Having toured across Europe playing hundreds upon hundreds of shows alongside bands such as Papa Roach, Shinedown, Buckcherry, Black Stone Cherry and appearing at festivals such as Sonisphere and Download, Heaven’s Basement are a band who’ve built their reputation on a setting Britain’s underground alight and then taking that energy to bigger stages across Europe.

Their desire to leave an everlasting impression on rock music is fueled by one sole ambition between them; to reach the summit of their potential and to be regarded alongside the bands that inspired them.

“We’re proud to come from the country that has without doubt produced some of the greatest rock n roll bands of all time. There’s now a void that needs filling. Everything we do revolves around filling that void”

We sat down with the band before their Download performance and here is how it went:

Hi – How are you today?

HB: Great, we’ve just got back from the warm up dates in Scotland for Download 2012, we’re feeling pretty scruffy, but nothing that a shower and a brew can’t sort out!

Are you excited to play Download?

Yeah, it’s a great feeling to have been invited back for a second year, we had such a great time on the acoustic stage last year – it’s great that we get to do it again and then smash it up on Sunday with a full live set – there’s no better feeling than the feel of progression, and that’s what this show symbolises for us.

s: How do you prepare for a festival appearance such as Download?

If you’re anything like us, you go to Los Angeles for 6 weeks to prepare for an album, come back home to four shows in the most northern points of the UK and then have 2 days to rehearse. We like to dive in at the deep end – in fairness, we’ve been playing every day pretty much for the last two months and we all felt pretty good coming out of the warm ups!

S: Describe your sound to someone who has never heard you before?

HB: Heaven’s Basement is a rock band. No frills. All thrills.

S: In such a short space of time in the music world you guys have toured with a wide range of incredible artists – any personal favourites?

HB: Me personally, I haven’t toured with a great array of bands as I only joined Basement officially in 2011 – but I’ve had a great time chilling with Papa Roach and some other friends of the band.

S: What is next for you guys after your Download appearance?

HB: Well, we may go back to L.A. To do some bits but generally all eyes are set on a couple of months straight of rehearsals – we have a tour with Halestorm coming up in September and we have every intention of smashing it’s face in. We don’t like to do things by halves.

S: The band have worked with producer Bob Marlette before – what influence did he have on the band?

Yes, the band worked with Bob before my time, he worked with the band on some tracks like ‘Can’t let go’, ‘Misunderstood etc)… Rob and myself first met Bob in August 2011 and funnily enough he turned out to be a pretty cool guy! So we got in the studio and started writing some tracks together, some of which will be featuring on the upcoming album. He certainly brings a good vibe to the table and that’s what we care about the most – the people around us have to click, and he was one of those people – the easier you get along with somebody, the easier it is to get the results.

S: What is your favourite song to play live?

We have this new track called Jump Back – it’s got a great groove and people really got into it throughout the scottish dates- i can’t wait for people to hear it.

S: You are just back from recording in Los Angeles which is my favourite place in the world – how did that go?

We’ve been to L.A. a couple of times now and had a great time. We had some messy nights, met some cool people, some producers and some people at the label – as I mentioned earlier, we don’t like to do things by halves – the foundations of a band are just as important as the parts that the rest of the world get to hear about so we wanted to make sure everybody was on the same page.

S:Who are you most looking forward to seeing at Download this year?

You know, Download and festivals in general are always very hard to predict who is going to be the best band to go and see as there’s so much competition, we’ve all seen the headliners before which of course we’re psyched about seeing again – but in all honesty – knowing our luck we’ll probably be in the press office doing an interview when the bands we take an interest in are onstage.

I hope to see most of the headline sets, just like everyone else, may catch a bit of Halestorm as we’re out on tour with them in September – Killswitch with Jesse on vocals will be cool, I may watch a bit of Periphery and Skindred, I have an eclectic taste in music in comparison to the others.