Interviews

Bleed – Interview

Caleb Jenkins

June 10, 2025

Dallas band Bleed’s debut LP has kept fans waiting for almost four years. The band formed in late 2019/early 2020 and released their first studio EP, Somebody’s Closer, in 2021, with a single, “Killing Time,” following in 2022. Those five songs alone defined a style that was as unique as it was rife with influence from 2000s alternative metal and grunge rock. Bleed has become just as big an influence on other bands as the bands that influence them and has amassed a dedicated fanbase both at the local and national level, so expectations were high leading up to the album release and concurrent album release shows in Austin on May 1st and Dallas on May 2nd. I talked to Ryan (vocalist, guitarist), Adam (bassist), and Noah (guitarist, vocalist) before the Dallas album release show to get a feel for what went into their debut, self-titled album, Bleed.

Caleb Jenkins: Okay, this is Caleb with Radio UTD. Go ahead and tell me who we’re talking to tonight.

Ryan Hughes: Ryan.

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Adam Ackerman: Adam.

*Noah Boyce walks in*

I appreciate you making the time for the interview, I wanted to start off talking about a little bit outside of Bleed. I’ve heard that you guys have some pretty interesting day jobs. Can you give us a little knowledge of what’s going on there?

Adam: I mean, Ryan’s [day job] is probably the most interesting (firefighter). Me and Noah are bartenders. We DJ sometimes. We’re all fathers, we’re the fathers of the group (Adam, Ryan, and Noah). We’re dad rock, for real.

I enjoyed the new record and I wanted to hear a little about your inspirations. I want to hear about what inspired this new LP outside of music.

Ryan: Outside of music? The human condition.

You mean the Japanese film?

Ryan: The actual human condition.

Adam: Reality.

Noah: The reality of the human condition.

Adam: If you’re talking music—

Ryan: Flaws, human error.

Adam: Well, the obvious, Deftones, Linkin Park, Nothingface.

Ryan: Prefix, Primer 55, Lo-Pro, Ultraspank.

Adam: Ill Niño

Several Members of the band have experience in other groups—you can almost call Bleed a supergroup of sorts—how is it juggling the different influences that you’re dealing with? How did you hone in the sound on this particular project?

Ryan: The other groups, the other projects, kinda run parallel. We don’t really have any crossover with influence or sound or anything from the other projects. Bleed is totally its own thing, and all the other projects we’re involved with together are their own thing as well, so it’s pretty easy to keep them separated.

Adam: Everything has its own identity for sure.

If you could do it tomorrow, what band would you play a show with?

Ryan: Fuck me.

Dead or alive.

Ryan: Van Halen.

Noah: (He said dead or alive! He said Van Halen!)

Adam: Deftones or System of a Down.

Noah: System of a Down is definitely, for sure, up there.

Are you in favor of crowd killing?

Ryan: Yeah.

Noah: Fuck yeah.

Adam: Yes.

Is it good for the culture?

Ryan: Uhm, yes, I think it is. I think it’s like a Darwinism thing.

Do you think your music is suited for hardcore dancing or moshing?

Ryan: Whatever.

I wanted to hear a little bit more about how you got involved with 20 Buck Spin (record label).

Ryan: The guys we’re playing with tonight.

Noah: Yeah, Skeleton played a big role in it. It kind of trailed, or trickled down sort of, from (without getting too into the details), Skeleton was already on 20 Buck Spin and he was working for a label that had also released with 20 Buck Spin. The person that ran that label was good friends with Dave and Victor, the singer of Skeleton. The person who runs that label had talked to Dave and kind of shouted our name at him, said you gotta check these guys out. So it kind of all fell into place after that.

Who did the album art?

Adam: The Frank Maddocks.

Did you give him any instruction or did he just produce something for you?

Ryan: He gave us a photo set of sorts. When we talked to him initially we kind of wanted it to be a real image. The last record was something he basically created, but with this one we wanted it to be a real picture. So he initially sent us a big photo set of a bunch of pictures and we kind of combed through it. The first couple that we picked out wasn’t really landing where we wanted it to. So, fastforward, a bunch of dialogue between us and Frank, we ended up picking a part of a picture that he sent and then he blew it up. Essentially what you see now is basically what we picked out.

Were there any tracks that didn’t make the cutting room floor that you might wanna revisit for the next LP?

Ryan: There’s a track that didn’t make Somebody’s Closer (2021 EP) that we will probably bring back… at some point… Somebody’s Closer was initially supposed to be five songs, and there’s a song that didn’t make that EP, didn’t make the LP, but we’ll probably bring back at some point.

Noah: That was like the first track, ever.

Ryan: It was one of the first songs… we still have the voice memo of me and [Adam] at NUJAM in Plano. But we, what, 2019? 2020?

Noah: It might have been early 2020.

Is that a song that you’ve played live? Would live fans be familiar with it?

Adam: No.

Ryan: No.

Noah: No.

Ryan: Really, us three are probably the only people on Earth that know it.

Adam: It would need a serious rendition.

I’ve heard you compared to music on the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater soundtrack. Do any of you have a favorite skater?

Ryan: Bob Burnquist.

Noah: Muska, from the first one.