ANGELO MUNRO of BLEEDERS: Fan Evolution
An interview by Bridget Herlihy with photography by Ngamihi Pawa.
Iconic band Bleeders are set to return to the stage over the next two weekends to play the coveted headline slot for the annual ‘Summer of Hardcore’ shows in Auckland and Wellington. Their only live shows slated for 2025, the band will be playing alongside the likes of Saving Grace, BRAINWAVE, and more renowned hardcore acts. The first show kicks off this Saturday at Double Whammy on K Road, followed by the second show at Valhalla in Wellington on Saturday 15th February.
In the lead-up to these highly anticipated gigs, I had a chat with frontman Angelo Munro about the evolution of Bleeders over the last two decades, their loyal fans, and what the future holds for one of Aotearoa’s most beloved hardcore-garage punk acts.
Taking it all the way back to the early years of the new millennium, West Auckland band Bleeders unleashed a sonic assault with their debut EP ‘A Bleeding Heart’; a collection of seven tracks that stopped audiences in their tracks with their distinctive fusion of punk, rock and hardcore. The EP, along with the band’s frenetic live performances, immediately demanded the attention of music aficionados, critics, radio stations, music television and audiences across the nation.
The five-piece (featuring Munro on vocals; Hadleigh Donald (guitar); Ian King (guitar); Gareth Stack (bass) and Matt Clark (drums)) quickly became a musical force to be reckoned with. Word quickly spread both near and far about this musical tour de force, and the band jetted off to New Jersey in 2005 to record their debut LP ‘Sweet As Sin’ with producer Sal Villanueva. Released in 2006, Villanueva and the band made a conscious shift towards a sound intended to appeal to a wider audience; a shift that proved to be very successful. The album debuted at Number 2 on the Official NZ Music Chart, achieving Gold status.
Leaping from strength to strength, the band recorded their second self-titled album, which led to them being awarded Best Breakthrough Artist and Best Rock Album at the 2007 NZ Music Awards. After touring extensively throughout NZ and Australia, and supporting heavyweight acts such as Motorhead, Avenged Sevenfold, Good Charlotte and AFI in Australasia, and The Misfits in the UK, the band relocated to Canada with an eye to win over audiences and break into the notoriously difficult North American market. Dozens of live shows later, including spots opening for Alexis On Fire and Cancer Bats, the Bleeders disbanded in 2010. While their flame had burned bright, ultimately the band members had different goals and ambitions, with some returning home to Aotearoa while others stayed in the Northern Hemisphere.
Fast-forward to 2019, the Bleeders reunited (minus Hadleigh Donald) for a new EP, ‘Delusions’, which saw the band return to their garage punk roots. A handful of live shows followed in 2019 and 2020 before the pandemic brought everything to a grinding halt. That is until 2024, when the band once again joined forces to play a series of shows around the country to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of ‘A Bleeding Heart’. By all accounts the band’s live shows were are ferocious and energetic as ever, almost as if no time had passed at all, let alone a decade long hiatus.
While musing that it’s hard to believe that it has been two decades since Bleeders erupted onto the scene, Angelo laughs. “Well, it has been, because I’m old now!” During the band’s hiatus, he completed a degree in social work, he is now a senior practitioner for corrections; a job that he loves and finds immensely rewarding. Yet looking back over the band’s history and legacy, he finds it staggering not only how quickly the last 20 years have gone by, but that it has been eight years since the band first reunited for a show.
“Long story short, we broke up in 2010, when we were living in Canada. We had been living over there for a year, and we decided to break up because some people weren’t happy on that side of the world, and other stuff. We did do a reunion in 2016 after six years, and then got asked to do another one in 2018, and we did that. And we said ‘if we are going to do that, let’s just get back together and do a new record, because we don’t really want to be the band that milks the reunions. So we reformed six years ago and did a new record. But to be fair, we probably do a run of shows once a year, because we are all grown adults with children and families and wives. At some point you have to realise that if you’re not going to crack it internationally with your music, you have to sort you shit out. You have figure out a career as a grown adult. I still have to pay the bills; I still have to pay the mortgage. So we just try to do it once a year; usually we do a few more dates, but this year we are just doing the two Summer of Hardcore shows”.
As for new material, Angelo confirms that recording new music is always something that is on the band’s agenda. “That’s always an option. As far as another record goes, it’s possible. Our drummer lives in Melbourne now, and I’ve got another band that I’m doing now. It’s not off the table, but it’s harder these days to make new records. Its something that we have talked about; we kind of look at Delusions as our new record, but all of a sudden its six years old – like what the hell?! It might be time to pull our finger out and do something new”.
It seems an almost universal experience that the older we get, the faster time flies by, an experience that Angelo shares. “Don’t we go from 20 to 40 just like that?! I just remember being a young kid in the hardcore scene jumping around the mosh pit, and now there’s a whole generation of kids in bands, and this really makes me feel old. They were babies, or not even born then. That’s crazy, because I still see myself as a new-jack. We can’t help but think that we’re the scene of the ‘90s and early 2000s, but there were all these people that are creating cool music in the 70s and 80s. Time just goes so fast. My son has seen Bleeders a couple of times when we did a day show when we did a tattoo show a couple of years ago, and that was pretty fun for him. I will try to twist my wife’s arm to let him come to the next show, but it’s a bit of a late show and he’s only 12. It’s the generation of the kids coming through now. The parents are the original, ‘old school’ fans, who are now bringing their offspring along to the shows”.
In a nod to both the Bleeders of the early 2000s and now, Angelo promises the sets the band plays on the forthcoming dates will include songs from each of the band’s releases, including what the fans want to hear and what the band enjoys playing. “We have talked about our set, and all the other bands on the bill are hardcore bands that are very heavy and way different to us, which is kind of cool, because that was the scene that as teenagers we came from, but we kind of did our own thing that was not part of the hardcore scene. So to be welcomed back to that community to headline the bill is fantastic for a start, but also very different. We wondered if we should do a set of our harder and faster numbers – and they will be in there – but we also decided that the last time we played was the 2oth anniversary of ‘A Bleeding Heart’, which was about 18 months ago, and we did all of that stuff then, so we are actually going to do a real mixture of all of our records this time. We are going to bring back songs from ‘As Sweet As Sin’ and the second record and the EPs, so it will be a real eclectic mix”.
There is no doubt that the Bleeders back catalogue of releases has continued to resonate with fans both old and new over the years. One thing that the band have noticed since reuniting is that a lot of the fans at their shows now are the people who got into the band when they were first starting out. “They have stuck with us. They are the ones right up the front singing. Hardcore is a community, and while we kind of stepped out of that and did our own thing with no apologies, its nice to be welcomed back to that community to headline their annual fest and share with that community, because a lot of that community deserves credit for being open-minded and they stuck with us through our changes and our evolution. And I love them for that. It’s going to be cool to have sing-a-longs. I’m really looking forward to it”.
Bleeders are headlining the upcoming ‘Summer Of Hardcore’ concerts in both Auckland and Wellington this February. Tickets are still available from Under The Radar, and believe us when we say you NEED to be there! Fans will also have the opportunity to load themselves up with new Bleeders merchandise at the shows with designs that are new with a touch of nostalgia.
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