Video: "Rock is not dead but it doesn't pay a lot for us.. yet", says one of Glasgow's loudest bands

That's the view of Craig McKenzie, the bearded front man of the young Glasgow-three piece Megalomatic, one of the most powerful noggin-crushin progressive metal combos gigging in Scotland.

You don’t find many modern Scottish bands singing about fairy tales or fantasy,” he says. “It’s always about real life issues.”

But with the charts full of electronic dance music (EDM), what room is there for a full-throttle rock combo?

"I don’t believe for a second that rock is on the slide, especially not in quality. The heavy music being released from all over the country, all over the planet, is a testament to that fact.

"A lot of people like to claim that music is a dying art form and that unsigned bands don’t stand a chance, and rock music is on a downslide. I believe that many things over the years have kind of deteriorated when it comes to music, but so many more things have stayed the same or improved.

"While the mainstream seems plasticy and fake at the best of time, you still have bands of best friends jumping in a van for weeks on end playing songs they wrote in their bedroom, and as cliched as that sounds I love that sort of stuff!

"With that attitude still thriving and the dawning of social media, it’s never been easier for unsigned bands to make themselves a platform and to shout from the top of it, 'Hey, listen to what we can do'.

"I used to believe it would be impossible to make any sort of living from playing the sort of music we play, but then you have bands like Marmozets and Black Peaks completely dominating rock radio shows all over the country with every new release.

"As much as the mainstream pop charts are dominated by EDM and the like, there are so many likeminded people championing up and coming heavy music in front of a large audience, and it is making it easier for bands like ourselves to get recognised."

These are men that have to have interests outside of music, however.

Bass player Ben Reffin has worked in a kitchen and on a building site as well as the occasional live sound engineering job, drummer Jamie Barnes is a council maintenance guy while Craig is still on the hunt for a job since leaving college.

"I think we all like to see it as a career pursuit," said Craig. "It isn’t what we use to make a living yet, but that is definitely a long term goal for us as a band, as it most likely is with every band.

"Mostly those jobs are just there to keep us on our feet to be able to keep making music because it is genuinely what we love doing, and what we want to pursue in the long term.

"Music definitely pays...it doesn’t pay a lot, but it pays just about enough to get to the next show most of the time."

He said the most guaranteed money is from gigs.

"If you’re working with the right promoters and the right bands, you’ll be at the very least covered for your costs, and most of the time that is all we need to keep ourselves going on a tour.

"Merchandise and music sales are more like nice little bonuses that aren’t guaranteed. We’ve played shows and sold no merch, and we’ve barely made £20 from some releases we’ve done in the past so to try [and rely] on the income of your entire musical career on sales, at this very early stage especially, just wouldn’t work."

Their cracking new Symbolism EP, which is launched on Friday with a gig at Glasgow's Stereo reveals a brand new take on the soft-loud-soft rock axis but it opens with a full throttle explosion.

A Yellow Car, A Golden Chariot is a ferocious, riff-tastic tour-de-force and probably, no, is the best three or four minutes they have produced in their short career and the closest on the EP to last year's gloriously abrasive single Stan Darsh. A tune that frustratingly stops just when you think they will take you to some guitar solo nirvana. That is, perhaps, part of its appeal.

It's a leap forward from their debut album Hunt For The Midnight Sasquatch.

Anyone expecting a ballad here, can forget it, the Glasgow trio may tease as if heading that way, but there is always a riot of huge riffs and growling, confrontational vocals round the corner that are made for the mosh pit.

And while the second track Trider, has some tender moments of actual singing, it only serves to expose the savagery of the vox and a huge guitar solo that blows the mind.

Similarly Cesspit begins as if the band had gone all soft. Surely not a ballad. Big riffs soon explode only to fade to a more reflective ending.

This EP at its best is sublimely primal stuff, but make no mistake there is also a beating melodic heart to their Biffy Clyro-on-roids sound pitched somewhere between the brutality of groove metallers Lamb of God and their heroes progressive stoner rockers Mastadon.

But make no mistake the uncompromising but melodic riff monsters like A Yellow Car are where they seem most at home, where they are at their most inspired, and a furrow they should continue to exploit.

Formed in 2013, by McKenzie, Barnes and Reffin were formed from the ruins of another.

"I was in a band at the time that wasn’t really going anywhere, and I had always told myself to give it one year and if there was signs of progress I would stick at it. When it got towards the end of that year I realised that it still wasn’t working out so with an old friend I started writing these classic rock songs.

"That is the project that slowly morphed into the band, Megalomatic."

In their four years they estimate they have played around 100 gigs and one of their most bizarre experiences would be the first time they played in Inverness.

"The venue was this really really tiny bar up the top of a very narrow flight of stairs," recalled Craig. "We set up pretty late in the evening so it was already quite busy, and we sound checked and got ready to play.

"There were these two older gentleman at the back of the bar playing chess...from the moment we arrived, while we set up, while we were playing (very very very loudly), while we were loading out our gear and they were still playing while we left.

"We’ll never find out who won that game."

His favourite moment was a triumph over adversity when playing a headlining show at King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut's New Year’s Revolution festival earlier this year.

"I had been anxious about the show for months, wondering if people were even going to bother turning up.

"It didn’t help that on the day we were getting all the usual messages and phone calls saying, 'oh I really wish I could make it, but I can’t do tonight I’m afraid'.

"So under the impression the place was going to be totally empty I had worked myself ill from stress.

"Walking onstage that night to a packed out King Tut’s has definitely been my favourite moment from being in this band so far.

"The crowd reaction to our single Stan Darsh as well had me almost inconsolably emotional less than half way through our set."

So how about the current musical climate?

"There is the issue now that anyone and everyone can and will put music out online, and there will be massive competition," he said. "This can be a negative thing as some amazing bands will inevitably get lost in a whirlwind of social media interactions and shared Bandcamp pages, but I like to think people are wiser to raw talent these days than they ever have been. That can only be a good thing."

And there are plans for a second album which they are working towards "slowly but surely".

"We’ve been rehearsing the set for our upcoming tour pretty solidly since we recorded the EP, Symbolism, but we’re starting to churn out new ideas every time we’re in a room with our instruments," said Craig.

"As to when that will be unleashed we have no idea whatsoever. We aren’t even certain if that will be the next release we do, or much much further down the line.

"I am very much a person that likes to sit down and listen to an album front to back, as opposed to a playlist on shuffle or whatever. So a proper full length album is a massive goal to try and achieve for me personally and for the band as well."

The Symbolism EP is set for release on Friday via Milky Bomb Records.