Interview: Getting to Know Baelfýr (Written)

Blackened Brit heavyweights, Baelfýr, set loose their colossal new EP, ‘Empowered By Hatred’, which lands on August 8th. The ferocious five piece have also revealed their savage new single and video, ‘At The Mercy Of A Vain God’. In this interview, we get to know them a little better.

1. Hello! Thank you for taking the time to chat to us. First things first, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started.

Thank you for having us. I’m Harry, one of the guitarists for Baelfýr. We formed via Allans (vocalist) ads on metal musician pages on Facebook in 2023. After a few months of starting to find our sound and direction we had a change of lineup and in exactly the same way we found Tom (guitarist), Lorraine (drums) and Zakk (bass).

2. Someone comes to you and asks you to sum up what kind of music you play – what do you tell them?

Simple – a no frills, aggressive, old school blackened death metal.

3. What’s currently keeping you busy? A new album/EP/single release? A new video? Playing live, or planning ahead?

Right now all of the above. We have just released our first single and video “At The Mercy Of A Vain God” from our upcoming EP “Empowered By Hatred” which will be released 08/08/2025. We have another video currently being filmed also from the upcoming EP. Live shows all year have been coming thick and fast. We have a few coming up over the next 4 weeks with Newcastle-Under-Lyme, Northants Rocks, Mansfield and Bloodstock. That’s just the next 4 we have plenty more to be announced to continue to fill the remainder of the year.

4. What is about this current period that is particularly exciting for you?

We are preparing for easily our biggest show so far which will be The New Blood Stage at Bloodstock on the Friday which as someone who has been going for the last 10-15 years is incredible. Along with that we’ve been sat with our EP for a few months now just building to be able to unleash it and that day is ticking ever closer. Releasing the same day as our Bloodstock performance.

Read here.

5. Tell me about the work that has gone into making it a reality and what it means to you.

Over the last 2 years it’s been fairly full on. For some of us it’s doing 150 odd mile round trips for a rehearsal, it’s the nights you spend writing and tweaking songs, videos and content. Everyday there’s something else we need to do. There’s been missed family birthdays, anniversaries the list goes on. But for every follow, every stream, every comment and head bobbing we see at a show means that what we are doing is worth every second of the grind and we wouldn’t change any of it for those minutes in front of a crowd.

6. Making music and being creative can be a very positive experience and can be very good for the mind. In what way has making music had a positive impact on your mental health?

The way in which I personally create is fairly isolated. Just shutting myself away for a couple of hours and just seeing what happens you can shut out all external noise and pressures. Then as a band we start playing around with it, give it more life and see things evolve. That positive collaboration and social aspect is so important. For me that mix of isolation and collaboration really does do wonders.

7. It can also be incredibly challenging, more so in the modern times. What have been some challenging aspects of making music and how have you overcome them?

The creation part in itself we haven’t found that challenging the amazing thing now is anything you write or do a little recording of you can send between ourselves and with software tab our guitar parts and everyone is able to learn things in our own time as we all have such full on lives that being at our rehearsal unit 7 nights a week just isn’t feasible. But we can pass ideas around daily if we want too and develop them through individual home recordings.

8. How do you handle the online aspects of being in a band? Having to put out content constantly, promoting across several different social media platforms, and having your success measured in likes and follows?

That is a particular challenge I wouldn’t be out of line saying across the board we are not the most social media savvy people. It is something we are seeing more and more the need to have engagement and measurable metrics and it’s something we are all trying to put more time in. The songs and performance is only part of the battle in most cases. Numbers are what allows you to perform and keep going.

9. How do you make this part of things enjoyable, and fulfilling, for yourself?

Its figuring out what gets traction, what do people want to see/hear from us online, what message and image do we want to portray. We are always going back looking at what suits us best and what resonates. Everytime there’s any engagement, like of a comment or video, a follow or a stream every single one means something to us and we appreciate them all and that’s what we love to see.

10. Speaking directly to listeners – what would you ask they do to help support you?

Follow us on any of our social media channels, stream us on whichever streaming platform you use. And ultimately get down to one of our shows come and chat to us have a drink with us grab a t shirt/patch or EP (when its out)

11. Outside of music, what do you like to do to relax?

Personally I’m a rugby guy. I’ve got a season ticket for the Leicester Tigers so if we aren’t playing you’ll find me there or at a pub watching whatever game is on.

12. Where can people find you?

We are across pretty much all social media platforms @BaelfyrBand. For all our links head to our LinkTree.