Multiband bills often are popular not only because of the major names that typically headline them, but also because of the exposure they provide to young, promising bands.

Case in point, Blessthefall.

The Arizona-based quartet has generated some buzz since its full-length debut, His Last Walk, was released last year, something Blessthefall hopes to capitalize on when it opens for the upcoming Rockstar Taste of Chaos Tour. The festival invades Freeman Coliseum on Saturday, April 5, and before the tour arrived in the Alamo City, 210SA spoke with Blessthefall drummer Matt Traynor about opening Taste of Chaos and incorporating hip-hop into his band's rock-flavored sound.

How much exposure do you plan to get out of a major tour like Taste of Chaos?

We are very stoked to be playing on this tour. Obviously, an arena tour is not something we've done yet, and all the other bands on tour have sold thousands and thousands of records, (whereas) we've only sold like 40,000. We're just starting out, and all these fans will be all new faces. ..... A lot of people come to see the other bands, and a lot of people have never heard us before. It's a very, very good tour for us, and hopefully it does well for our future and getting new fans, getting more albums sold.

Blessthefall's bio sheet mentions something about “invincibility against competition.” What do you mean by that?

I don't really know what that means because we're not trying to compete with anyone. We're trying to get our CD into as many hands as possible and trying to win over some new fans that have never heard us before. We're not competing with bands to take away their fans or anything. We're just really young and out to have some fun playing music we love.

How do you manage to get hip-hop, R&B, pop and rock into your music?

We all love the kind of music we play and, lately, we're all listening to hip-hop and rap because we've always listened to that. Sometimes CDs get boring, so we listen to the radio, and we listen to Akon and T-Pain and Kanye West. We're really into that stuff, and we like the real bouncy beat. ..... It comes from influences like that.

Having already played Warped Tour, what did you learn from that experience?

It just really got exposure for us. Warped Tour was probably the best tour we've done so far. The amount of bands on there and the friends we made and all the new faces, it was like a summer camp.

What's your best tour story?

One of the great stories we like telling people is on the two-year anniversary of Blessthefall touring, we played Montreal at Warped Tour, and we got to play 10 minutes longer. They put us on the main stage that day, and the crowd was huge for us. Canada really seemed to vibe off of us there, too. That's the single best show we've ever played, and it was such an awesome thing.

CLINT HALE | 210SA