Considering they are up there as one of the Worlds most hated bands, the boys from Nickelback are pretty damn happy, and so they should be!!

In less than two weeks, they kick off their 98 date “NO FIXED ADDRESS” tour across America, Australia and Europe, stopping by Adelaide on the 18th of May. Bassist Mike Kroeger took time away from chilling in Hawaii to have a chat about the tour, our wine, One Direction, the album, little brother and front man Chad, and of course… The haters… 


Hey Mike, how are you today?

I'm very well, but id rather be in Adelaide.

Haha, that’s what they all say!

Yeah well, it's pretty cool, we've had some pretty nice times in Adelaide so we really like it!

It’s a pretty easy going small town in comparison to some of the other cities you would have gone to. Where abouts are you now?

Yeah for sure. I'm in Hawaii right now so I shouldn’t say I'd rather be in Adelaide. I'd rather be in Hawaii to be honest. But, to tell you the truth, I would love to be in Adelaide. I'd love to be in the Barossa valley if we're going to be specific. Haha

Ok, so you love us for our wine, not our weather...?

I love you for both. There is like one winery on the island I live on and the wine is terrible.

You could probably order online?

I think I’ll just hold off until I come over to your neck of the woods and do McLaren Vale, then over to Margaret River and send a shipment home. We do that occasionally. We've been through Penfolds and a lot of the other establishments over there and we usually go on a wine shopping spree in Australia.

On the edge of the city we have the National Wine Centre, you can go there and sample wines from all over Australia, not just Adelaide.

Coooool!! That wasn’t there when we were last there.

You cant miss it, it looks like Noah's Arc.

Ohhhh, great, I'll be checking that out for sure!

No Fixed Address has been out in Australia for a couple of months now and it actually peaked at number 2 on the weekly charts, what kind of feedback have you personally been getting from the album?

It's been looking pretty good you know. It's hard to tell now coz at one time sales were really the barometer of how your record is doing, but now, globally people just aren’t paying for music at all. Theyre just not, so sales are not really an effective measuring stick for how youre selling anymore so you kind of have to rely more on what people are saying or the sort of sentiment out there and so far the sentiment has been really good.

That’s what I like to hear. Not that I was expecting you to say bad. Haha

Yeah, I cant say it's shit. That wouldn’t be a verty good interview. Haha

I know that with No Fixed Address you guys have really stayed with that classic Nickelback sound that  is prominent on the other 7 albums.  Does every member of the band take part in the creation of the songs, or does it tend to get dominated by one person in particular?

Well, a lot, if not all the songs are originally done by Chad and some of them are in different stages of completion, so if there's any creativity left to do, hahaha, you know... He's getting better and faster at this all the time but if there is anything that comes in that isn’t completed, which happens I would say the majority of the time, we get involved and we collaborate. Then we get to co-write and be part of the creative process and quality control process. There are other times when things come in “written” where someone other than Chad might go "Wow, that’s good but maybe we can do this" and you go through levels of improvement also. We all work on that level, but Chad is primary songwriter definitely, and a real creative force for sure.

I have to know personally, is he really OCD ridden? Hahaha

I wouldn’t necessarily say obsessive compulsive, but well... Maybe... Shit, I don’t know, but he's really distilled and refined his song writing style and it continues to distill and refine more and more.  It changes scenery sometimes, but it always comes back to his skill set. He knows what he does best and we try to keep it in his warehouse so to speak. You know, he can sell. We tried some new styles on this record and some new ways and it was a little more challenging for him to explore other sorts of sounds and ways of getting the music out.

One Directions new album stopped No Fixed Address from debuting at number one on the Canadian charts and it broke your streak. How badly did that piss you off?

Not at all! After having a few rocks thrown at you, you start to realise that it's really easy to hate something because it's popular, but frankly, sadly, One Direction for some people... I mean for me it's great because they're kids who are making music, but they are the biggest thing in the world right now and we knew when we chose that day that their album was coming out the same day, and we new that #1 wasn't available because of it, hahaha. It didn’t really piss us off or upset us. I don’t think any of us had a rational thought that we were going to give them a run for their money. Theres just no way. The 1D movement is a very big and powerful strong thing and good on them! I don’t listen to their music but I love seeing people win and that’s one thing broadly that I think people just don’t like. It seems like people don’t like a winner these days and they're always trying to chop people down to size again when they win too much, but the 1D guys are killing it, the 5 Seconds Of Summer guys are killing it, so I think that’s awesome. I love to see people win.

It is fantastic, but for me personally, I tend to have a problem with manufactured music. I prefer real bands with real musicians that play real instruments and don’t need backing tracks in their live performances. I think the feel to live music seems to be dying. What do you think?

I can understand that way of looking at it. I won't go to the wall defending that kind of music, but I will say it isn’t the same thing. It's difficult to compare the kind of music you like and that manufactured music. I personally don’t consider them to be the same thing. You know what I mean? It's like comparing English football and American football. They're both called football but theres nothing similar about them. So, take it easy on the boys hahahaha

Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t rag on them! I give them credit for what they do, but I would rather spend money to see a real band.

I respect that opinion entirely. I get it, I know what youre saying.

It's because you want to know they're feeling what they are playing. You don’t get that with manufactured music.

I can understand what you mean. You as listener is the most important part. You gotta feel it. The stuff I listen to, the people I listen to will never be wealthy from playing music, ever!! It's because of the level of conviction of the music that the people that im a fan of play. The level of conviction makes it inaccessible to the masses because it seems like……. There's 2 kinds of people I think. There's music fans, and theres everybody else. Music fans in my opinion are less than 10% of the music “market”. They're the ones seeking new music and digging around for undiscovered tracks of bands, finding artists that nobody has ever heard of before, then everybody else is 'pop'. I don’t think there's anything wrong with it, just most people don’t have enough room in their life to make music a big part of it. For a lot of people music is something you have in the background, not something you feel with your heart. It’s a kind of realisation I've had over the last couple of years. I started to realise that I have a lot of friends that aren’t in bands (normal people), they're not in the music industry, they're just people, they go to their jobs every day, they go to the gym, they're normal and you know, I was talking to a lot of those people about what kinds of music they like and they were basically telling me they like everything the top 40 plays because they feel like that’s whats 'now' and 'in' and frankly, they don’t have the time in their life to vent that shit, like 'hmm, do I like this?' -  'do I like that?' They're just taking what's being offered to them in a very readily and accessible way and accepting it, and liking it. Say what you want about the top 40 but its pleasing to be here.

Nickelback have been around for 20 years, you're smashing it wherever you go. What are some of the goals that Nickelback are yet to achieve as a band?

Whoa, that’s a difficult question to answer! We've never really been goal oriented. We haven’t set milestones for ourselves to “achieve”. Its been more like, we got together and decided to write and record some songs, so we went to the studio and recorded songs, that’s good! 'It would be cool if we could play some shows around town' - so yes we got to play some shows around town! Then it was 'Wow, it would be cool to play music for a living... Hmm that’s interesting!' Then we went on tour! Wow touring’s cool, then it's 'Wow, wouldn’t it be cool to get noticed internationally' and so on. There are these different levels of things and not to say there aren’t things left to accomplish, but we've never really been about identifying them until we kind of did them. We never really thought theres a sale plateau we have to hit or something. There have been a few cool shows that we played but just getting to be able to play music for a living and travel around the world and do it for people who appreciate it is incredible. Im not trying to sidestep the question, it's just that we are gonna keep doing what we are doing and keep enjoying it and whatever sort of signposts come and go, well, so be it. That’s just icing on the cake I suppose.


What do you have to say to those people who think it's trendy to hate Nickelback?

I think it's trendy to hate anybody that’s winning. I don’t even know if we're winning, but when you look at all the people who are the 'popular to hate on' people, they're people who are actually kind of dominant in their field. I think you could easily connect the dots on that. I guess that’s the answer, that’s just what happens when you win. People hate that. People hate winners hahaha

I love your attitude!!

Ahh fuck it man, I don’t care. I've been doing this long enough, I've been on the planet long enough, I don’t really sweat the small shit anymore.

Thankyou for speaking to lma. We look forward to seeing you in may.

Well, you might see some purple smiles on the stage that night hahaha


Nickelback will play at Adelaide Entertainment Centre on Monday 18th of May. Tickets are on sale NOW through HERE

LMA - We are really excited about this guitar clinic and the opportunity to pick your brain, but how did it come about?

DT - I have no idea (laughs)…. I have been to Australia so many times now that I think my connections with folks there just keep growing. As to how it happened, I think there was a moment on one of the last tours that I did some guitar acoustic clinic and somebody who does this for lets say, real guitar players, took notice and invited me down. I certainly don’t take the opportunity lightly. I’ve got a bunch of things planned that I’m hoping will appeal to people who don’t play guitar too. It’s great.

LMA - Can you let us in on some of that?

DT - Well I think it depends on which direction each night goes specifically but I think that I’ll start with playing along with some stuff and getting into the guitar eccentric elements of the writing process. Ultimately I think that I’m in a pretty neat position as a musician where I have done so many records and I’ve done so many of them on a budget that I’ve managed to find ways around a lot of problems and I honestly look forward to being able to share that with people and also meet people. It’s a great way for me to get to Australia this year and hopefully be able to entertain folks.

LMA - It will be a different context compared to playing in front of a crowd as you’ll be sitting down and interacting a lot more than what you normally would. We like that idea, but how do you feel about it?

DT - Yeah. I like that. I am so socially inept for the most part that using my career as a springboard for some of my social anxieties is really cool. I mean, when you actually interact with people... On the new record I had people sing along and they ended up being made into a choir on the recording, or this pledge campaign that happened recently, or the lucky animals video where people did their own stuff, it allows me to sort of connect with people in ways that I think is important specifically with the internet and how disconnected you tend to get from people in general. It’s really nice to be face to face and have some actual human interaction you know.

LMA - I did see your lucky animals video and it was quite hilarious.

DT - My dad dance? (laughs)

LMA - Its kind of what it looked like actually.

DT - That was a couple years back. Since then it’s got even more tragic! (laughs).

LMA - What we love about Devin Townsend is the fact that you never know what you are going to get.

DT - Neither do I (laughs). That’s my defence mechanism. I’m like, if I can side swipe people every time, then their expectations are just so low that you’re always going to come up smiling right? People are like… wow, it’s a thing you know, congrats. I mean, the Casualties Of Cool record is one that I really liked! My records are always whatever they are supposed to be and they’re honest and I have a great deal of passion I feel I put into them, but Casualties (Of Cool) is a record that I enjoy listening to and enjoy playing everything. The whole concept of Zilltoid is a battle, and ultimately now that it has finished, like every record, I sit back and listen to it and try to have some kind of perspective on what the hell was going on and its like an internal thing. Its like a battle in myself on some level and carries a personification with it. Why is it so big? Why is it so over the top? Why is it son expensive? All these things I’m sure I will understand more by the time I get down to Australia, I mean I never know. It takes so long to put it into perspective because I’m oblivious to my own trip. You know, after a while you figure it out. Your like 'Oh, of course that’s what it was. Of course you’re fighting yourself, of course you need a tonne of people because of social anxiety or whatever'. It's obvious you know, but at the end of it I put a lot of effort into making my trip the focal point. I wanted it to be escapist in a way. You know, there’s so much dark shit in life, I spent so much of my time making music about “it's just me and this metaphor” and all this crap I mean I’m kinda like… even though that’s going to be the case, that’s just how I function. I put a lot of effort into Z2 trying to keep it so you didn’t have to play along with it, you can just listen to it and its fun. I think its super weird.

LMA - Do you find that you surprise yourself as you're doing your albums?

DT - I don’t think of it in terms of “how did that happen?”, I don’t consider myself a musician or guitar player in a traditional sense. I mean when I hear song writers and singers and guitar players do that, I’m always like “ wow, they’re real musicians!' Me, I’m just trying to figure out how to be functional in life and somewhere along the line I picked up techniques to articulate that in this sort of artistic realm, so when I listen back to it, rarely am I impressed by it, I’m more just like 'ha, ok, I can do that' you know? I get excited about it and I like it but it's never like I’m patting myself on the back about things. More just like it just pisses me off, until it doesn’t. Then it’s done. I go to bed and it's like 'no that’s not it', then I wake up and fuck around some more and I’m like 'no, that’s not it either'. Then I just obsess about the fact that it's wrong until it's right, and then I happily never listen to it again.

LMA - If that’s how you create things, with that along with Zilltoid’s late night visits to tell you how much of a shitty human being you are, how do you actually sleep?

DT - I sleep like shit! I am absolute crap at sleeping and every day that goes by I get worse. I just suck at it. Of my life skills, somewhere along the line I totally ceased to be able to do it properly.

LMA - So we could blame three quarters of your creativity on delirium perhaps?

DT - (laughs) More than that!

LMA - Rumour has it that you’re taking a year off. Do you actually think you’ll last the full 12 months without going crazy?

DT - That’s bullshit. I can’t take a year off. Who could take a year off? It's insane. Not only can I not afford to take a year off, but all the guys would have to come off a salary and I'd go crazy and end up starting some stupid project that would cost a fortune. But what I can do is I can stop making records for a while and just focus on other things. Live performance elements. Now that the Z2 thing is done, and the pledge campaign is done it feels like I’ve done the worlds biggest shit and I feel great. It’s a great feeling, so a year off….it would be nice but I don’t think so.

LMA - There is no way your mind could ever stop.

DT - This is what I said to the management too. He was like "What are you gonna do, take a year off?” and I was like “Dude, I just need to know that you would let me if I wanted to”. He knows I’m not gonna, but tells me I can. He says” You wanna take 10 years off don’t ya” and I’m like "yes" and he says "go ahead" and I’m like "great, so what are we gonna do?"
I’m pretty basic when it comes to my trip but I mean I think knowing your limitations is a big part of it so…. Onward!!

LMA - Well we are looking forward to your guitar clinic and its always a pleasure talking to you.

DT - Thankyou so much. Its great talking to you again too! I’ll see you down there and let’s talk again.

Devin Townsend is hosting his guitar clinic at The Gov on Thursday the 23rd of October. Tickets are available here.



Interview by Melissa Donato

Ahead of their return to Australia, we had the opportunity to fire some questions at Comeback Kid's Andrew Neufeld. The band are no strangers to our country, but this time they'll be back with an outstanding new album, new band members, and more enthusiasm for their art than ever before.

Comeback Kid's fifth studio album, 'Die Knowing' came out earlier this year to rave reviews from fans and media alike. "Its been quite awesome.",Neufeld explained. "All the new songs we are playing live are getting pretty much equal or better reactions than a lot of the old songs and the album has only been out a few months. That is encouraging for us, because we really set out to make a collection of songs that we could add into our set list and really have fun with this time around."

As with all of the band's releases, 'Die Knowing' packs a huge punch and has all the qualities of an album that should translate live. I asked if this was their intention during the writing process. "100% I just wish we could add more songs into the live show. Though we try to keep our audience happy and play songs off all 5 of our albums, because music is a time and place type thing, and we realise a lot of show-goers seeing us play have had Comeback Kid in their lives at one particular time and some of our songs can bring back that moment or time in their lives. But yeah, with the new shit I definitely envisioned how the songs would go over live. Tried to keep the vocal patters a bit less wordy this time, and just stripped the music back a little bit more all around so that it would be a more enjoyable experience."

While Comeback Kid's music has maintained a constant quality throughout their career, one thing that seems to change regularly is their line-up. This doesn't phase Neufeld, however. "As a musician it gets refreshing and interesting playing with new musicians. Kyle, our original drummer, quit shortly after he recorded the drum tracks to the new album 'Die Knowing', so we were able to get Jesse from one of my favourite hardcore bands NO WARNING. He is such a sick player, pro, and can go with the flow in a very organic way. Ron is the best bass player we’ve ever had. And Stu Ross is a legend on and off stage so we are having a good time with it."

Even if you've caught a Comeback Kid show before, their frontman reckons this tour is the one to catch. "Expect the tightest Comeback Kid lineup you’ve ever seen. We have our heads pretty straight in our game right now and really stoked on the new material. Live shows have been bonkers lately so hopefully the crowd is as receptive Down Under. Really excited to watch Rotting out and Relentless as well on the tour."

When Gene Simmons of KISS fame touted the controversial words “rock is finally dead” he obviously hadn't considered five young lads from Cambridge, England. The boys from The Treatment are the epitome of rock, dirty blues based hard rock with guitars slung low and the swagger of seasoned veterans. With two albums under their collective belts and touring credits that include rock royalty such as Mötley Crüe, Alice Cooper, Thin Lizzy, Slash, Steel Panther and even KISS themselves, The Treatment are living the rock ‘n’ roll dream. Australian audiences will get the chance to see what the rest of the world is raving about when they venture down to our shores for the 2015 Soundwave Festival. I caught up with vocalist Matt Jones and discussed the journey from obscurity to travelling the world with their idols.

Even as a young band The Treatment had a very clear direction on what they wanted to achieve and how they would go about it. Matt elaborated on those formative years. “Dhani our drummer started the band and his dad Laurie (Mansworth of More, Airrace and Roadstar fame) manages us, he’s been in the industry for a long, long time, he’s been doing this for about 30 years and had a lot of success with it. So Dhani kind of went to his dad and said I’ve been playing drums for a few years now and I want to put a band together, will you help me put a band together? They kind of drafted us from all around different areas of the country , I’m originally from the east of England, some of the boys are originally from the south, we all kind of met in the middle in Cambridge. Since then, we’ve been sitting down writing together, recording and going out playing. Things have been going really, really well and now we are coming out to Australia, so we can’t wait.”

From an outsider’s perspective the hard rock scene in the U.K. has been in relative decline since the glory days of the New Wave of British heavy metal. I asked Matt how the scene is over there now. “It’s starting to get better now, I mean there’s a few bands out there now that are going back to the old classic way of doing things, so it’s getting stronger. A lot of people are saying rock’s dead and I completely disagree because there are bands like us that are out there doing it and ones from Australia who are out there doing it. There are so many bands getting into that old classical rock style. Bands like Bring Me The Horizon are sounding more and more like a classic rock band. Asking Alexandria, for example, sound more and more like a classic rock band with each album they make, so I don’t think it’s a case of it being dead at all. More and more bands are going back to that way of doing things; I think over the next few years it’s just going to get stronger and stronger.”

Matt explained how difficult it was for the band to get a start in that kind of environment in the beginning. “It was hard work at the beginning because we weren’t the flavour of the month, we weren’t exactly the most popular thing. Metalcore was big and everyone was doing breakdowns in their songs and stuff. For us to come along and just play a four four beat it didn’t go down that well, but over the last few years it’s just been going from strength to strength. We’ve been really, really lucky in the fact that we’ve supported a lot of bigger bands who are way more established, for us that is a big thing because that has put us out there to a lot of people. So we have been lucky in that respect.”

The band's latest album 'Running with The Dogs', the follow up to their  2011 debut 'This Might Hurt' has been out for nearly 6 months now, I asked Matt how the reception has been. “It’s been really, really good. We see a lot of people singing the songs live now. It’s been received really well by the magazines and press, you know we’re really, really happy with the way it’s gone, really happy”

Having toured all over the globe with the who’s who of rock royalty I was curious to know whether the frontman pinches himself every now and then to make sure he isn’t dreaming, he was very humble in his response “When we look back at what we’ve done, we go over photos all the time and just kind of relive tours and stuff, we just go to ourselves is that actually us, it doesn’t seem like it’s real. So at the time you don’t really think about it because obviously in your head you're thinking "go out and play the best you can". You don’t really think about what you do until maybe a year later and you go look at what we did. We pinch ourselves a little bit but at the same time you’ve got to try and stay professional about it.”

The Treatment's first trip to Australia will be for Soundwave Festival 2015, I was wondering whether their good mates in Aussie rock outfit Airborne have let them know what they are in for. “Yeah, you guys are big into your rock music so it should be a good time, we’re so excited to come over, we literally can’t wait, the months can’t go quick enough.”

I asked Matt how he would describe The Treatment’s music and live show to those who have not witnessed it. “We’re just a good time rock ‘n’ roll band you know, we’re all about big riffs and big shows and just kind of going out there and try and get everyone to have a good time. So if you’re willing to get involved and come like I said earlier, sink a couple of beers and just get involved in a big rock show, I think we are going to be one of the bands you'd enjoy because that’s what we are all about.”


Interview by Mike Trandafil

With the Australian shows quickly selling out. I asked Nina what it is about Veruca Salt that Australian audiences have a love affair with. Her response was very humble. “You know, I don’t know but I love it, it’s so fantastic. I was hoping when this all started up again, I thought wow, I wonder if we’ll get to go and play Australia again and sure enough there you guys are still there for us. We can’t wait to get over there, I don’t know what it is. I felt like all these kids came to our show back then and there were a lot of teenage girls who would come and say I started guitar because of you and now I can’t wait to get back there and see how everyone turned out.”

So what can the Australian audiences expect on this tour? “It’s gonna be really loud and we will probably be smiling a lot. It’s funny because we recorded with Bob Rock on the second album we did together and he’s remained a really close friend and Mentor. He was with us when we were rehearsing for the U.S. tour and we were all smiling while we were playing and he was telling us James Hetfield from Metallica says there is no place for smiling in Rock and Roll. Well you know what, we are gonna be crying, we are going to be smiling and it’s gonna be really loud, that’s what I can promise.”

Adelaide fans can witness Nina Gordon and Veruca Salt at The Gov on Thursday the 25th of September.

Interview by Mike Trandafil

Biffy Clyro wowed audiences at this year’s Soundwave Festival, putting their unique brand of rock on show for all to see. Live Music Adelaide caught up with James Johnston a while ago to talk all things Biffy.

‘We are back home, we were in Russia last weekend, but home now just enjoying a fairly rare opportunity to wake up in our own bed. Things are good, Russia was great and all, a really fucking amazing place. Really friendly people, the shows were incredible, the architecture… everything about it was really amazing I think. Sometimes it can be disappointing when you go to a country and it feels like your own country. It was cool to go somewhere where it felt totally different, totally new experience.’

In September, the band will be back in Australia again for a string of more intimate shows. Biffy Clyro just can’t seem to get enough of the land downunder. ‘Well, I think we left it too long in between trips last time around. You know, we’ve always had a good time when we’ve come over. I think it’s the people, the jokes, the space, you know how it’s just really attractive. I really like the idea of not being hemmed in and I think there’s a certain familiarity in Australia. I think people are not too different to some of the people back here you know, back in the UK. I think there’s just a certain amount of familiarity that makes it a really comfortable place to be.’

Despite their continued and long running success, it wasn’t until 2013 that Biffy Clyro hit number one in the UK charts. ‘It was surreal. I think making a double album we certainly never expected anything like that.’ Johnston explained. ‘A lot of people told us that it could have been a mistake and it was risky. In a commercial sense it could have been difficult but it wasn’t something that really bothered us, but to make it to number one, no one could have expected that, you know, least of all us. There was some vindication that we felt. We always felt that making a double album was the right move and that people out there like listening to music. People were accused of having a short attention span and I think that can be true for some things but we felt if we made a good enough album people would take notice and you know, people would take it to their hearts and I think that was the most encouraging part for us. You know, to be number 1 in the charts was incredibly exciting but I think just for people to take the album to their hearts, to make it part of their life was something that felt really special.’

‘I suppose there’s an awareness that comes from something like that so maybe some people would hear about your band that otherwise wouldn’t have or you get mentioned in passing but in terms of a door opening, we haven’t been to the right house for that.’ Johnston told us, of their chart success. ‘We haven’t been to Buckingham Palace, you know. I don’t know what massive difference it’s made apart from being a great honour. I don’t know that its really opened up many doors potentially. I think we’ve been one of those bands that have just kept going. I think when a lot of bands would have given up in the past, we have just kept going.’


Interview by Melissa Donato.
Written by Sofie Marsden.



You can catch Biffy Clyro in Australia in September. Tickets are on sale now via OzTix.

4th September- Tivoli Theatre, Brisbane

5th September- Enmore Theatre, Sydney

7th September- Palais Theatre, Melbourne

9th September- HQ, Adelaide

12th September- Metro City, Perth 

Live Music Adelaide was fortunate to catch up with Seether bass player Dale Stewart this week, right after  they have released their sixth studio album ‘Isolate and Medicate’, and on the eve of a tour that will take them through the U.S., Canada and Europe.

I asked Dale what the reaction to the new album ‘Isolate and Medicate’ has been like and how was the mood in the band as they prepare to tour off the back of their latest opus.  ‘It’s really good actually, we’re pretty proud of the new album, the response has been really good in the first couple of weeks, we’re motivated, we’re ready to get up and play. Taking a nice long break was good as well, we’ve come back with recharged batteries and a full tank and we’re ready to go out and play some shows.’

To my question of whether touring off the back of a new album added another dimension to proceedings, the Seether bass player’s philosophy was pretty simple ‘We just do our thing man, we just consider ourselves the working man’s rock band, blue collar rock, we just do our thing. We try not to put too much thought into it, we just try to get up there have some drinks, make some noise, work up a sweat and we have fun doing it, so that’s pretty much our motto I guess.’

On listening to the new album it comes across heavier than its predecessors, was this a fair evaluation? ‘I think so, yeah, I’ve heard people say that and I’ve heard people say that it’s really poppy. I think it’s heavier and I think there’s a lot of interesting stuff. You know it retains a sense of melody in the songs, so you know there might be a really heavy guitar work but then there will be like a very prominent melody in the chorus. That’s always been important to us to retain that sense of melody, however heavy something is it needs to have a melodic edge to it. I enjoy playing the heavy songs, I like that but we like to have that melody there to sing along with.’

The writing process this time around was more of a collaborative effort, so rather than Shaun (Morgan) working on the ideas in his studio, Dale explained ‘We just went in and jammed, you know, like old school garage days. It was fun man, we didn’t try and put ourselves under too much pressure, just went in and just jammed. I really enjoyed that, I feel like that’s the most fun I’ve had, when you get in that environment, three guys in a room just jamming, kind of having fun playing music. It kind of comes from the heart, you’re not sitting behind a computer trying to record stuff, thinking about it, overthinking it there’s all this energy, it comes from the heart.’

Unfortunately for the Australian Seether fans there is no plans to hit our shores in the near future as the current tour doesn’t wind up until mid-December when they play St. Petersburg in Russia. Dale left me with these words for their Aussie fans ‘Thank you for supporting us, I feel like there is a lot of loyalty from the Aussie fans. Every time we go over there you see a lot of the same faces, you make friends along the way. Thanks for letting us come and hang out in Australia and play great shows, play to a good crowd and not have to get proper haircuts and real jobs.’


'Isolate and Medicate' is out now


Interview by Mike Trandafil

I recently had the pleasure to speak to Voyager’s guitar virtuoso Simone Dow on the brink of their Australian tour. The band will spend July touring from coast to coast in support of their newly released, critically acclaimed album 'V'. The fifth Voyager opus has been gaining rave reviews from both the media and fans alike, Simone is understandably pretty excited about getting out and playing the new songs live.

I asked Simone if it add a new kind of excitement when you are going out in support of a new album, 'This is what you do, it’s what you work for, for so long. We keep plugging away, sitting, ripping our hair out, this is what it’s all about, actually presenting it to fans.'

The new album comes across as not being as dark as its predecessor, the introspective album 'The Meaning Of I'. Simone offered an insight into this. 'The last album was written when Daniel (Estrin – Vocals/Keyboard) was going through some heavy stuff in his life, so the lyrical content ended up reflecting it, I think. So the lyrical content this time around is still about life, but it’s a lot more positive because we’re obviously all quite happy'.
The other key factor in the change was the band took on a different approach to writing this time; 'It’s a lot more of a collaborative effort, which we have not done in the past. It’s been more, Daniel would come in with most of the songs written, then we would work on the arrangements and make small changes and additions to the songs. This time the majority of it was actually written in the rehearsal room, so that is probably why it’s kind of a little bit more focused than previous albums.'

Having released their first album over a decade ago, I was keen to know whether it was frustrating for the band to have to still work full time when a band of this calibre over in Europe or the U.S. could do this for a living. 'It is frustrating, it is hard, but in reality we live in the most isolated capital city in the world, and at the same time, and I think the guys will agree with me, it’s good to have some grounding. It makes you appreciate a lot more, doing what you’re doing and then you come back and do your normal thing. I think even If we were overseas doing it, we would still want to have a little bit of normality, enough to keep you a bit grounded, otherwise you’re living in a fantasy world almost. If you’re doing that all the time. I can understand why some bands go a bit out of control.'  

Adelaide will get to witness firsthand how impressive the new album sounds live when Voyager take to the Enigma Bar stage on the 19th July. I asked Simone what the Adelaide fans could expect. 'A crazy, wild night of progressive, pop metal.  We will be on our a-game and as crazy on stage as we always are, I hope Adelaide are ready for us.'

Simone’s parting gesture was a message to Adelaide Voyager fans 'We look forward to seeing you, people don’t be shy, come up and talk to us, we look forward to meeting our fans.'

Interview by Mike Trandafil.


You can catch Voyager on tour on the following July dates:

FRI 4th - Canberra @ ANU Bar
w/Caligula's Horse (QLD), Eyes to the Sky, Renegade Peacock

SAT 5th - Sydney @ The Factory Floor
w/Caligula's Horse (QLD), Troldhaugen, Without Parachutes

THU 10th - Sunshine Coast @ Vaudeville Room
w/Caligula's Horse, FreeThought, Weightless In Orbit

FRI 11th - Brisbane @ The Brightside
w/Caligula's Horse, Toehider ('What Kind Of Creature Am I?' Album Launch) [VIC], Dark Symphonica

SAT 12th - Melbourne @ The Workers Club
w/Caligula's Horse (QLD), Toehider ('What Kind Of Creature Am I?' Album Launch), Orsome Welles

SAT 19th - Adelaide @ Enigma Bar
w/Caligula's Horse (QLD), Dyssidia, Voros

SAT 26th - Perth @ Amplifier Bar ( Amplifier Capitol)
w/Caligula's Horse (QLD), Orsome Welles (VIC), Local Support (TBA)

Presale Tickets are available at wildthingpresents.com, Oztix & the Venues.

This is an 18+ event.


'V' is out now.

For the band’s 10 year anniversary tour they visited Australia with New Found Glory, and now in 2014 they’re back with The Used.

“Our manager asked if we’d like to do a co-headliner with The Used and we said ‘yeah!’ We’ll keep coming back as long as people keep coming to shows.”

You can catch Taking Back Sunday with The Used at HQ Complex, August 21st 2014.

Tickets are on sale now.

Interview by Sofie Marsden