Wacken is the perfect place to discover new bands, or to listen to ones that you already love. For me, that’s the case with the fantstic Employed To Serve!

Benedetta

I’m here with the amazing and spectacular Employed To Serve. How are you doing guys?

Employed To Serve

Thank you for having us. Yeah, we’re feeling good after that. We’re feeling up ourselves now. We had a very lovely time playing Wacken Festival. I mean, it’s the best festival on earth if you’re into heavy metal. It’s heavy metal Disneyland, right? So, we’re just very excited to be back.

Benedetta

And I think that playing in an anniversary edition is even more special than usual, right?

Employed To Serve

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, what an honour. There’s so many thousands and thousands of metal bands. So, to be one of them, to be able to play this. Well, that’s it. To be here for the milestone and hopefully to see one of the many years that is yet to come as well. Fingers crossed. What a prestigious and legendary festival.

Benedetta

For sure. So, you have a lot of experience with performing live shows, obviously. And you also have experience in the studio and recording music. Do you think the life of an artist is a lonely life?

Employed To Serve

Interesting. I think there’s two answers. So, yes, if you don’t continue to keep connected with your friends and family at home. Because sometimes if you are spending all your time in the industry or with your band, or if you’re a bit sick of each other by being in each other’s company too much, it can be quite isolating. So, I think it’s important to keep connections at home and keep healthy habits. Making time for them as well. The turning point for us was probably the same for a lot of people. It was the pandemic. Because it kind of forced you to pause for a moment and take stock of everything. And we both, during that time, made a note of being like. “Hey, we’re still going to be on tour a lot. And be in the studio a lot. But that means when we’re home we really have to make the effort to see family. See friends.” And also see band members outside of band stuff. Because obviously, as fun as it is, it is work. So, just seeing band members in a more chill environment where we’re not having to do work stuff, is what I thought was really important. Because otherwise you just feel like colleagues.

Benedetta

Do you think that we will ever have some sort of equality between men and women in the metal world?

Employed To Serve

I think it’s way better than it used to be. Because we started in 2013. And from then until now, that’s a huge jump. I feel like there’s way more women in metal now. And I think it’s only going to get better. Because it’s about representation, right? You see yourself in others. That’s why it’s really important to have people from different racial backgrounds and from the LGBTQ community as well. Just because you see yourself in them. And that young person who watches the band play. They’ll be like, “Oh, I can do that too“. I remember we were talking before, when we started, even at that time in 2013 we thought, “Wow. Compared to maybe ten years before that. It seemed like there was a lot of women in bands“. Because we were playing with bands like Rollo Tomasi and Veils. And we had quite a lot of peers. But even then that kind of stopped there. It did. From an outsider’s perspective, obviously it’s not something I’ve thought a great deal about. Because it’s a privilege that I don’t have to think about it. But back then I was like, “Oh, there’s totally equality in heavy metal. There’s all these bands with women in.” And then fast forward another ten years to where we are now. It feels like the gate has opened up a whole lot. And I think the real eye opener for me is coming to festivals like Wacken. Download in the UK. And seeing the number of women at that. Now compared to when I used to go as a kid. I just stupidly thought back then. Oh, girls aren’t interested. And it’s not the case at all. I think it’s also going to help push the genre forward. Because there’s all these different people from different walks of life. Coming in and being creative together. So it’s going to naturally create something that hasn’t been done before. Either lyrically or musically. Because of their different backgrounds. A good example is on our label Church Road, we have Lowen. The singer Nina is from Iran, she has a lot of Iranian native instruments on the thing. She uses a sort of Iranian singing vocal style within metal. It’s something I’ve never heard of, and it’s really exciting. It teaches you more about Iran and her history. I think it’s important to become aware. We’re at this point now, like any music genre. Everything runs the risk of becoming regurgitated: same old, same old. The more people who are welcoming to the community, they can have their take on heavy metal and open up different avenues of thought. It just makes it more interesting. And it means the genre can grow. So it doesn’t stagnate. It’s all good stuff.

Benedetta

Guys, thank you so much for doing this interview. Is there anything else that you want to add to our reserves of metal?

Employed To Serve

Heavy metal is awesome, isn’t it? Do what you want to do. Spread the good word of heavy metal. Play heavy metal, come to Wacken Festival.