Interview: Beyond Salvation (Written)

Beyond Salvation, the heavy metal powerhouse hailing from Manchester, UK, returned with their latest offering, ‘A Line in The Sand’. This EP, marking their eighth release in their prominent seven-year career was released on the 10th May 2024.

We spoke to guitarist Arun about all things Beyond Salvation.

1. Hello! Thank you for taking the time to chat to us. First things first, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started.

Hi everyone, my name is Arun Kamath. I’m the lead guitar player in Beyond Salvation. I started playing guitar around age 10, I’ve been in bands since age 13…. which was longer ago than I would like to admit. I’ve been in Beyond Salvation since January 2018; the band itself has been going since about 2015 or so.

2. Someone comes to you and asks you to sum up what kind of music you play – what do you tell them?

We were once described as Hardcore Thrash. I quite liked that description! Maybe think of us as a mixture of Machine Head and Sylosis, but if it were sang by a Stockport version of Jamey Jasta.

3. What’s currently going on in your camp? New releases? Tours? Etc.

We’ve just released our last EP A Line In The Sand. We have a few decent gigs in Manchester coming in 2024. That’s it, for now.

4. What has been the most positive experience of making music to date for you?

I’d say two things. 1) Creating the songs, when we’re bouncing ideas around and we hear it coming to life. That feeling of excitement when we’re like “wow, did we just do that?!”. And 2) Release day. When we see our music available on the streaming services and such, that we use to listen to other music…. It’s a good feeling, knowing that we have put our little stamp on the world.

5. Likewise, what has been some of the more challenging aspects and how have you overcome them?

Things like band member changes are always really tense. When you can see that something isn’t working, someone’s not feeling it or whatever, and we have to agree how to let go. Playing in the band and doing music is supposed to be a stress relief from normal life, but when the band is the source of stress, that’s really hard.

How to overcome? I guess like most things, it’s about being honest, true to yourself and communicating properly with everyone. Also making sure that everyone in the band is on the same page, and shares the overall vision.

6. How do you handle the modern expectations of being in a band? Always online, having to put out content constantly, your success measured in likes and follows?

We have to play the game to some extent, it’s not something we really “want” to do but understand that to some extent we have to do it. That said, these sorts of things need to be true to ourselves and genuine. For example, we haven’t yet gone down the road of TikTok style content. Many would say that’s strategic suicide, but to be honest, it’s not within us to do it. I don’t think people want to see a version of ourselves that isn’t genuine. We’ll only engage with something when we actually want to do it.

7. What’s something that really ‘grinds your gears’ about the industry/business these days and what would you propose is done to combat it?

I’d actually say it’s the short-term nature of social media. You put hours of work into creating content – whether it’s music, videos, announcements, whatever it may be – for it to be posted, and then forgotten about by the next day. Social media / the internet in general is a bit of a blessing and a curse at the same time. On one hand, it’s so much easier to access and share music. On the other, it’s really hard to stand out and break through the noise.

8. Speaking directly to listeners – what would you ask they do to help support your music?

We’re grateful for any support we get, it really means the world to us. Even just sharing our pages, posts and music on their social media is brilliant support. And best of all, it costs absolutely nothing to do that!

If you want to do more, you can buy our music and our merch. Also come to any of our gigs.

9. Outside of the music, what’s do you do to relax?

Really it’s just hanging out with my partner and my friends. We could be cooking, eating, drinking, playing games, or just sitting and chatting.

10. Where can people find you?

Social media wise, that would be Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. To find our music, you can go to any streaming service. You can also visit our BandCamp.

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