Photo Credit: Briana Sista
Before bands become festival top-dogs and boss the headliner slot at festivals like Download, they pay their dues, clock up the miles and walk onto one of these stages carrying little more than a van full of gear, a handful of songs and the hope that strangers will leave as fans. Sometimes the chemistry isn’t there. Sometimes the crowd wanders off in search of beer. But sometimes everything just clicks. Return To Dust‘s first-ever UK performance was definitely in the camp of the latter.
Fresh from walking off stage, drummer London Hudson is still buzzing from the experience, almost laughing at the scale of what has just happened as he chats to Bring The Noise UK.
“That was amazing. What a spectacular show. The crowd was just wild and energy the entire way. It’s our first UK show ever and it’s crazy that it’s here at Download Festival.”
For a band introducing themselves to British audiences in a live sense for the first time, there could hardly have been a bigger stage. Download doesn’t hand out easy welcomes. British festival crowds know exactly what they like, and they’ll let you know just as quickly if they don’t. Return To Dust passed the test in a noisy style.
There’s already been plenty of chatter surrounding the Los Angeles quartet. Mention their name to rock fans and one comparison surfaces almost immediately.
Alice In Chains. Guitarist Sebastian Gonzalez smiles at the suggestion. It’s hardly a criticism.
“Yeah, we love the 90s as a whole. The whole entire, all of it. The melancholy stuff to Pumpkins, Portishead, but we also love the 2000s. So I feel like we’ve got a wide range, a variety of influences all over.”
That’s perhaps the key to understanding Return To Dust. Yes, there are echoes of the great alternative bands that dominated American rock radio during the 1990s. The thick guitar tones, the layered harmonies, the emotional weight are all there. But the band aren’t interested in becoming a tribute to another era. We ask whether grunge remains their musical home and Gonzalez doesn’t hesitate.
“Yeah, that’s what we all come together with. We love that stuff.”
Love it, certainly, but there is more to the band than that. Rock music is in one of its cyclical moments. Nu-metal has exploded back into festival line-ups. Bands that once filled arenas at the turn of the millennium are doing so all over again, introducing themselves to an entirely new generation along the way. Korn and Limp Bizkit have been handed the keys to Download as headliners in each of the last two years.
Could grunge be next? Gonzalez thinks the question misses the point.
“Yeah, we’re trying to pave a way of this new rock that we’re trying to do. We don’t want to just beat a dead horse and do the grunge thing over again. I guess you could say reinvent it and bring something new to it.”
Hudson agrees: “Put our own twist on it.”
Then he looks out across Download, still struggling to process the sheer size of it all.
“It’s really cool to see just live music in general back. How massive is this fucking place? It’s amazing. 100,000 people are there. Holy shit. It’s amazing to see just bands doing this.”
That’s the thing about Download. Even musicians who’ve spent years dreaming about it aren’t fully prepared until they’re standing in the middle of it. The beauty of festivals is that they’re as much about discovery as nostalgia, and you can go one minute watching legendary bands you grew up on and the very next you’re stumbling across your new favourite band.
Later that evening, Guns N’ Roses are waiting to take the stage. Hudson, who’s father knows a little bit about rock and the headliners, plans to catch as much as he can. “I will see a little bit, yeah, for sure.”
For Gonzalez, however, festival life comes with one unavoidable frustration. The bands he most wanted to watch had already played while Return To Dust were preparing for their own set.
“All the bands I was hoping for played before us and we had to set up. I wanted to see Thornhill, Snot, and I saw a little bit of Dice Bits. They killed. Individually love all sorts of different… I love from Prince to the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Metallica. It’s music. Love it all, love it all.”
That openness perhaps explains why Return To Dust never feel trapped by one particular sound. Their influences stretch far beyond flannel shirts and Seattle rain.
But at the end of the Download weekend there’s barely time to celebrate before the tour bus rolls on. Hudson maps out the itinerary almost breathlessly.
“We are going to Hamburg to play with Breaking Benjamin and then we have a few shows in Germany. And then we’re making our way all around Europe again. Hitting Poland, hitting Budapest. Spain. France. Yeah. Paris. Yeah, we have a headliner in Paris. We’re very excited for that.”
Before Europe is over, there’s another important milestone waiting.
“We are out on the road with Breaking Benjamin and Chevelle and doing a bunch of festivals. We’ll be out here till mid-July. We’ve got some headliners in there.”
Gonzalez adds another date proudly. “We’ve got a headliner at the Camden Assembly, July 19th. That’s how long we’re in for Europe.”
It’s a schedule that leaves very little time to stop and think. Perhaps that’s why the enormity of Download is only just beginning to sink in. Looking back on the performance, Hudson still sounds amazed.
“Yeah. It was amazing. I think it beat all of our expectations for our first UK show ever.”
Gonzalez is still trying to come down from the adrenaline. “Yeah, seriously. Just wild. I can’t even believe that that show happened. I’m now coming down off of the high of it. I’m like, oh man, that was wild.”
The answer to whether they’ll be back arrives to two instant replies.
“Oh, absolutely we want to be back. We would love to come back.”
And if this first visit to Donington is any indication, it won’t be their last.
Interview by: Eric Mackinnon
