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Chris Ambridge caught up with Devil Sold His Soul back stage at Nottingham Rock City before their headline show to talk about the forthcoming release of their second album, their biggest moment to date and much more.

Thanks for taking time out for this interview.

First of all can you give us a brief history of the band such as how you got together and came up with the name Devil sold his soul!
Me (Richard), Johhny and Paul were involved in another band before, that split up but we kinda wanted to carry on, so we and the original drummer basically started auditioning for a singer and bassist, and we eventually found Ed and Ian, then 3 years ago the old drummer left, we had a couple of guys filling in and we eventually found Leks and kinda cemented the line up.
As for the name, in the beginning when me (Paul), Johnny and Richard were trying to put the band together, we went though a lot of different names, but that one was the one that would hopefully get peoples attention and get them thinking, it also kinda sum up how we were feeling at the time, like people can do stuff that will totally mess you around, you may not have done something but you'll find their actions can really effect you. So that name kinda encapsulates how we were feeling at the time so we went for that one.

Who would you say your main musical influences are?
Spice girls. Haha. We are kinda split, like the old part of the band, me (Paul), Richard and Johnny, and the younger ones like Leks, Ed and Ian. For me it would be like Guns 'n' Roses, Metallica, Skidrow and for Ed and Ian more recently bands like Deftones and Converge, loads of stuff, I think everything has worked its way in there somehow over the years.

In terms of lyrics, what inspires the band? What do you try to write about or what messages do you try to convey?
Just everyday experiences you know, stuff that we see in the news and stuff that we've all gone through in the past. It doesn't make a conscious appearance in the music but it has all definitely had some effect.

How would you describe the sound of devil sold his soul in your own words?
Big, Loud, Epic, Encompassing.

I always through of it as the soundtrack to the end of the world. Would you agree?
Haha, I like that, that’s cool, use your own words, Haha.

This morning I read an article on you guys which described you "capable of sculpting vast emotional glaciers of sound in the manner of Sigur Ros."
This is something I strongly agree with, when writing your music do you consciously attempt to create these soundscapes or are they something that just come naturally with the music you create?
We actually don't write the music we just mic up different glaciers. Haha. We don't specifically sit down and try and do any one thing. We go from heavy stuff to soundscape stuff but not massively, it's more textured stuff, its not like we really focus on one side of what we're going to do. We kinda like what we can do with the music and kinda like to try and layer it up. I don’t mean it in a way like we try to copy or you know, take a particular style we just try things out you know. We're not really thinking that much about what we're trying to do anymore it just happens.

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