Bleeding For Your Art With KRAGEN LUM From HEATHEN

For the past 40 years, the venerated Thrash Metal outfit HEATHEN
have abided by their never-say-die attitude.
Formed in 1984 in San Francisco’s Bay Area—home to EXODUS,
METALLICA, TESTAMENT, and DEATH ANGEL HEATHEN quickly separated
themselves from the pack by expertly fusing David White’s
distinctive vocals with a melody-driven and forward-thinking
musical style. The band’s first two albums, Breaking the Silence
and Victims of Deception, are widely regarded as Bay Area Thrash
classics. The HEATHEN brand of intelligent yet aggressive Thrash
appealed not only to the genre’s core demographic, but also Metal
fans looking for brains behind the brawn. The most recent
full-length album, Empire of the Blind, continued to push the
boundaries of the genre, expanding their audience while restoring
faith in vicious yet brainy Thrash Metal, the very kind that put
HEATHEN on the map.
Since the release of their last album, Empire of the Blind, HEATHEN
has toured nonstop, playing hundreds of shows across five
continents. From the moment that the COVID restrictions lifted in
2022, the band hit the ground running, touring with contemporaries
such as TESTAMENT, EXODUS, OVERKILL, and SYMPHONY X over the last
three years. Recorded in several cities across the United States
during the 2023 Bleed the World Tour, Bleed the World: Live is the
perfect audio representation of the HEATHEN live show. Featuring
songs from each of the band’s albums, including recent tracks such
as Sun in My Hand and The Blight as well as classics such as
Hypnotized and Goblin’s Blade, the live album mirrors the band’s
crushing live set list. The cover artwork by Travis Smith depicts a
steel HEATHEN logo piercing the bleeding Earth, held by a hand that
encapsulates the world tour as a moment in time. 
Produced by guitarist Kragen Lum and mixed by Zeuss, Bleed the
World: Live transports the listener into the concert hall with a
crystal-clear yet heavy production and captures the interaction
between band and audience that makes every HEATHEN live show
special.
HEAVY caught up with Lum for a chat earlier today, starting with
the early response to the album.
"All the feedback that we've gotten so far has been great," he
smiled. "One person mentioned that it was like, if you closed your
eyes, you were there at the show. And that was exactly what we were
trying to do. We made sure that when we were recording, we recorded
not just the band, but also the audience at every show so we could
really get the live album feel. Those classic live albums that we
used to love - Live After Death and many other ones - you feel like
you're there because the audience is so prominent. The feedback
from the crowd and everything in the song. And I think modern live
albums are missing that because a lot of bands record the show, but
they don't record the audience, and you're kind of missing an
important element to the live show."
In the full interview, Kragem spoke more about what to expect from
Bleed The World: Live, the early feedback, if the band approached
the concerts any differently knowing they were being recorded for
an album, the process of putting together the tracks and selecting
them, how critical the band members were of themselves when they
listened back through, how they made every effort to replicate the
live sound on the album, his early experiences with Heathen before
joining, if there was any pressure on him coming into an
established band and how long it took him to feel comfortable,
their strike record of one album every ten years and if they plan
to speed up that process moving forward, the possibilities of
coming to Australia and more.


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