Dragonforce are no strangers to Australia and once again they are heading over for the biggest festival on the heavy music calendar, Soundwave. I had the pleasure to talk to vocalist Marc Hudson about the tour, their latest album “Maximum Overload” and what it was like to go from relative obscurity to one of the most respected vocalists of the power metal genre.

In 2011 Marc went from to singing in unsigned bands to fronting one of the most exciting bands to come out of the U.K. in years, his first show was supporting Iron Maiden so his initiation to the band was not for the faint of heart. So how did he handle this trial by fire, his response was “It was actually a lot of pressure, I think at the beginning I found it kind of tough but yeah at the same time it was so cool because obviously joining the band from pretty much never playing in front of a decent size crowd before to suddenly they had me playing in front of I think it was about 40,000 at the O2 arena in London. But yeah it was really cool, I mean as you can imagine it wasn’t exactly easy. Now days after being in a band for some time it’s become a lot easier but the beginning was really quite hairy “

Dragonforce released their sixth studio album “Maximum Overload” in August last year and for the first time in their career the band chose to enlist the services of a producer. Marc reflected on what it was like to hand over some of the control to an external influence, that being Jens Bogren (who has previously worked with Opeth, Katatonia, Devin Townsend and Paradise Lost). “The recording process was quite different, we all took it in turns to fly out to Sweden to go to his studio. Yeah it was interesting because he has worked with a lot of different bands, and his influences are kind of different to say Sam’s for example, but he kind of saw some things in our music that he kind of wanted to extenuate and bring out. So I think the influence he had on the band some of the songs ended up kind of heavier and thrashier sounding, which I thought was really cool. And then at the same time he has a really good ear for catchy melodies and stuff. It was good to have some fresh eyes looking at it and giving different opinions and I think the end result is actually really good. I think the overall mix, the way it was produced as well as some of the influences you can hear from him, overall has resulted in a what I think is a pretty diverse and good album.”

The vocalist formerly known as “Mr. Scream” by previous band mates commented on how well the album has been received both by the fans and the media alike. “Really well actually, because this is the 2nd album that I have been on with the “Power Within” before that, but that for me this was the one that the fans were going to judge me on being the first performance. I really think that this one has been a huge step up from that, not to say that the album was bad or anything, but I think this has been quite an evolution from that we have taken all the good stuff and kind of improved on it. So I think that the fans have appreciated that, as all the comments we’ve read and everything have been along those lines. And the album itself has done really well in different territories and we have been in the top 20 album charts in Germany now, which is pretty unusual for a power metal album because it is normally dominated by pop and stuff.  So yeah it’s definitely done well and hopefully the success will continue.”

As well as the Soundwave shows Dragonforce will be undertaking some sidewaves with the giants of British heavy metal Judas Priest. In almost what could be seen as a handing of the baton between one legendary band and the new champions on the scene. The singer was very humble when speaking about the shows “Yeah I haven’t actually been thinking about it too much because it’s one of those things when I first started singing and everything, I was always thinking it would be so cool to be playing with Iron Maiden or Judas Priest and those kind of bands, and now obviously this just came up, it’s quite a big thing, but the band have actually toured with Halford before and they know each other which will be cool as I think they area already kind of friends and everything. But I definitely think it’s going to be… I think it’s going to be a good night for everyone, bands and fans included and everything. Yeah two kind of British metal bands that kind of share influences with, we obviously think about Judas Priest, but were more power metal, so I think the fans will be pretty happy with the spread they have in front of them that night so it should be pretty cool.”

For those unfortunate enough to never have witnesses the adrenalin charged stage performance that is a Dragonforce show Marc described what to expect. “Our performance on stage I think is an energetic one, especially now after we’ve been touring for a little while and we are really well rehearsed and everything. We are going to be playing songs that are going to satisfy all Dragonforce fans, the kind of guys that have there from the beginning listening to Valley of the dammed all the way up to the new fans that have kind of just joined and just started listening to the last couple of albums. But we are really playing a good spread across from the very early to recent, so it should be a diverse set list with hopefully a couple of surprises, but also playing the songs that people are expecting to hear so that’s more important as we don’t come to Australia too often so that will be the case I think. So yeah, a high energy technical performance I think.”


Interview by Mike Trandafil

Godflesh’s first trip to Australia will be for the biggest heavy music festival of the calendar, Soundwave. They will be playing alongside some of the bands that helped them shape the genre. His reaction to this reunion on the other side of the world was “Yes it’s incredible, it’s absolutely incredible. I mean these are people I have toured with, people I have known for years as well and on the flip side it’s great to see Mayhem as well, great black metal. The vocalist from Mayhem, Attila has been a very close friend of mine for a number of years as well you know. It’s going to be quite a big family of us.”

To my question on whether he had been given any insight of what to expect when they hit the stage in Australia, his response way “I’ve only spoken to people who have worked tech over there or have been over there as visitors but a lot of people have just said that it is an amazing experience. What I hear is really positive things, so we’re really excited, were just as excited to play some sideshows you know.”

The Godflesh singer/guitarist’s parting messages to their Australian fans was “I just couldn’t be more excited to play to people who have been either waiting years to see us or even people who have come to it in the last couple of years, last year, last month who just want to see this band. It will be an absolute pleasure to play to an Australian audience and I just hope people lose their shit to us.”

Interview by Mike Trandafil
 

There is 8 days to go before The Color Morale set off on tour in the UK and Europe, and front man Garret Rapp is taking the time to talk to LMA about the excitement of being invited to play Soundwave Festival in 2015, the reinforcement of hope,  what keeps him going and what The Color Morale are about as a band…

Congratulations on being part of the Soundwave tour next year. How excited were you when you heard the news?

Yeah, very excited. Australia is probably our favourite place that we’ve been to as a band, and to be able to come back over with one of the biggest and most respected festivals in music is a pretty cool opportunity.

'Hold On Pain Ends' has been out here for about a month and has already hit no 28 in the US Top 200. How has the fan feed back been?

It’s been great. We’ve grown quite a bit as a band since the last release. I’ve already seen dozens and dozens of tattoos and heard tonnes of stories and connections of how the lyrical content has touched people. Its been very successful already. A lot of people view success on a pay scale, a record sales quota, but for me I measure success in a different way with our band. The level of connection tells me at this point that it’s been very very successful.

How much do your fans stories and experiences impact the writing of your songs?

Completely. 'Know Hope' was a record that I get very personal about. It came from a very urgent detrimental time of my life and I made it a goal through that entire record cycle to be at the merch table, to keep my ear to the ground at all times and really listen and observe what kids are going through and struggling with. In doing so, it kind of laid the foundation in what I chose to write Hold On Pain Ends about. It was a record that deals with very harsh topics. Anything from suicide to eating disorders to self-harm. Very straightforward, very urgent subject matter.

Its amazing that you can reach out to people the way you do. Would you say that was the driving force as a band?

Absolutely. That’s been the purpose of our band since day one. The purpose of what we do our entire career as a band. When I was a kid I never had anyone giving me positive feedback in life, so for me, this is something I’ve created that I need personally you know. A lot of kids will look up to you as a band, a singer, a front man and ironically at the same time, I look up to them as they look up to me. I think I need them a lot more than they need me.

I found it touching and relatable how Know Hope came about and also know how hard it is in my mind to flip negativity to positivity. Is it something you have to keep reminding yourself as well, or do you think the message has sunk in as deep with you as it has your audience?

I think so. I think it’s a reminder every day. It’s a topic of conversation I have with kids. I wrote a lyric that says you can stay in a positive life with a negative mind. They are both energy and it shouldn’t matter which one you choose to subscribe to. Some people call it god and the devil, some people call it sobriety or addiction. For me, I apply myself every day with a negative outlook, to get something positive from it.

You like to have a lot of fun on stage also. What are some of the highlights people can expect to see coming to your show at Soundwave?

If you haven’t seen a band that doesn’t plan anything, I don’t have a dialogue that I read out, or a prompter. Our band doesn’t synchronise anything, its just kind of a very raw authentic musical connection. The things I say between songs are how I feel in the moment. Its just about bringing how we feel in the moment. For me, I can't not operate that way.

How would you introduce yourself to fans that haven’t heard the color morale before?

Whatever it is you’re struggling with or going through or whatever it is you want to celebrate, put on our record and I promise you that on a scale of what we go through daily, positively or negatively, we explore the boundaries of that with our music. By all means, put us in your stereo and go stand in front of the speakers and blast it!

In 2010 Mr and Mrs. Goodman first kissed their son Jimmy The Robot goodbye as he and his Super-Friends The Aquabats set off on their first adventure Downunder to play Soundwave Festival.

After falling in love with our country (and our Moreton Bay Bugs), Jimmy and his super friends are coming back our way for Soundwave 2014.

We spoke to him about touring, TV, detachable robot parts, stage antics and of course, Soundwave Festival. See for yourself why we cant wait for The Aquabats to take the stage next year…


How excited are you to be coming back to Australia again and under the soundwave banner like 2010?

I’m very excited. I had a fantastic time last time and am super stoked to be coming back especially the fact that it’s our winter here and your summer there.

What kind of feedback did you get from us aussies after your first visit here?

It was all very positive. We were really excited. As well as playing the regular festival dates, the sidewave shows and pub dates we played with reel big fish went really well and we saw plenty of followers that picked up on us after we played there, and the tv show aired in Australia, we have done really well and hope to expand on it when we come again.

How did the Aquabats get steered towards television?

We tried and tried for years and finally someone said lets make it. It was always a kind of goal for us. We are a very visual band and made lots of videos. Not just music videos, sometimes just shorts of us messing around, goofing off trying to entertain everybody. It was always something we wanted to do and we tried a couple times making different pilots and finally we found someone that said “ok, lets make a whole season”, so yeah, someone finally believed in us.

Do you think your television efforts has boosted the bands popularity here in Australia?

I think it helps. They are shows that kids will easily gravitate to but also that parents who sit with their kids can also enjoy. We try to put material in there that the adults get, so its not just kids frivolous action. We are having a laugh as well so it’s not just candy but also some substance. Hopefully all the generations can be into it.

 You guys seem to have a great time on stage. What would you say are your favourite things about playing live?

Playing live, you get that instant reaction from the crowd. If you do something and they like it, they let you know immediately, and also for something they don’t like. We love filming shows, but playing live is something we definitely look forward to doing. With the tv show, you don’t get any feedback for months sometimes so its definitely a cool thing about playing live. Something we love about playing live.

Have you ever thought about filming your shows in front of a live audience?

The way the show is set up, it would be a little tricky. I mean we always have people around but everything has been on location except for a handful of video shots in front of a green screen or something like that. The majority of the time we are off and running you know, which would be hard to keep an audience up with. In fact, for a pilot we did do a segment of a show from a live concert where we interacted with the crowd and had them there and we kind of like ok, well throw it to this video segment which would have the narrative that would go in between live performances and what not. That didn’t wind up in the show for the regular season but that was an experiment that we really enjoyed.

Patent Pending are another one of the bands in the first wave of Soundwave announcements, and this has them happier than am 80’s kid with a new Super Nintendo! The pop-punk 5 piece from Long Island, New York have been across the water before, but not yet to Australia. They’ve been busy getting their name out there in England, touring with some amazing bands and recording crowd funded albums!

I spoke to lead singer Joe Ragosta about all of this and lots more… Check it out!

(By the way, if what we crammed into 15 minutes is any indication of what they will be like on stage, these guys are definitely on my MUST-SEE list! The energy coming down the phone line was inspiring!)

MD- Given that you are the second band announced for soundwave, how’s the band feeling about finally coming to Australia and under the soundwave banner no less?

JR - First of all, just going anywhere aside from our hometown is exciting for us. But to go to Australia, that is the thing that you dream of, you make yourself believe at a young age that it would be impossible. You know, your band could never be in a position where they could go to Australia like to Americans it sounds like a made up place somewhere you know. It’s so so so exciting and an immense honour being on Soundwave festival - world renowned at this point - and to be the second band announced… The whole thing seems fake to me. Do you guys have the show Punked down there?

MD - Yes

JR - It feels like we are being punked and it feels like at any point during this interview you will be like oh, we are fucking with you, you’re not really welcome down here.

MD - Why has it taken so long for Patent Pending to reach our shores?

JR - We started the band when we were little kids and it took a long time to establish a name here in America. We were lucky enough to be bought over to England with our buddies from Bowling for soup and then we spent 2 years developing our career there and now that’s going unbelievably well and I think it led to AJ from soundwave hooking up with our guitar player mark and getting to know each other and AJ inviting us down. It’s a really bizarre thing to even get to go Australia. You never think its something within your reach so I think it took a long time coz we never even thought it was possible.

MD - How do you feel about being compared to bands like A Simple Plan and Blink 182?

JR - I think its incredible that anyone is able to pinpoint a band that we sound like. We are such a bizarre band with so many different genres mixed into what we do. I grew up idolising blink 182. They are incredible. Simple plan, I watched for an entire summer on tour so to be compared to them I think is awesome and its exciting to be going down there to show people how we differ from those bands.

MD - You cover quite serious issues in some of your songs like suicide as well as a lot of funny stuff. Are they written based on personal experiences and observations?

JR - We have a song called All Star Hipster, that’s a full blown rap song. I thought, ‘what’s the funniest way to make fun of every hipster I know? Rap about them! Then you have a song like one less heart to break which deals with the heavy issue of suicide and that’s a personal experience that happened over here. People in my family have suffered from depression for many years and friends of ours have gone through it - we have gone through it. We wanted people to know that you have a place to go in music and have a place where you can go and just have fun. By having such diverse subject matter we’re kind of taking our own advice and that’s just to be ourselves and do whatever the fuck we want to do. Its also good to know that we can help people going through trouble as well as have a Mario brothers song.

MD - Crowd funding campaigns… I found out Brighter was actually done through a crowd funding campaign. What made you push that way?

JR - With our band, we have something that we call the second family (which is actually the name of our last album before Brighter) and it’s a very unbelievably supportive and friendly community that our band has developed in the 13 years of struggling to make a name for ourselves. When people heard we were going to make a new album, it wasn’t even ‘Oh we should consider crowd funding’ or anything like that, our fans were like ‘Yo, when the fuck can we crowd fund this shit?” They were coming to us saying what can we do to get some cool items that are going to be different than just the album. They wanted to get involved in the album. They wanted to put their opinions in our artwork and everything as well as help support us during that project so crowd funding was kind of lead to us, but by the crowd in a way.

MD - Did it apply more pressure to the band to get the album out as quick as possible, make sure it is a really good album, or did you just go with the flow and do the best you could?

JR - We always have the mentality of get it done as fast as we can and don’t take a lot of time but if always takes forever, we never get it done quickly and in the end, we care so much about what we are doing. We went down to Nashville Tennessee to record and I allotted 3 weeks for the recording of that album but it ended up taking 8 months. So the pressure to get it done quickly was really really present at about the 4-month mark (laughs). I’m glad we did what we did and took the time that we did and I love that album.

MD - It’s a really good album! I also saw the crazy dance you did partway through the song to pick on Justin Bieber. I was cracking up through that. Is it all serious business in the studio or do you have as much fun there as you do on stage?

JR - The hours that we work and the hustle we put in to what we do, if we didn’t fuck around while it was happening, we would lose our damn minds. So there will be moments when we are like ‘no one is sleeping for the next 48 hours!’ and we find a way to laugh about that, so its all-serious business, but a lot of what we do is fun. We write songs about Mario brothers sometimes so its not the worst thing in the world when we are stuck in the studio working on something because we are making Nintendo noises while we do it…

MD - So delirium kicks in and takes over?

JR - Oh yeah. By the 3-month mark we were delirious, by the 7-month mark, I don’t even know if we were still speaking English. Its like we made up our own language of push the button, record the song type of thing.