It’s going to be a busy weekend for Neurosis! Before performing at The Cockpit in Leeds on Sunday alongside The Haxan Cloak, they will also be headlining the mainstage at this weekend’s first ever Temples Festival on Saturday night. Additionally, this may or may not be their first appearance in Bristol. “I may be wrong, my memory is shit,” states Scott Kelly before exclaiming that they are no doubt “really looking forward to this night!”
An outsider has to be curious on their live show schedules however. If you keep an eye out for their live dates, you’ll notice that they are not only quite spread out and sporadic, but they tend to favor Europe for the most part. Approaching 30 years of existence, Neurosis are pretty much done with a heavy touring and recording cycle, but it certainly isn’t due to a lack of desire, they just decided to be parents and husbands first and foremost. “We chose to have home lives instead of spending our lives in constant tour/write/record mode,” says Kelly. “We decided that a long time ago and it’s what works for us. When we do get together to play we have an enormous amount of energy to draw from. Neurosis demands that.”
Certainly a favored live spectacle, the band has a sizable chunk of material to dive into once on stage, and choosing a setlist isn’t just luck of the draw, but rather what Kelly
says is “wherever our inspiration lies at the time. We try to paint a picture or draw from a vision with our sets.” Those who weren’t fortunate to witness their live show with the added visuals (courtesy of Josh Graham, currently of A Storm of Light, who left Neurosis in 2012) will have to settle with the band “playing in the light” for the meantime. Currently there are “no plans” to resurrect the visual aspect, but Kelly hints that they “are open at this point to possibly doing special gigs, somewhere down the road.”
Just in case you aren’t able to catch them this weekend, Neurosis still has a string of European dates for the summer festival cycle, including Graspop and Tuska Open Air. Once at home though, Kelly says that they will concentrate on “focused work on the new record,” before adding in that they are “always writing.”
Upcoming Neurosis shows:
3 May – Temples Festival – Bristol, UK
4 May – The Cockpit – Leeds, UK
28 June – Graspop – Dessel, Belgium
29 June – Tuska Open Air Metal Festival – Helsinki, Finland
3 July – Fuzz Live Music Club w/Corrections House – Tavros, Greece
