The Rooftop at Pier 17 is an open-air club atop a building along New York City’s East River, which offers panoramic views of the area, taking in the Empire State Building, the financial district and the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s a dream setting, in a part of the US that Scottish metalcore band Bleed From Within have been longing to return to since April 2023, which was when they supported August Burns Red with The Devil Wears Prada at Palladium Times Square.
“When you think of America, the first thing that comes to mind for most people is New York,” says drummer, tour coordinator and band manager Ali Richardson, from a cosy chair in the dressing room the band are sharing with August Burns Red, on their current tour with Trivium and Bullet For My Valentine. “For a band, playing here is one of the first things on the bucket list.”
As Bleed later take to the stage for soundcheck, vocalist Scott Kennedy steps up to the mic, grins, and slowly waves his outstretched arm, tracing the gleaming skyscrapers on the horizon. “Can you fuckin’ believe this?” he says. His query is met by the ‘whooka-whooka-whooka’ sound of a military chopper overhead.
“You know, it’s not so often you’re onstage and you see a helicopter,” Scott marvels.
Then, Ali bangs his sticks together four times, and Bleed From Within blast into God Complex from their heralded new album, Zenith. It slays.
Fifteen minutes later, the musicians are back in their dressing room. August Burns Red drummer Matt Greiner fistbumps Scott and tells him they sounded great.
“Yeah, did we?” Scott responds. “I never know what to think when we’re playing in a club that doesn’t have walls.”
“Well,” interjects Bleed bassist Davie Provan. “It was great until the vocals came in.”
Scott feigns offence. “You’re lucky I’ve got a thick skin,” he retorts, and both musicians crack up.
The line has become an inside joke, but it’s more than that. “We say it all the time for laughs,” Scott explains. “But really, it’s true. Not much can pierce the surface with us, because we’ve all given each other such thick skin from taking the piss out of each other so much as kids growing up.”
That thick skin has gotten Bleed From Within (Scott, Ali, Davie and guitarists Steven Jones and Craig Gowans) through numerous challenges: record label mishaps, line-up changes, and a dodgy merch deal that left them in such severe debt they were forced to put the band on hold for almost three years.
When they finally returned, they were pissed off, charged up, and determined to make up for lost time. With their backs against the wall, they evolved into a more eclectic band, writing and releasing the well-rounded Era in 2018, and following two years later with the well-received Fracture and the more refined Shrine in 2022.
A social media endorsement from Corey Taylor, one of Scott’s biggest influences (“I lost my mind when I saw that!”), led to a European tour with Slipknot in December 2024. When it hit the OVO Hydro in their hometown of Glasgow, Bleed made headlines by performing In Place Of Your Halo with live bagpipers and marching drummers. The tour brought the band more visibility and a new level of acclaim.
With success came pressure, but Scott and Ali agree they work best when they’ve got something to prove. Hence, the eclectic and experimental seventh album, Zenith. For Scott, artistic growth also meant opening up like never before, which is why the lyrics of Hands Of Sin are so intensely personal (‘A trail of shattered hearts / Never thought you would go this far’).
“My sister died a few years ago from drug abuse,” he reveals in a rare sobering moment, then pauses for a beat. He doesn’t regret addressing the incident, but he’s not prepared to elaborate.
“I couldn’t sit here and have a conversation about my sister,” he says. “It’s hard to talk about, and I’m not good at talking about my emotions. But I do think it’s important to talk about in the music, because it helps people, and that helps me. It’s like therapy. If I didn’t have the band, I don’t know where I’d be right now.”
A far more life-affirming incident had an equally profound effect on Scott. Three months ago, he became a father. Right after mentioning his daughter, he flips through his phone to show off a new series of baby pictures his wife just sent him, and a video of the wide-eyed, giggly infant with a sizeable crop of hair.
“She used to have more hair,” Scott says, then laughs. “She sleeps with the side of her head against the crib, so the hair fell out and now it looks like she has a mullet.”
Even though he was stoked when Bullet From My Valentine frontman Matt Tuck invited Bleed to join their US tour with Trivium and August Burns Red, Scott spent the first two weeks – 12 shows – at home with his wife and daughter, while Ali’s other band, Sylosis, filled the opening slot.
Now, 13 dates into the tour as it was originally booked, Bleed are having a blast and looking forward to the final six shows. At the same time, Scott admits that when he hasn’t been performing or hanging out with his friends, he has been unexpectedly homesick.
“I never thought I’d feel this way and it’s nothing that anyone can prepare for,” he says. “I love that little person more than I’ve loved anything in my life. And I would destroy myself to make sure she’s OK. I used to actually think new parents were annoying. And now I get it.”
“Yeah, now you’re well annoying,” counters Ali.
The infant has raised the stakes for the entire band. Having fun and playing killer shows is no longer enough. Now, there are financial considerations. “We’re in a different place now,” Ali agrees. “Kennedy’s the first one of us to have a child, but we all feel responsibility with that. We’re thinking, ‘Holy shit, we’ve really got to make this work now.’ We want to build up something for her, but then also for our families when we all have kids, whenever that develops. But I mean, we’re all family. We always say that she’s got a bunch of uncles now, so if anyone tries to mess with her, they’re in for a hard time.”
As the title of Bleed’s new album suggests, Zenith showcases the band at their creative peak, combining the trenchant riffs, enthralling breakdowns, melodic hooks and strong song structures of their past three albums, and intertwining them into more compelling, artistic and experimental songs.
Originally, the band planned to call the album Zero, since they view their last three albums – Era, Fracture and Shrine – as a three-part series composed of musically related (if not conceptually themed) releases. In other words, they wanted to start at ground zero. Then Linkin Park released From Zero.
“We had been sitting on the name Zero for years,” groans Scott. “It was perfect, because it was us going back to our roots and writing music that reflects why we love to be in this band, and also why we started even doing music in the first place.”
“We took away any sort of formula, which made a big difference,” Ali adds. “In the past, we had safety nets and blinkers on. With this, we just wrote and allowed anything to happen.”
Violent Nature opens Zenith with a near-industrial passage that wouldn’t be out of place in a first-person shooter videogame. Then there’s A Hope In Hell, which begins with clean, atmospheric vocals and programmed keyboards.
“We’ve never done that before,” admits Scott. “That might freak some people out, but to me it’s something markedly different and cool. The thing is, we have developed a sound, but we want to experiment more with it. Steven has a beautiful singing voice. Why wouldn’t we take advantage of that and expand what we do?”
As much as he enjoys pushing the envelope, Scott says his main objective was to write songs that would sound great live.
“I wanted to make sure everything would be fun to play live and would immediately connect with audiences,” he explains. “You know how when you see a band live and you know all the songs, you always have a great time? We wanted it to be like that, even if people had never heard the songs before.”
If being recognised by fans who came mostly to see the headliners is any indication, Bleed From Within are well on their way. As they head to a photoshoot near the venue, they’re stopped by several fans and asked for autographs. Sadi Rahman, 20, discovered Bleed From Within online a year ago, but dove deeper when he found out they were on tonight’s bill.
“As far as modern metalcore bands go, I feel like they’re one of the few that have different, unique elements to their music,” he explains.
Forty-year-old Adrian Leon from New Jersey says he’s seen them open for bands before. “I liked them right away!” he smiles. “They’re heavy, catchy and tight, and get you motivated to go in the pit.”
Fifteen minutes before Bleed take the stage, Ali is drumming to his streaming playlist on a practice pad, playing complex, syncopated beats to songs by Backstreet Boys, Fleetwood Mac and Phil Collins, while Scott is warming up his voice. In no time, the band are at the side of the stage, ready to go on.
“To be honest, I thought 5:30 was too early for people to be here since it’s not our show,” Scott says, stretching his arms behind his back. “But it’s quite full, and I actually see loads of people out there with Bleed shirts.”
As the band’s unusual walk-on music (Shania Twain’s Man! I Feel Like A Woman!) fades, Bleed From Within take the stage and launch right into God Complex, which sounds even tighter than it did at soundcheck. The five-song set is brief and brutal, with the crowd getting wilder, moshing and crowd surfing even if they’re unfamiliar with the music.
“If you come to the front, make sure you high-five or fist-bump me!” Scott yells. For the finale, In Place Of Your Halo, he climbs into the crowd and performs from atop the outstretched hands of a throng of fans.
After a quick shower, Scott grabs a bottled water and settles into a leather couch in the green room. Clearly, he’s pleased by the crowd’s reaction.
“There’s something about people in the States,” he reasons. “They just seem to have a connection to Scotland. We talk to the fans, and a lot of them are like, ‘Oh, dude! I’m one-tenth Scottish! I love you guys.’ As soon as I say, ‘We’re Bleed From Within from Glasgow, Scotland,’ everyone cheers, and that’s the moment they’re all on our side.”
Unlike many European bands who need to tour America several times every album cycle before they develop a devoted fanbase, Bleed made a solid dent the first time they arrived in 2023 – 18 years into their career.
“Our first show was in this town called Silver Spring, Maryland, and I’ll never forget it,” Ali says. “Usually, we do a fist bump before we play, but this show felt different, so we all hugged each other, because it was the first time playing a different market and it felt big. If felt special. We started playing and right away we were like, ‘What’s going on here?’ People actually knew the name of the band, knew the songs and were singing along. We didn’t expect such a crazy response.”
Today, having honed their stage performance to a razor-sharp point, Bleed From Within are in a position to start headlining major venues – even in America.
“We had dreamt of coming here for such a long time, so it was a special moment when it finally happened. And we still feel that way,” Scott concludes. “This is our third time in the US, and we’re seeing some of the same faces coming out to the show and meeting some of these fans now. It’s starting to feel almost like our second home.”
Zenith is out now via Nuclear Blast. Bleed From Within tour the UK from October 10.