DeadWax bring UK grime-metal bounce to Download Festival’s Takeover stage
DeadWax playing on the Doghouse Stage at Download Festival as part of the Takeover.
DeadWax joined Festpod’s Arran Prime and Rob Hemingway after making Download Festival’s Takeover stage their own. They talked about pyro, a bouncing crowd and why their collision of metal, grime and UK club culture was built to be played live.
DeadWax had one fairly simple objective when they walked onto the Takeover stage at Download. Destroy any chance of the crowd taking it easy.
“Our only aim was to crush any hopes and dreams of people pacing themselves for the rest of the weekend.”
Job done.
By the time the Leeds band joined Festpod’s Arran Prime and Rob Hemingway backstage, the crowd had spent the set bouncing, headbanging and throwing their hands into the air - exactly the kind of reaction DeadWax wanted. It was also the biggest stage the band had ever played.
“We’ve been playing together for a long, long time and we’ve played some big stages. That’s definitely the biggest stage we’ve played, but we felt so at home, to be honest.”
A large part of that, they said, came down to the people standing on the other side of the barrier.
“The crowd made us feel at home. They were so responsive.”
There were plenty of DeadWax shirts out there, too.
For a band stepping onto Download’s stage for the first time, the message from the crowd was clear - they already had people in their corner.
Built to be played live
That relationship between band and audience matters to DeadWax.
For them, playing live isn’t an extra part of what a band does after making the music. It’s the whole point.
“That is what is most important to us. If you can’t do it live, what are you doing?”
DeadWax’s own description of their music is “alt-grime”, combining heavy bass, rock guitars and UK rap, but the ingredients stretch much further than that. During the Festpod interview, they explained that while much of the nu metal they love is unmistakably American, their aim is to pull the sound somewhere closer to home.
“The nu metal we love is obviously very American a lot of the time with the hip-hop influence. We want to make it more UK-centric.”
That means bringing in grime, UK MC culture and the sounds surrounding it, alongside the riffs and rhythms of heavy music. The result is deliberately designed to move people.
“We want that bounce.”
From the front of the Takeover crowd to the back of the tent, that appeared to be working.
DeadWax meet Download pyro
There was also the small matter of the fire. DeadWax were given pyro for three songs and duly chose the three where they thought it would have the greatest impact. There was, however, a white line on stage that performers were strongly encouraged not to cross. That instruction proved slightly more difficult to follow in the heat of the moment.
One member found himself receiving an increasingly urgent warning to move backwards - although initially he thought the crew member was simply trying to tell him that his beer had spilt.
“I thought he was pointing at my beer, just like, ‘Your beer spilt.’”
Fortunately, everybody survived.
And unlike Festpod’s two former Takeover performers conducting the interview - Arran with Crushed By Waves in 2023 and Rob with Veiled the following year - DeadWax got to add actual fire to the experience.
We’re sure there are no hard feelings.
Probably.
A crowd ready to move
The energy DeadWax generated on the Takeover stage shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise.
DeadWax’s sound pulls together nu metal, grime, hip-hop and UK bass culture, but the band are particularly interested in giving those influences a distinctly British identity.
DeadWax also used their Festpod interview to give a shout-out to PENGSHUi, another band operating in that distinctly British space where MC culture, electronic music and heavy guitars collide.
But whatever ingredients go into the songs, the test for DeadWax remains what happens when they put them in front of an audience.
At Download, the answer was a tent full of people moving.
“The responsiveness from the crowd was absolutely fantastic. It just makes you feel at home when the crowd are up for a good time.”
“Make it yours”
Once their own set was over, thoughts could finally turn to the rest of Download. Snot were high on the list, as were Pendulum, Cypress Hill and Limp Bizkit.
But before disappearing into the festival themselves, Arran and Rob asked DeadWax what they would tell whichever bands find themselves stepping onto the Takeover stage next year. The answer summed up their own performance rather neatly.
“Fucking just enjoy yourself, because it’s sick.”
And then:
“Own that stage. It’s your stage. You’ve got half an hour. Make it yours.”
For half an hour at Download Festival, DeadWax did exactly that.
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