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Recoil VOR's Wade McKay talks to LMA ahead of their show this Saturday night!

9/12/2013

Recoil VOR are making their way to Adelaide to play at The Cavern THIS Saturday on their 5 city national tour in support of their latest album 'Sleep For The Masses'.

We were very fortunate to grab a few minutes with lead singer Wade McKay to talk about the show, the album, touring with big guns like Static X, and the Adelaide scene...

Recoil VOR did a US run not too long ago, playing with bands like Static X and Otep… how was your music received over in America?

Really well! We played a lot of club scenes and stuff like that off the back of our first album 'The Will To Sin', and had really positive responses!

How does it feel to come from touring with such musical heavyweights and put what you’ve learned and experienced into your shows here?

We picked up tips from those guys on professionalism, how they run the show and what sort of sound to go for and all that sort of stuff, but its mainly us putting pressure on ourselves to try and put on the best performance that we can and hope that comes off well.

As you said you toured on your first album, but this time you’ll be touring on your newbie ‘Sleep For The Masses’… in what ways would you say your music has grown from one album to the next?

Basically if you hear it, it's an extension from the first one, like still heavy riffs but at the same time we just diversified it, did what ever came naturally. It wasn’t like “oh we have to do this” or “we have to be this way”, it was just like “if it comes out and we all like it then we’ll work with that” and that’s the way we sort of carried it.

When it comes to writing lyrics does everyone contribute?

I pretty much write them all. We all have an impact on the music writing side and putting it all together, but when it comes to lyrics I sometimes have a little bit of input but do most of it.

The latest album seems pretty journey based for band experiences, but are there any individual stories caught in them?

My lyrics reflect the way we were all feeling and what we were going through as a band at the time – it was a journey for us because I reflected on that purely as a band, not as an individual as such, even though there are parts in there written as individuals, it's mainly written about us as a whole.

Looking forward to seeing you at The Cavern on Saturday night – but for those of us that haven’t seen you perform live, what can we expect?

Just a lot of energy and diversity, and it will be very very loud and in your face. It's gonna get you to stand up and listen even if you're not a fan of what we do or what ever, you're definitely gonna know who we are after it.

When you play in Adelaide, how do you find the scene here in Adelaide to be compared to the rest of Australia?

It's been a year or two since we have been there, and we find that every time we are there the venues change, the promoters change, the scene in general changes and it seems to be on a yearly or two yearly cycle so I am excited about what we will get when we get down there this time.

When we first came down there everyone was awesome so we’re hoping for the same thing!

Sleep For The Masses is available now from the bands Webstore / iTunes /Google Play / Big Cartel

Recoil VOR play at The Cavern this Saturday (14th) with Deprivation, Alkira, New Paradigm, Voros and A Modern Death. Entry is just $15 and it's all ages until midnight.

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Nancy Vandal Frontman Fox Trotsky stops by for a chat about Soundwave Festival and the Australian Music Scene

9/5/2013

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In 1993, The Supreme Council of elders on Planet Sex sent a special envoy to Earth with instructions to destroy mankind using the power of rock and roll. At least, that’s what Sydney’s Nancy Vandal would have you believe! The band have been kicking around on and off for 20 years, and with a brand new album to show off, they’re about to hit the road, hopping along for the ride on Soundwave Festival 2014. Live Music Adelaide had a chat to frontman Fox Trotsky about their big come-back and how he’s seen punk music evolve in Australia over the course of his career.

According to Nancy Vandal’s website, the millennium bug destroyed the band’s mojo, how’d you get it back to make ‘Flogging A Dead Phoenix’?

Well it took a while, as you may realise, looking at that timeline on our website, for several years there’s no recorded information there. It took the best part of eight years before we did a tour with Frenzal Rhomb which kinda helped assemble it and then another five years there before complete reengagement.

Did you decide to record a new album now because this year is the 20th anniversary of the band, or is that just a coincidence?

That was definitely the starting point, it was looming and we felt we should do something, and kinda said well ‘if we’re going to do something, let’s not do it half-arsed’. So we decided to do a new album and then we organised our own little tour and then through some weird stroke of fate we got on Soundwave Festival. It’s kind of, started off small to middle sized, and then it kind of got big.

Did you have a plan to do a full national tour before being included on the Soundwave line up?

We just booked our East Coast tour, so that was all organised. We didn’t think we could financially make it to Perth and Adelaide, so that’s one of the awesome things about doing Soundwave, is we now can.

Besides not having to play at 8am, how do you think Soundwave Festival will be different to when you played Warped in 1999?

[Laughs] There might be some similarities there! We don’t know what time we’re playing at this stage!

I don’t think it starts until around 11am, so you should be alright.

Oh really? Ok so we can have a bit more wake up time. That was pretty early and pretty raw. Having said that, now with our years of experience playing, we really don’t mind playing so early in the day, especially at a festival like Soundwave where there are lots of bands we want to see. So we’ll get our set over and done with and have a few drinks and have a wander around. Sounds pretty good to me!

Soundwave tends to have a pretty young audience compared to the likes of Big Day Out. Do you think they’ll “get” the band, or just think ‘what the hell’s going on?’

Oh there’s a fair chance of the latter! I don’t know what we can do between now and then to ease them into it. Nancy Vandal is quite a hard band to explain to people who have never seen it before or heard of us. So I don’t know, I don’t know what the youngsters these days will make of it. Hopefully they’ll see we’re there for a good time.

Have you had a lot of excitement surrounding the announcement that you’ll be playing Soundwave, maybe from fans who thought they’d never see you on such a large stage again?

Yeah the reaction’s been really awesome! All the fans of the band are really stoked, so are our friends, so it’s been more than we’ve expected. The reaction’s been cool, we feel like sort of a little underdog that’s unexpectedly kicked a goal in soccer or something and everyone’s patting him on the back saying ‘well done, little feller!’

I know you’ve only played a handful of shows in the past few years but is there anything that really stands out to you as a highlight of your music career?

Back in the 90s seems like a life-time ago. The tour we did recently with Frenzal Rhomb was pretty great, we all sort of probably thought that was the full stop. It was just a great time, and we got to go to Adelaide too. I also think back fondly on playing in the very early days which was playing to 50 people in pretty small pubs back when you were excited just to be playing, so I have fond memories of that.

Do you still get that kind of excitement playing to the bigger crowds now?

I think we will this time because, well when you’re doing it all the time you get sort of relaxed, but we are super psyched for this upcoming stuff because we haven’t done it for a while.

Do you’ll change up your stage show for the upcoming run? Back in the 90s it was pretty crazy.

Na, we only do it one way! It’s not like we have different gear or anything, it’ll be pretty similar I would guess, but we haven’t done it yet so, who knows? We have a set way of doing things, so we’ll probably do it that way.

Since the band started 20 years ago, what do you think has happened to punk music, especially in Australia? Is it better or worse than it was back then?

Um, that’s a good question, well it’s kind of gone back a bit I guess to, back in the 90s it had a bit of a fad element to it, I guess. It was kinda peaking in its popularity. But it’s still pretty good now, I mean the bands I loved back then are still around like Frenzal and The Hard Ons. I guess you’re kinda asking about the bands that came after, and I probably don’t know them as well as the older ones, but I mean, there’s still good punk bands kicking around.

There’s certainly less though, I think back then there was a sort of a “wave” of punk music in the 90s. It’s kinda going back to being sort of an underground thing. I know it’s more of a metal festival, but Soundwave is a testament to the fact that there’s still interest, even though there’s not a lot of Australian bands on that.

I know in Sydney there’s a bit of an issue with live venues closing down so that doesn’t help either. There are still bands out there, I’m always finding bands I’ve never heard of which is good.

Regarding live venues being closed down, what impact do you think that’s going to have on up and coming bands?

Well, it doesn’t help, does it? I guess there’s two sides to it. There’s the nostalgia slash cultural knock that you receive when an established venue goes up and it sort of has that built in history to it, but I mean, whenever that happens it opens the door for something to start somewhere else. But having said that, obviously you need the interest in the bands and the venues in order for them to succeed. I’m really not sure what the answer to it is.

Do you think your band would have had the same success if you were just starting out now as opposed to in the 90s?

I do know that I envy bands starting out today with all the stuff, the internet related stuff that they have at their disposal. We were always really fanatical self-promoters, like we’d do mail outs and fanzines, and always sending out tapes and stuff, and we were really active, and now I see all the stuff you have at your disposal and I think ‘wow, that would have been really useful!’ But I guess since everyone has access to that stuff now you have to be super good at it to gain any advantage. It’s hard to say, you’d think the kind of music we play, right now would be hard. But, it’s easier to reach a wide audience these days.

Do you have any expectations for the Soundwave tour or are you just going to jump in and see how it goes?

Not to embarrass ourselves! That’s the main aim we’re focusing on. It’s good we’re doing our own little tour before that, so we’re not just going in after however many years. Not really any expectations though, it’s not like we’re viewing it as catapult into the stadium rock world, we’re viewing it as a fun thing, but we’re also hoping we just play well and can hold our own.

Like you said it’s a more of a metal-focused festival, but are there any bands you’re interested in seeing?

Yeah, lots! A lot of us really like Rocket From The Crypt, so that’s who we’re most happy about. Also, Clutch, I kinda like the stoner end of the metal spectrum. There’s lots of bands I’ve never heard of so I’ll just go through the list the day before and check out all of those. There’s another kinda glam band, Crashdiet, I don’t know if they’re in the first announcement, or just heavily rumoured, but they look interesting, but I don’t know much about them, just the name and their photo. I’ll have to check them out.

What do you think about the ratio of Australian vs international bands on Australian festivals?

I think they’ve just got a model that they use, it obviously works for them. I guess having more international bands creates more intrigue and exclusivity. As an advocate for Australian music I’d like to see more Australian bands in festivals, but I can kinda see where they’re coming from.

Maybe they should do something like the radio stations do, have a certain percentage of music that has to be Australian.

Oh like a quota, yeah that could work. There are festivals that have exclusively, or mostly Australian line-ups. I guess what we need is a punk or metal festival that’s ‘Australia only’, I know there’s a couple kicking around, so hopefully one of those will leap up.

What I say to punters is go out and see as many Australian bands as you can and support them, and that will lead to more of that stuff happening.

Do you have any plans for the band beyond Soundwave Festival?

Not really. It’s already kinda become bigger than we thought. Nothing we’re doing immediately after that, it might be the last thing we do for a while, or ever! We’ll just see how we go as we head into uncharted territory.

Interview by Sofie Marsden

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Recoil VOR's Wade McKay talks to LMA ahead of their show this Saturday night!

Nancy Vandal Frontman Fox Trotsky stops by for a chat about Soundwave Festival and the Australian Music Scene

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