“It’s been a tricky couple of years, leading up to all of this,” says Jason Worthy, the band’s guitarist. “It’s starting to finally be a) releasing the album [Beyond The Border] and b) doing a launch show, and getting up there is going to be really great.”
Back in 2013, the band was forced into hiatus after bassist Kade Turner was involved in a horrific motorcycle accident in South America, which almost cost him his life. Shortly after, lead vocalist Nigel Jackson began battling a life threatening illness resulting in chemotherapy and a full bone marrow transplant.
When all this happened, Branch Arterial were in the midst of prepping their debut album for release. “We were in full swing with the post-production of the album, when the first thing happened with Kade. When we were finished, it during his recovery time, we thought we’d make the best of a bad situation and keep plugging forward. Once we’d finished and got our full lineup together, we played one show and then Nigel got diagnosed.
“He had to go into hospital and start his battle which was a fairly lengthy one. Kade was a year in recovery and Nigel was closer to two years. Nigel was recording his vocals whilehe was in recovery, not long after – pretty mental.”
Evidently, if you were to look up the word ‘dedication’ in the dictionary it’s likely you’d see a photograph of Branch Arterial’s relentless frontman. “Absolutely,” Worthy laughs. “What he did to push himself to record the album and get back to being able to play live and just survive is pretty amazing.
“He got into this album, Circus being one of the main [songs], where he’s talking about his very horrific experiences in hospital. It’s a very emotional release for him as well in regards to that. And the rest of the band, we all stuck together. Managed to make it through.”
While what Turner and Jackson were going through was terrible, the able-bodied members of Branch Arterial – through their own fierce dedication to their music and their friends – essentially picked up the work of two members.
In light of that, the band’s headline show coming up at The Evelyn will be cause for massive celebration. “It’s very much a momentous occasion to finally be getting back up there to do this after such a long time,” Worthy says.
“There’s definitely a huge buzz in the rehearsal room and as a group, there’s a lot of amazing energy flying around – we’re so excited to be doing this and the hard work is paying off.”
Hindsight is a wonderful thing they say, but Worthy will never be able to say with any certainty, whether without these negative events affecting Branch Arterial, if the new album and the launch show would have been met with the same kind of energy. “It’s possible,” he says.
“We were really on fire. We’d gotten new members in, new material, everything was firing and it was difficult to pull back. It could be a second album we’re on to now. There’s a worry about how the material is going to hold up after such a long time, but it seems to be translating really well and we’re getting positive feedback.
“It feels like we’re starting again, it all feels so nice. But we’re at a pretty nice place to start again – playing a headline show at The Evelyn – it’s not a bad place to start back after two years.”