BRANDAN SCHIEPPATI Wages War Against Self-Doubt, Industry Politics And 'Dad Bods' For BLEEDING THROUGH's Return With 'Nine'

By David E. Gehlke

Perhaps the lone Orange County, California act that didn't attempt to alter its sound for broader appeal, BLEEDING THROUGH has lived to tell the tale after 25 years and has a new, brash studio album, "Nine" to accompany it. The band's first since 2018's "Love Will Kill All", "Nine" arrives at a time when BLEEDING THROUGH is unabashedly a part-time pursuit. Like so many of their ilk, the band was put through the grinder throughout the glory years of the 2000s. And like so many of their peers, BLEEDING THROUGH came away a little lighter in the wallet after a years-long dispute with Trustkill Records. When pulling up with frontman Brandan Schieppati, it sounds like he's letting bygones be bygones. That doesn't mean he hasn't forgotten.

Schieppati's honesty and bluntness are strengths and make for easy conversation — especially when he gets into his band's journey and his own mental health. Whether BLEEDING THROUGH would have reached the level of their fellow OC mates and friends AVENGED SEVENFOLD is debatable since it may have required the oft-dreaded "musical compromise." However, as Schieppati would tell BLABBERMOUTH.NET from the comfort of his Rise Above Fitness, the band is exactly where it needs to be and may be in even better fighting shape than they were 20 years ago.

Blabbermouth: Would you consider "Nine" a comeback record, considering the amount of time that has elapsed between "Love Will Kill All" and everything that happened in between?

Brandan: "I mean, it shouldn't have been. Covid delayed things a little. I feel 'Love Will Kill All' is a comeback record. When we started playing shows and being more active, it felt like that too, like it was more live. It's weird. I tread lightly when I say that things happen for a reason. I'm not saying Covid happened for a reason, but we put out 'Love Will Kill All', were doing shows, getting on a roll, then Covid happened and boom. Through that, when I was worried about the band maybe not being into this anymore and life changes, especially due to all of those circumstances, I had no idea if it would still go on. The core members of the band were like, 'We need this. More than ever.' I was like, 'I agree.' 'Love Will Kill All' is a comeback record, but 'Nine' feels more like a comeback in a certain way, like in the last few years of doing singles, EPs and a lot of shows. Re-establishing ourselves, I guess. That would be the safest way to put it.

"This record feels like a fucking statement. It is 25 years of this band and the emotion, passion, aggression — all thrown into it. Because of Covid, maybe, and that time off, we, as band members, changed, and we were very grateful; we have immense gratitude for being able to do this still and the scene still being around and the support we fucking have. The support is greater now than during 'This Is Love, This Is Murderous'. Maybe it's a timing thing. It's about timing the waves of things. I think maybe this time around, the last few years when we got back together, people weren't ready in 2018 or 2019. The shows were still great; the record did well. This feels different. The way we've been conducting ourselves and going through the last few years of playing shows and releasing music, working up to this full-length, we're so much more of a better band than we've ever been. We appreciate it, and we care more about it. It means more. I know live, I feel like we're just at the standard as we've always been, if not better. People have shared that with us. People have said we feel like an 'old new band.'"

Blabbermouth: That's a nice way to describe yourself: "An old new band."

Brandan: "There are bands that carry that oldness with them. I never wanted to be like that. We're all in better shape. We all look better. We all feel better. We have better attitudes. There's nothing more disappointing than seeing a band you love when they're into the 20th year being a band, but no offense, nobody wants to see a bunch of dad bods. I want to see the band that I remember. I want to see that band be better. With this record, we got to reflect. I think this record was a big reflection point for us for all the years of doing this and really getting to the level where we don't give a fuck. No one's going to try to force us to do stupid tours or shows as if it will mean something to the band and get us new fans. We've never been a band that was swayed to write a radio record. This is us. It's always been us. We've always been dark. We've always been aggressive. This record is really dark. I feel like it's not been completely conveyed through BLEEDING THROUGH yet. We've always had a dark undertone, but this record, the vibe is just like…I feel it. I've never felt that through a BLEEDING THROUGH record other than 'Declaration'. This record, I listen to it and I'm like, 'Fuck.' It brings feelings out. It brings emotions out. I've heard that from people who listened to the singles we released. Everything is different-ish, song-wise, but the vibe is all the same. I think it's a statement. I don't want to come across as arrogant: This record fucking smashes. I'm fucking proud of it. Twenty-five years, and this is the record we've put out, and this is arguably the best record we've done. That's not said about a lot of bands after putting records out after 25 years. I didn't want to put out a record where it was like, 'Yeah, it's another BLEEDING THROUGH.' I wanted it to be like, 'It's a whole other step for them.' I wanted fans and the industry to know we were not resting on being a legacy band. I'm so done doing anniversary shows and whatever."

Blabbermouth: Anniversary shows are everywhere now.

Brandan: "They work and they're fun. I love the songs and the celebration, but this record is about moving forward. Let's move forward in the scene we've built."

Blabbermouth: Leading up to this record, was there a point where you were thinking about not continuing?

Brandan: "We were at our biggest level through 2006 to 2009. I guess 2004 to 2009 was the salad days for this music. You could fart on a snare drum and sell 50,000 records. Some bands did! [Laughs] I wasn't happy. I didn't care about what the industry wanted from us. I didn't want to write records that people thought we should write or take steps that management or people thought we should go to. I didn't want to hear, 'This radio station in bumfuck Missouri will play your music, but they want radio edits.' I'm like, 'That's not us.' Just because we're from Orange County, right now, I'm at my gym and Matt [Shadows] from AVENGED SEVENFOLD is here right now. I hang out with him every day. I noticed once they did what they did and got what they wanted, everyone expected us to do the same thing: 'We want you to write this record.' We put out 'Declaration', which was a prog black metal record. I was like, 'Fuck you, I didn't want to be that band.' This record is another statement. I've heard older bands put out material, and a lot of them are not aggressive. It's almost like they're trying to be…I don't know—following what is cool right now with their style. I'm like, 'Let's do what BLEEDING THROUGH does.' Suppose the record comes out too black metal sounding or too symphonic, whatever. We've always done what we've wanted to do.

"I understand putting records out like 'This Is Love, This Is Murderous' and 'The Truth'. Those records have a lot of impact. I love them. People clamp onto those records and get stuck there. It happens for a lot of bands. It happens to me. Today, I listened to GOD FORBID in the gym and listened to 'Determination'. That's my favorite record, but their new shit smashes, too. We're not changing. We're going to be more dark, more aggressive. That's purely us. For a long time, I didn't know if I could do that because of other things clouding it: 'How many people are at the show? What did you do in merch?' I'm like, 'I don't care. I don't care. I don't care.' All I care about is playing, and there are people there having a great time, and there is a connection. I didn't know if I wanted to put myself out there again. The doubt of expectation of other people had for us. Marta [Demmel, keyboards] said to me, 'I'll do this as long as you want to do this. Let's not give a fuck.' I'm like, 'Yep. All right.'

Blabbermouth: Did this attitude give you an open slate to write for "Nine"?

Brandan: "We write this music for us. We write this music for our fans. We also want our fans — the people who have been supporting us forever that we fucking love—we want to write them a record so they can be stoked about being a BLEEDING THROUGH fan. People take identity by liking a band. There are so many bands. We have this argument at the gym. We sometimes go, 'I like this band, but there's that one record…' I don't want to be that band. I want to champion this band. I'm competitive, but only with ourselves. What other bands are doing doesn't consume me. I love other bands. When the industry was busting at the seams in the mid-2000s, every band had management. People were selling physical copies and everything to me was so, 'Fuck. That's not why I do this.'"

Blabbermouth: Would your perspective on this be different had your relationship with Trustkill been better?

Brandan: "The thing with a band like us is that we didn't have a blueprint to follow. We laid the blueprint. In that respect, we had to be the first band to get fucked over. We had to be the first band to go to a new country and shit the bed so other bands could build it up. We were always the first and we got the short end of it. We carried a lot of anger those days toward Trustkill. Now I look at it like this: They went from selling a handful of records a week of their catalogs to where they and Ferret started selling hundreds of thousands. They didn't know what the fuck they were doing. They were getting pressure from major labels and taking distribution deals to get them out of debt. Another thing we got fucked with: We sold over 300,000 records and we've never been accounted for. It's crazy. I have no ill-thought toward them anymore. I let that go. That was the time. We've talked. We have a pretty good relationship. It was different then."

Blabbermouth: That's a staggering amount of records sold for this type of music. Maybe not making any money from it informs your current headspace.

Brandan: "It wasn't just us. It was a lot of bands on a lot of labels. When we were doing 'Declaration', we self-funded the first block of recording for that record and we were living in Vancouver. A lot of it was out of pocket. I was having conversations with our management with other labels that were trying to buy us out or other labels trying to get us to leave. I was like, 'What the fuck is going on? What is this?' I feel different now. I don't feel like the industry is like that anymore. I just don't. I don't feel there's the pressure to sell the fuck out. Labels are more sustained and together now. They know what they're getting into. I told SharpTone when I wanted to come back and do music again: 'Don't have expectations.' No offense to any other bands, but I told them, 'We're not going to do an ICE NINE KILLS tour.' I like the band, but I'm not going to do anything where it's like, 'Oh, it's exposure.' We've been a band for 25 years. When we play, the shows typically sell out. Why do we need more exposure? We're cool with where we're at. We're blessed. We say no to a lot of offers. We do what we want to do and play where we want to play. I don't want to play bad shows anymore. I've done that."

Blabbermouth: How much has your gym helped in all of this? There's the Brandan who runs a gym and the Brandan who fronts BLEEDING THROUGH.

Brandan: "Personal life balance and work balance is crucial, especially for older bands. Younger bands, go out there and do it if you want to do it. That's what we did. When we took that hiatus/break where we ended the full-time BLEEDING THROUGH where we were doing every fucking tour, I just told my band, 'Listen, we're not making baby money, mortgage money, adult money. I don't want to even try to take the steps to get to that. I like who we are and what we do. If it happens, great, but it's got to happen on our accord. I'm not in a position in my career where I want to take a swing to get a song on the radio.' It's all bullshit. You don't consciously do that and have it work. I interviewed [Glenn] Danzig once. 'Mother' was a failure on the radio. He went to Europe, came back and called his manager. The manager goes, 'I have something to tell you. 'Mother' is number one on rock radio.' He's like, 'Wait? What? What do you mean? I recorded that song four years ago.' They're like, 'Well, it caught on. We're doing this live video and it's number one.' You never know. All you can do is put yourself out there. Go with it and hope for the best."

Blabbermouth: How does the cover of "Nine" tie into your current mental state? It's one of the better covers done recently.

Brandan: "SharpTone has this really great guy who does layouts and their visuals, Chris. He was like, 'What do you envision?' I'm like, 'In my life, this record is about a lot of my mental issues. In my life, I feel like I'm in space, walking around alone a lot. I have two options all the time. I'm countering back and forth.' Being bipolar, you go back and forth all the time. I feel isolated a lot. The cover, he just nailed it. It's not like anything we've ever done. I wanted to put a cover out there that makes people think, 'What is this?' That's what it is. I still look at it, and it brings emotion to me."