Interview with Black Rose Moves (December 2025)

There are bands you discover, and bands you enter. From the iron-grey depths of Birmingham’s industrial sprawl emerges a sound that feels less born than summoned. Black Rose Moves arrived with the weight of a ritual awakening—guitars striking like collapsing steel, melodies coiling like smoke around a midnight flame.

At the centre of this gathering force stands vocalist Grant Leon, commanding and otherworldly, while guitarist Mark Neat shapes vast, serrated soundscapes that rise and fall like black monoliths shifting in the dark.

Their eruption began with Summer Of Sorrow in June 2024, a first stir in the darkness that set the tone for what would follow. Ghost Town arrived two months later, its signal echoing further outward. When their debut EP Death Dance followed in June 2025, the four-track descent spread fast across the UK, the US, Australia, and Europe, its limited copies vanishing as curiosity turned into momentum.

By mid-2025, the ritual stepped from studio twilight into the live arena. Support slots with Gene Loves Jezebel, Clan of Xymox, and UK Decay confirmed what audiences already sensed: Black Rose Moves were not simply emerging—they were ascending.

With their latest release, the 2025 single Club Of Sin, the duo descend further—into desire, devotion, and the perilous beauty that flickers between them. The track offers a glimpse into their 2026 EP, promising deeper shadows, sharper contours, and a fusion of ritualistic energy with unmistakable gothic force.

Now as the lights dim, the shadows gather, the first step that is ours to take is to sit down with Grant Leon for a deeper look into Black Rose Moves.

Q: Grant, as the world dims and the darker hours claim their space, allow me on behalf of Peek-A-Boo to thank you for stepping into this nocturnal encounter with us.

In the dead of night, you tell me that you don’t love me—as you sing in Summer Of Sorrow. Now tell us, in that death of night, how did Black Rose Moves ascend from the shadows?

Grant: Really, Black Rose Moves began in a rough patch I was moving through and an afternoon at the Cruel World Festival in California. I’d felt a bit lost without music—like a part of me had gone quiet for too long. I was there with a longtime friend, the kind who remembers who you were before the armour. During one of the sets he said, “You should be up there again. This is where you belong.” It hit harder than I expected and shook something awake. 

On the flight home, I reached out to Mark—someone I’d played with before and always trusted creatively. I told him I felt this pull to make something dark, heavy, and deep again… Something raw, dramatic, unapologetic. Between that friend reminding me who I was and reconnecting with Mark, the project rose out of that spell. Out of the quiet. Out of the need to let the darkness breathe and take form...