WATCH: Northlane’s Marcus Bridge on mental health: "It’s important to be open and talk."
He chats to Johnny Doom at Download Festival
Last updated 10th Jun 2017
After having the prestigious honour of opening up the Main Stage at this year’s Download Festival, Northlane singer and co-lyricist Marcus Bridge caught up with Johnny Doom for a quick chat.
Waxing lyrical about his love for Download Festival and the vast crowd that greeted them, Marcus then spoke about Northlane’s critically-acclaimed fourth studio album ‘Mesmer’, which they surprise released in March.
Explaining why they dropped it unexpectedly, Marcus said: “I guess Northlane’s never been the kind of band to release an album conventionally. We always try to do something a bit different.
“I guess this time with all the crazy stuff that’s happened the last few years, there’s been a lot of ups and downs, we wanted to do something pretty special for the fans. I guess just have something that as soon as they knew about it they could listen to it.
“It was a great way to do it because people could hear the album exactly how we wanted them to hear it and yeah I guess there were no expectations either. It was just ‘here it is, enjoy.’”
Including a poignant closing song called ‘Paragon’ about late-great Architects guitarist Tom Searle who died from skin cancer last summer, the album is wide-ranging and open in its subject matter.
“I think we all put a lot more into this record than we ever have before,” says Marcus. “I guess with some of the subject matter it was a lot more personal for us – both for Josh (Smith) and I, we both wrote some songs that were very difficult to talk about and very hard to write about.
Reflecting on the themes of mental health, Marcus said: “It’s very important to be open and let people know it’s alright to talk about it with stuff like that. Just anything that you’re struggling with, just knowing that it’s alright to be open about it and ask for help and talk to people.”
Watch Johnny’s full candid chat with Marcus here: