Photo Credit: FinnP

We sat down with Ed Gibbs from Devil Sold His Soul to talk about their upcoming UK shows, life on the road, potential new music and much more.

—

What was the reason behind celebrating ‘Empire of Light’ with the anniversary shows?

Ed: The main thing was, more than half of the songs on the album we have never played live, so it feels like a good way to learn them again and finally play them. When I left the band in 2013, the record wasn’t even out a year, so we only played four of those songs before Paul Green joined and then at that point, the band were writing ‘Belong ≠ Betray’.

—

How has the preparation been for both you and Paul to get ready to play these songs live, not only for the first time in their existence but also together?

Ed: I know it really stresses Paul out as he has a much harder job than I have, because I already have those songs in my head. It’s more remembering them on my part instead of learning them again. We sat down with the lyrics and talked through it, and worked out what sections we would do together and ourselves. As a band we are so spread apart around the country so getting a full band practise in together is difficult, so me and Paul would play along to the instrumentals and the rest of the guys would play together when they can, with a full practise taking place a couple of weekends ago but I wasn’t available at that time so me and Paul will have another practise together, then all of us will be available for it in a couple of weeks.

—

What was the reason to only do two shows rather a short UK tour like you did for ‘A Fragile Hope’?

Ed: Employment and annual leave plays a major fact into it, you need those days off for your own holidays or other commitments. We would rather hold back the chance of booking more time off for something bigger in the future, whenever that irises. I get it isn’t fair on a lot of people because we are only playing Manchester and London, but we hope that because of the limited dates that the shows will be packed out.

—

This is the bands second anniversary tour, back in 2017 you played four dates for ‘A Fragile Hope’ turning ten, were there any plans for a ‘Blessed and Cursed’ anniversary tour?

Ed: ‘Blessed and Cursed’ was booked, we did a lot of work on the promotion side of it, but the announcement date was scheduled two days after we went into lockdown, so we had to cancel the shows. I think the plan would be to do something at some point, but we just had to move on from that. We don’t want to be one of those bands who constantly look back and play anniversary shows, but it is a nice excuse to play those songs. You always pick the songs you think people will want you to play on tour, whereas the others don’t really get played.

—

Because a lot of the songs are longer than the usual three minute mark, how does that time limit play into your hands?

Ed: It’s very easy for our sets to stray into over an hour; we need to make sure we don’t do that. We could easily play more songs but that would be really hard work for me and Paul and we don’t want people to walk away thinking “I wish they stopped four or five songs ago” we want them to feel like they want more. What we have planned is to do the album which is around an hour and then a couple of extra tracks which is absolutely plenty.

—

The band’s most recent album ‘Loss’ is now two years old, is there anything else that has been going on in the camp, that isn’t practising for the ‘Empire of Light’ shows?

Ed: We have been working on some new stuff, once the anniversary shows are done, we will throw our heads into it. Writing new songs is definitely on the cards, and hopefully gets some really cool touring opportunities too.

—

The only release not to feature you is ‘Belong ≠ Betray’ which was released during your hiatus from the band; will you be learning those songs just like Paul is learning the ‘Empire of Light’ tracks?

Ed: We play ‘Time’ and ‘Devastator’ live a lot, I would really like to do ‘Alive’. I’m not really sure why we haven’t; we have so many songs to choose from and you have to choose songs that you thing people want to hear the most I guess. ‘Unveiled’ was actually a song that was in the running for ‘Empire of Light’ and I had written vocals for it and it is not a totally different song to what it is now.

—

The band finally released a vinyl edition of ‘Empire of Light’ after ten years, what was the reason to do it now?

Ed: So basically, our whole back catalogue before ‘Loss’ wasn’t printed on vinyl when the records were released. It was a case of we wanted to do it for ourselves originally to have this cool memory in that format and a lot of people have been asking for them because vinyl collecting is a big thing. We put a lot of time and thought into each one to make it look pretty.

—

Do you have any plans for 2024 that you want to achieve?

Ed: Just do some fun stuff, play some shows and places we haven’t been before. We haven’t been able to get over into Europe for ages, which would be really nice. Also, I would love to do more festivals; it is tough to get on to a festival anyway because everybody wants to play them. We have been around for twenty years now so we are just a bunch of old dudes.

—

Do you have any tour rituals?

Ed: All the same laughing and joking comes as soon as we are in a room together. Every single gig we do, we get in a huddle and shout ‘Crap Dogs’. The reason behind that is because when we played in Russia, there was a hot dog place called Star Dogs and Cyrillic it looked like ‘Crap Dogs’ and we have been obsessed with it ever since.

—

You mentioned touring in Russia, it is a place not very many bands get to play, and how different are the shows for that side of Europe compared to the more in land places like Germany?

Ed: When you are touring Russia it is atmospherically huge, it’s like America but bigger. The travelling distances you go every single day is insane. A lot of that involves travelling on a train overnight, then you get into a place in the morning then drive to the show, or you stay in a hotel and get up at 5am, sit in a van until it is time to load in. You don’t get to see a lot of Russia when you are touring like that, politically I stay away from that side of it, but I feel Russian people does get a bit of a bad rep. They are just nice people; they come to shows and have fun. It is a nice experience but some scary stuff does happen over there.

—

How do you choose to utilise your free time during tour?

Ed: Personally, I need to spend as much time relaxing as possible. I find touring hard work vocally; I feel I really need to take care of myself. My main concern is rest and drinking water. Touring can be quite stressful for me in that sense. What we do isn’t easy with the vocal ranges we use for our music, performing like that for over an hour can be strenuous. Days off if we are out and about in the main land we’ll find somewhere to have a meal and look around really.

—

If you had to create your perfect rider, what items would that include?

Ed: I am so constantly conscious of what I am putting inside of me when touring, I get so stressed out about it. Just gives me loads of pizza, and water.

—

Is there any nerves surrounding you playing these songs for the first time live, like it would be for a new album?

Ed: I know Paul is quite nervous, I don’t really get that nervous playing the songs, it is more so if the shows aren’t busy that I worry about.

—

Do you feel as a band now twenty years into the game, you can still bring something new to the table?

Ed:  I feel like we have always tried to change little elements up with each release and we will continue to do that, without straying away from our sound too much. We write songs that we want to hear, and that can change with our own music tastes at that time I suppose.

—

Do you feel there is any pressure when writing new music?

Ed: I always feel immense pressure whenever we are doing an album. If we can’t do something that isn’t up to standard, I feel we shouldn’t be doing it. We haven’t put anything out there that we aren’t proud of.

—

Do you feel now that the band is essentially a hobby; it has helped you in some way?

Ed: I think from a motivational point of view it hasn’t, such as deadlines as there are none. We all miss touring more and playing lots of shows but life gets in the way. If we could get three weeks a year touring, that would be amazing.

—

A massive thank you to Ed for taking time out of his evening to chat with us, we look forward to seeing Devil Sold His Soul again this October.

DEVIL SOLD HIS SOUL will play two headline shows to celebrate the ten year anniversary of ‘Empire of Light’ this October.

13th October – Manchester, Academy 3
14th October – London, The Dome