They consist of a drummer who sings and four bass players, they wear masks that make them look totally ridiculous, and they sound dirtier than a televangelist’s web browsing history.
Welcome to the frankly bonkers world of Evil Blizzard – just don’t think they’re joking.
“There’s an element of Victorian music hall about what we’re doing,” explains Filthy, one of their bass players. “Even though it might be perceived as being comedic, or us being a little bit funny or not being serious about it, it’s very, very serious, what we’re doing. The fact that we’re dressing up as ridiculously as possible is mainly to get a response, and it allows us to behave in the most appalling ways possible and get away with it. It’s about putting on a show – almost like an old-fashioned British seaside town, there’s something tatty and a little bit sordid about what we’re doing.”
The band started when drummer Side and first bassist Prowler were meant to be doing a gig as another band, but the guitarist didn’t show, so they quickly made up a name inspired by Ozzy Osbourne’s Blizzard Of Oz and played as a two-piece. After adding more bass players, the band somehow came to be. What’s clear is that absolutely nothing has been planned.
“We’ve all been in bands before where we’ve rehearsed for hours and hours on end, and it’s very boring. With this band, we’ve been doing it now for four years, and we’ve only ever had four rehearsals, which is the way to do it, we think,” explains Side. “We tend to do a gig, and it comes out how it comes out. We’ve got an idea of the songs, but they’re never the same in two gigs. We play what we feel. It seems to work, rather than it being too structured.”
When you combine this chaotic nature with a sound that doesn’t fit into a convenient genre, sounding like a mix of doom, krautrock, Hawkwind, gin and anger, it’s not surprising that new audiences can be rather divided.
“The best response we can possibly get is complete and utter silence at the end of a song because everyone is just staring at us,” says Side. “We’ll go on social media after, and I’ve never once seen anybody say ‘Evil Blizzard… yeah, they were OK.’ We polarise people; people either absolutely love us or absolutely despise us – and either way, that’s fine by us.”
*Everybody Come To Church* is out now via Louder Than War
