2000trees is to the alternative music scene what Thanksgiving is to Americans, minus the family drama. It is an opportunity for the same community of people to get back together and celebrate our shared identity and the music we love. Naturally, as part of this, we see the same bands popping up over and over again, solidifying their bond with the people who make them feel so welcomed. One band whose reputation has been swelling from back-to-back-to-back appearances is Blank Atlas. 
The trio feel perfectly at home at the festival these days and had already dialled in a stellar performance on the packed Word stage the day previous when I spoke to them.
“We’ve been coming here for like ten years as punters,” the band said, “and this is where we catch up with all our friends from all over the country who like the same music as us. So I think when we got the chance to play last year, all of our mates were already here, so it made us seem like a much bigger band than we are.
“So getting rebooked, it was like, okay, we can actually gain some real, actual like randomers that we don’t know were there. So that was really, really cool. We had such a good time.”
Blank Atlas attribute their snowballing success at the festival, saying “we just appealed to the Trees crowd sort of thing. We’re very much a Trees band, so it’s quite an easy sell, I think.”
The three-piece have undoubtedly gained attention by virtue of their unique sound, which they theorise as “Might be because we all love Take That, maybe. And we also love Metallica.”
They did go into more depth, though. “We’ve all been playing in this band since we were like 15 years old. We started off doing your classic kind of small, young band covers, Metallica and Iron Maiden. But then we discovered a lot of like 2000trees-y kind of bands, Press To Meco and Lost Alone and Arcane Roots and stuff like that.
“We were oh, this is where it’s at. Let’s take the angular riffs, but keep the big anthems that we kind of grew up with.”
Another notable element of the emerging band’s style is their vocal duties, which don’t fall to any one member of the band, with all taking ownership at different points in the set.
The band explained this was less so much an intentional move, but more an organic one. “It started off with just me singing. Then it was like, oh Thomas will do harmonies, and then Chrissie was like, oh I can do harmonies.” They did hark back to their Take That comment, calling themselves “A riffy boy band or something?”
Being in a band can be a tricky dynamic at the best of times, but this collective has the additional layer that two of the members are twin brothers. Sharing how their family relationship affects the band dynamic, they said, “We definitely do not hold back. It’s like I can really go down to the point and tell him where he’s gone wrong. I’m not afraid to tell him what’s what.”
This is a level of honesty that greatly benefits their creative process. “We just don’t hold back these days. We’ve been a band since 2011, since we were 15 years old, so we can basically tell each other when this is a bad song, try again. And I’ll be like, ugh, I feel bad, for like 10 seconds and he’ll be like, okay, all right, fair enough.”
Each and every year, this exciting project appears to be gaining more and more momentum, and as we know, 2000trees can truly thrust a band into awareness.
I am certain we will be seeing plenty more of the Blank Atlas lads, or at the very least back here next year for 2000trees 2026.
2000trees Festival is being held from 9–12 July 2025 at Upcote Farm, near Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. You can read all of MetalTalk’s 2025 coverage here.
