{"id":1990,"date":"2012-08-07T09:44:25","date_gmt":"2012-08-07T09:44:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alchemy1977.wordpress.com\/?p=990"},"modified":"2012-08-24T15:26:18","modified_gmt":"2012-08-24T14:26:18","slug":"bloodstock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/2012\/08\/bloodstock\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Bloodstock founder Paul Raymond Gregory"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>With Bloodstock nearly upon us, we thought we\u2019d try and catch a few words with the festival\u2019s founder, Paul Raymond Gregory. In addition to masterminding the UK\u2019s best-loved heavy metal fest, Paul\u2019s also an acclaimed artist, responsible not just for designing Bloodstock\u2019s inimitable logos featuring S-tan the Derby Ram, but also for painting album covers for the likes of Molly Hatchet, Dio, Blind Guardian, and Saxon. Despite catching him at his busiest time of the year, Paul was kind enough to spare us a few minutes and share a couple of behind-the-scenes insights on the mighty Bloodstock\u2026 <\/p>\n

I get the impression that a passion for Tolkien\u2019s Lord of the Rings novels led you to art, that led you to album cover design, that led to metal\u2026 Is that roughly the road that led to Bloodstock as it were?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019ve always had a passion for art and this is who I am first and foremost. For me, being a child of the sixties was great, as I was introduced to bands that were influenced by the Blues \u2013 The Rolling Stones, John Mayall, Eric Clapton etc. \u2013 which\u00a0led me to discover Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Howlin\u2019 Wolf and a plethora of other great Blues musicians. So, the point of my rambling is, I like the idea that one thing\u00a0can lead to another if you can be arsed to connect the dots. As an artist my preferred genre is Fantasy. Again, Fantasy has had an influence on music and vice versa for\u00a0centuries, so, for me, my art was bound to meet my musical tastes at some point.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>What\u2019s your current personal music taste? Anyone you\u2019re particularly looking forward to this year?<\/strong>\u00a0
\nBlues, Rock and Metal, but not necessarily in that order. I won\u2019t go the route of my favourite for this year, but will say I can\u2019t wait<\/p>\n

The atmosphere and line-up at Bloodstock are always great \u2013 I get the impression that this really is a metal festival for fans, by fans \u2013 is that the secret of your success? <\/strong>
\nBloodstock is metal through and through, but if there is a secret, I’d like to know what it is so I could market it. The fact is \u2018for fans by fans\u2019 is the reason the festival has grown. We take what we do seriously, and even if it’s not the secret of our success, we certainly are a team of metalheads.<\/p>\n

Dubiously metal acts like Pendulum have caused a lot of controversy on other bills \u2013 are you ever tempted to expand your musical remit<\/strong>?
\nWe always look to develop the festival.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The cancellation of Sonisphere caught many by surprise this year \u2013 is Bloodstock still weathering the current economic climate well?<\/strong>
\nNot so much the economic storm \u2013 the weather has been more extreme than some metal acts and has seen the cancellation of quite a few festivals. As to your question, we’re\u00a0still here and the weather\u2019s looking great.<\/p>\n

Bloodstock runs from August 9th-12th \u2013 for further details check out the festival site http:\/\/www.bloodstock.uk.com\/pages\/home<\/a> As ever, Alchemy will be there, so visit our stand to check out our latest designs, throw some horns, or just say hello. See you there!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With Bloodstock nearly upon us, we thought we\u2019d try and catch a few words with the festival\u2019s founder, Paul Raymond Gregory. In addition to masterminding the UK\u2019s best-loved heavy metal fest, Paul\u2019s also an acclaimed artist, responsible not just for designing Bloodstock\u2019s inimitable logos featuring S-tan the Derby Ram, but also for painting album covers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[154],"tags":[165,167,166,168],"class_list":["post-1990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","tag-bloodstock","tag-bloodstock-festival","tag-festival","tag-paul-raymond-gregory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1990"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2064,"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990\/revisions\/2064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alchemyengland.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}