Averted is a UK metalcore/prog metal formed in Southampton by Jamie and Merlin in April 2018, it started as a side project for them to explore the techy side of metalcore. They co-wrote a few songs before they started looking for other members and were joined by Logan and Syhem in 2019. In June 2019 they started writing their first EP “Silenced“, as all members of the band live in different cities the whole process was done remotely in their respective home studios and the 6 songs were completed in a few months.

In October 2019 they began to record their debut EP with producer Jack Stephens (Bloodshot Dawn, Mask of Judas) which was shortly followed by shooting a video with Sebastian Taguiang. The band is now patiently waiting at home until they can bring their songs on stage (when it is safe to do so!) and are using this time to work on a first album. Here’s our interview with the vocalist, Syhem Angel & the band’s bassist, Logan Ashed!

Beginnings:

Logan Ashed: I met Jamie in 2018 through one of my lecturers at college and we played in a band with Merlin which disbanded in early 2019. Averted was originally meant to be Jamie and Merlin’s side project but after our band broke up, they decided to make Averted their main project and asked me to play bass for them a few months later. After not being able to find a vocalist, Jamie put a post up on Facebook on a page asking if there were any vocalists in the UK looking for a band. Syhem then got in contact with us and sent us a video of her vocals and we pretty much knew straight away she would be the perfect fit and met up for a rehearsal. About half a year later, we were in the studio recording our debut EP.

Behind the name:

Logan Ashed: When coming up with a name, we were brainstorming a lot of different ideas. The main theme we all liked was astronomy and decided to go down that route. After researching and playing around with different names, Jamie came out with “Averted”. We all loved it, not only for how the word sounds but also its definitions.

Inspiration:

Logan Ashed: The great thing about us is that, while we all love heavy metal, our tastes within that are different. For example, Jamie loves Motley Crue, Avenged Sevenfold, Killswitch Engage and Merlin loves System of a Down and Slipknot. Syhem and I have quite a similar taste in music and love listening to bands like Periphery, Meshuggah, Car Bomb, and Veil of Maya. Danny Hauser has been a huge inspiration of mine when playing bass.

Inspiration behind “Silenced”:

Syhem Angel: Before I even started the writing process I had a couple of brainstorm sessions to pinpoint exactly what I wanted to talk about and the more I thought about it the more it became evident for me that I wanted to talk about the war. It is a subject that I wanted to study and understand because it made no sense to me, “Silenced” paints stories of war through the eyes of a different individual on every song, I wanted to explore the reasons why one would subject themselves to perpetuating this mad cycle of destruction and pain and how it impacted them. We are already working on an album and I’m really excited about it!

Teamwork:

Logan Ashed: Where we all live in different parts of the UK, we never really write songs in the same room together. Normally a song will be formed by Jamie writing and recording a song on guitar and sending it to Merlin who will add drums to it. Merlin will then send it over to Syhem who will add her vocals to it. I rarely add bass into the song in the writing process as Jamie tends to do it while recording the guitars. This is because the bass part is normally very similar to the rhythm guitar.

COVID-19:

Syhem Angel: It’s been a rough year for everyone and for us it meant that rehearsals were very sparse because we all live in different parts of the UK and traveling in the middle of a pandemic doesn’t sound very sensible. It also meant that we have been unable to play our EP live yet because we focused on writing and recording “Silenced” in 2019 and thought that 2020 would be the year for gigs, how wrong we were… On the flip side it meant that we have been able to start working on an album a lot sooner than we anticipated, win some lose some. (smiles)

Angry, Catchy, Heavy, Fun and Melodic.

Describe your music in five words!

Online concert:

Syhem Angel: Just based on the fact that we don’t live near each other means that this would be quite complicated to organize, especially with the current restrictions in place.

Fun facts:

Syhem Angel: When I was 16 years old I somehow ended up on stage with Green Day singing Longview in front of 20 000 people in Paris, now that’s surprising but not funny, the funny part was that I was extremely drunk (I’m French, don’t judge!) and after singing with them and having a blast I ended up being sick in front of everyone. I’m lucky that shame is not lethal because I would have certainly died then!

We have a lot of cool things happening for us in 2021 including the physical release of “Silenced” which we are so excited about! Thanks to everyone who have been supporting us so far, we’re very grateful for every single one of you out there!