Lorna Shore frontman Will Ramos is a longtime fan of Sleep Token and now he has shared the story of his first time seeing them play live.
Ramos wrote a new feature essay on the band for the 2023 Rock Sound Awards Issue as Sleep Token took home the title of Best British Artist.
Will spoke in the piece about seeing the band perform for the first time at the Blue Ridge Rock Festival, rushing over to the stage from Lorna Shore’s own ‘meet and greet’ elsewhere on site.
He said “Ten seconds into running I turned around and saw Of Mice & Men’s singer, Aaron Pauley, following me. We started running through this huge crowd together, and everybody was so excited. I’m not the type of guy to leave a meet and greet early, but I needed to witness that set. It was an act of true love!”
“That’s where it started to set in how freaking massive Sleep Token were becoming. They’re one of the biggest metal bands that I’m aware of right now, and there were so many people watching that set. They refer to their live shows as rituals, their fans are the congregation, and the stage as a place of worship. It’s something that could easily seem tacky if a band did it with little consideration for the details, but they’re so committed to what they do.”
“Even when they post on Instagram after shows, the captions are always like, ‘The ritual has been completed in Copenhagen’. They totally absorb themselves in the spiritual aspect, physically, visually, and sonically. It’s a brand, and they completely own that brand. They’ve made it exactly what it is, and they stick to it.”
He concluded that “the whole experience does feel super spiritual, and they don’t just give 50 per cent to the theming, it’s 100 per cent. People feel the emotion, see the way they embody this ideal, and hear this incredible music – and I think that’s why people are so ready to absolve themselves in this spiritual moment. Everybody has a different connection to every song because of the different things everyone goes through in life, but they get to experience all of that in a place where everybody else is feeling something too.”
You can read the full feature inside the Rock Sound Awards Issue. It is available to order here alongside a giant double-sided poster of Vessel and an A4 photo print.
