His Last Walk, Eric was only 16 years old. Your tastes change and you become a better musician, Witness was better musicianship than His Last Walk all the way round, the songs were better, period. Whether you liked His Last Walk better or not, it was just the better in general, better production. The sound that we got it, with our producer Elvis helping us out, the sound we got was something that we really liked so we kind of found our own niche. So with Awakening we wanted to continue that sound, the songs are even better than before. We got some solo's in there and I feel like I've got a lot better at singing.
What is your favourite song off the album?
Oh man, that's hard dude! I really like the song '40 Days...'. It still has our vibe, but it doesn't have many breakdowns, I think a lot of different people can relate to it and anyone can really listen to it because they may not like screaming or breakdowns. This still has our energy and power without being the cliché.
What kind of process do you go through with your song writing?
Eric will write a lot of the guitar riffs and bring it to the table. I'll either have the lyrics on my phone already, or I'll hear a song and it'll inspire me to go a certain direction with it, depending on the tone of the song or what I'm feeling or what I want to write about. I usually start off with the chorus of the song first because that what usually has the most melody in it, as far as our songs go anyway because the other parts are shredding or breakdowns or whatever. So I'll start with the chorus, try and get the chorus melody down, the basics of it and me and Jared will work on the screaming patterns. I usually write the screaming patterns as well. Some songs come together a lot quicker than others, some just pop out of nowhere. Sometimes you're just right on it.
What single is going to be next off the album?
We're not sure yet, we're thinking something fun like 'The Reign' or 'Bad News...'. I thought it'd be cool to put on a free show and a load of kids come out and just film the whole day, the whole process from getting the stage set up to getting it going off! We haven't done anything like that before, it's usually us playing in a room and we did the 'Hey Baby' video which is like The Hangover. But yeah probably one of those two songs.
Do you still get nervous before performing?
Yeah, there's some days where I'm a lot more laid back than others and there's other days like before we go I think about something too much. Get my adrenaline pumping too much, I get more excited though to be out on stage to be playing in front of a bunch of people. I feel like the more people there are, the less nervous I am which is weird. When there's only a few of people in the room, I feel like there's more margin for error.
If you ruled the world what would you change?
I would make Starbucks on every street corner, they'd have to have one. So I wouldn't have to walk so far!
Who would win in a drinking competition between you guys and Asking Alexandria?
Well I don't drink at all, but my other guys are pretty good drinkers. I think we would probably take them. We'd have to put all 5 of them against the 4 of us and see what would happen!
Can we expect to see you at any UK festivals this year?
We're trying, I don't know if we're going to be at the ones this year because we came back so soon, already been here twice in the past 3 months. But, if not this year, next year for sure. We'd love to man. So many people! It'd be cool just to reach out to that many people, so hopefully.
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Eric will write a lot of the guitar riffs and bring it to the table. I'll either have the lyrics on my phone already, or I'll hear a song and it'll inspire me to go a certain direction with it, depending on the tone of the song or what I'm feeling or what I want to write about. I usually start off with the chorus of the song first because that what usually has the most melody in it, as far as our songs go anyway because the other parts are shredding or breakdowns or whatever. So I'll start with the chorus, try and get the chorus melody down, the basics of it and me and Jared will work on the screaming patterns. I usually write the screaming patterns as well. Some songs come together a lot quicker than others, some just pop out of nowhere. Sometimes you're just right on it. 
