Interview by Kris Peters
It's been a massive six months for British rock/metal frontrunners Asking Alexandria, starting with the release of their latest album, Where Do We Go From Here? and culminating with an upcoming appearance in Australia as part of Knotfest 2024, which also sees Pantera, Halestorm, Lamb Of God, Disturbed and more visit these shores.
In between, the band dropped the highly successful Dark Void EP to coincide with Blue Monday, further accentuating their cause and support for mental health and related illnesses.
HEAVY recently caught up with bass player Sam Bettley to go over these highlights and more.
"It's been a long time," he stressed. "It's been a long time since we've been there, so we're excited to get back."
We run through the line-up and ask if there's any bands that Asking Alexandria haven't played with before.
"Honestly… no, I think we've played with pretty much everybody on this line-up," he laughed. "We were lucky enough to do a lot of the festivals in this last European run we did. On the off dates of the festivals we played with Disturbed, and those guys were awesome. What an amazing band and incredible to see live. Pantera… I mean, that was just a whole thing, you know. That was a huge party. Lamb of God - honestly, one of my favourite bands growing up, and my good friend Art is their drummer now, which is crazy because we toured with Art for years when he was in Winds Of Plague, so it's really cool. It's gonna be huge. There's gonna be a lot of friends and a lot of familiar faces. A couple of people we've not played with… nah, honestly. I've got it in front of me and everybody, really. I'm excited."
In the full interview, Sam talks more about travelling and playing these festivals, the backstage environment, catching up with friends on the road, what to expect from Asking Alexandria's set, what they expect from their crowds, the sideshows and what to expect, Dark Void and the reason behind releasing it, future plans and more.