Bridges Ablaze – Heartless

By starrymag | March 6, 2025

By: Karen Steinberg

 

 

Q) How would you describe your sound?

A) We combine elements of many styles and subgenres of rock and metal into one. We sing and play guitar solos and that’s not super common in music. You could call us hard rock or metal though, easily, and we’d fit that description.

Q) Who are some of your musical influences?

A) Killswitch Engage, Bullet For My Valentine, A Day To Remember, Escape The Fate, Metallica, Megadeth, Machine Head, Pantera, Scorpions, Van Halen, Led Zeppelin, Polyphia, Plini, Intervals, Tesseract, Northlane, ERRA and many others!

Q) Talk about the story behind your new song “Heartless.”

A) It’s about a few situations really, but the common theme is pain and loss. It’s written to be somewhat vague so the listener can freely project their own experiences with similar emotions. But for us it’s about losing friendships and about breakups.

Q) What do you think it is about the song that fans connect to?

A) The song is a really vulnerable expression of loss. People will probably connect through that and through their own version of the pain that we sing about.

Q) How does the video for the track play into the message behind it?

A) The video abstractly, visually and metaphorically shows the experience that we sing about. It visually represents loss and pain with specifically chosen elements, like rain, mud, etc.

Q) Your song “Heartbroken Angel” earned over 28 million plays on TikTok! To what do you attribute this incredible achievement?

A) “Heartbroken Angel” released in October of 2023. As of recently, that number is actually over 40,000,000 streams now. I’d say it’s really just a result of a “perfect storm” of variables, from networking, distribution, playlisting and just downright luck.

Q) What is your song writing process? Do you need music before you can create lyrics?

A) Our songwriting process is very nonlinear. A song can start from anything – a riff, a vocal part or even a drum beat, or something even more obscure, like a mind’s eye visual even. From the initial starting point, the song begins to crystallize outward from the starting point. Sometimes one of us mostly writes a song, or sometimes it’s truly a complex 3-way (or more) collaboration!

Q) How much of a hand do you have in the production of your music?

A) It depends on how you define “production.” More hardware/software/mixing/mastering-oriented or more nebulously and abstractly, in more of a writing sense? In the sense of writing, usually pretty heavily. In the sense of mixing, we usually have somewhat of a hand in general leveling, but when it comes to specific technicalities of mixing/mastering, our producer/engineer handles that.

Q) With “Heartless” out now, will there be a full album or EP coming in the near future?

A) Yes! Towards the end of the year. Until then, more singles to come!

Q) What Bridges Ablaze tracks do you get the most kick out of performing live?

A) We love playing “Apocalypse.” That song is just a jam! From the start of the song, to the breakdown and guitar solos – we LOVE everything about performing this song, especially singing it!

Q) Where are some of your favorite places to perform and what makes those locations so significant to you?

A) We’ve played all across the country in previous projects, so that’s hard to say! Honestly, some venues in Houston or Dallas have been pretty nice! But, looking to the future, we’d love to play Red Rocks or Rock AM Ring eventually! These places are significant to us because of us initially discovering these venues in childhood, watching huge bands we idolized playing them.

Q) SXSW is coming up and as musicians from Austin will we get to see you there this year – either as performers or fans?

A) Possibly! If not performing, definitely as fans!

Q) Who would you most like to collaborate with on a song in the future?

A) We’d be honored to collaborate with any of our inspirations! But out of all of them, maybe Escape The Fate or Avenged Sevenfold!

Q) What artist/musician are you currently listening to and why do you dig them?

A) Right now, we are listening heavily to newer female fronted rock groups/artists like Poppy, Spiritbox, The Pretty Wild, Kami Kehoe and Maggie Lindemann. It’s just such an exciting new sound and we are huge fans of it!

Q) What would you like to say to everyone who is a fan and supporter of you and your work?

A) Don’t let anyone tell you what you should feel or think or be. Just be true. Life is too short for anything by else. Don’t let anyone make you feel guilty or bad for feeling negative emotions. Don’t let anyone guilt you or shame you for telling the truth. Don’t let anyone in a thousand years tell you who to be. It’s your life. Live it as you see fit.

 

 

All Questions Answered By Brien Allen