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I remember as a kid in the UK that this new wave of music called punk came out of nowhere. Some of it was manufactured image and behaviour that was designed to shock, make people talk and buy records. The real underground movement was a reaction to all sorts of crap going on in society that caused people to rebel, but instead of throwing a brick through a window you wrote about it, strummed three chords and refused to piss off. There was a reaction to that and metal was born for those that wanted more depth in their music. Metal quickly splintered into a whole new set of variety with Venom taking it black, Diamond Head creating the fast-twitch thrash and dozens of other avenues of metal shooting off from the UK and infecting the globe. But at the core was the social message of like-minded people seeking each other out to listen to bands and avoid being judged by the society that shunned them as yobs.
As bands reacted to society they formed a social scene. If you went to one of the early festivals such as Reading it was more like a Comic-Con convention of like-minded people, who dressed differently from the media drones in the street and had their own language. They also worshipped the stage and the acts. It was a community inside a society that they were rebelling against. The manufacture of pop music and the relegation of metal to a side show may have been the mainstream’s opinion but metal has never has gone away. But the next great wave never came. Sure we had the odd ripple of Nu-Metal and the tide came in when Grunge parked its arse for a while, but not a lot of invention and my take is that as society became stale it didn’t prompt the rebellion. No reaction meant the community didn’t grow further. Metal became a sub-genre in the UK and almost dismissed as dead with festivals headlined by bands that refuse to die. In the US the metal became as glitter-ball glamorous as the disco that punk set out to destroy. Without revolt against what is going on in society metal self-perpetuates and doesn’t renew. So given that there is no renewal, the next shock wave of metal will not come from the heavily manufactured risk-free UK charts or the tired US market.
So I’m going to tell you why Australia will be the launch pad for the next wave. Sure, we could do it like a magazine called Kerrappp! and tell you the next five bands that are going to be massive, largely to sell the posters I’ve got sitting around the office, but that’s a PR stunt. I’m going to give you the 5 big reasons why Australia will dominate metal/metal core/rock in 2016, and the fact that the bands all play well isn’t one of the 5! Just like my intro, the secret is all about attitude and drive.
- Think we are good? – They are good!
I see bands 3 nights a week on average. On a Friday I can probably see 7 or 8 bands if I pushed it, and at least 2 of them are from outside of Oz. Out of that group I normally strike up a conversation with maybe 2 and it goes it one of two ways. If they are not Oz or NZ, I get the, “Yep we are giving it 100% and enjoying our time down under”. Yes that lovely what’s going on with you guys!!! Talk to an Aussie band and congratulate them, and it’s twenty questions about you, your background, music tastes, have I heard their album…. here is the album, and so on. It’s enthusiastic, and it’s ready to go as a sale, without that bitter aftertaste of being pushy. These Oz bands want to learn, and they want to know more. As we shake hands and thank them again before toddling off with a trolley full of gear and sounds I always get, “…and if you think we are good, check these guys out. They are awesome”. Its upselling, pushing the next Aussie band.
Here’s how it works. I went to a 5 band bill and came across a new band that blew me away. Get the goodie bag and get the sell. Excellent, and I feel that I have to review these guys. Have to, nice guys and a great product. “Have you seen these guys”, they say. No I haven’t, and by the end of the week I had discovered five bands, all producing top work and all referencing each other. This is pyramid selling taken to a new level called a community, but it’s infectious and it grows the product. I find myself referencing these new bands to promoters as I’m caught up in this community. Does this happen anywhere else at the moment? Is there anywhere else with this level of openness, because it happens across Australia and NZ?
I’ve found that it even happens at Festival level with the bigger bands. You look at that bill 5 years ago. How many Aussie bands were there? Look at the bill for next year, how many antipodean bands are there now? Everyone is getting taken on this Australian enthusiastic ride of’ “you think we are good, you should check out these guys!”
- What’s a genre?
First few times I asked Oz bands about their genre it may have been easier to ask the question in Swahili. Genres, or what group of metal/rock they find themselves in, is irrelevant. The two answers you get are ‘melodic’ or ‘groove’, however this is normally woefully incorrect, and just an answer you get to make you stop asking the question. The genre of music is important to the media and the media alone. The music buying public is largely split into two camps in Australia; those who listen to the bollocks on the radio, and those who like metal/rock/alternative/pop punk/not sure what the hell they are.
I’ve been to gigs in Australia where I’m sandwiched between the hipster in trousers so tight you can guess his circumcision status, and a fully marked up biker. Or between a Goth, and some guy with a Franz Ferdinand t-shirt, head banging like a demon. The genre is irrelevant. There is no classification beyond media pitch for fans to worry about in Australia. You like it, you go. To all intent and purpose, New Zealand is exactly the same.
This means that you go to a bill and you see a whole gamut of bands all doing their thing, their way. It’s not the sensitive billing to ensure the audience have a one genre experience where it’s all finely tuned to the headliner. Shit no, it’s you earn your stripes to be on the bill then you are on the bill. You get some horrendous mismatches, but I bet that a large number of that crowd walk away remembering to check out these new bands. That’s how I discovered Plini and a few others, through having an apparent mismatch on the bill. Sometimes you wonder how it’s all going to work, like the upcoming tour with The Sword being supported by Clowns. That’s going to be a face off.
Some come to Oz and go see a 6 band bill, and if you don’t see at least 4 completely different styles I’ll be amazed. Genres – who needs them?
- Metal at the tax payers expense
Its Aussie policy at State and Federal level that they support the arts and that includes metal. If I have given money to directly support the arts during the year then I can claim a tax refund as long as it’s a recognised Arts program. States (South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales etc) also help bands with money to record albums and our review of SE BON KI RA was a prime example of a program where the government helped the band produce their album. That’s a community service!
It goes further though. The Federally managed and funded TripleJ is broadcast across Australia and is represented on radio, TV and the Internet. It has an unearthed program to help discover bands and help them tour. It plays their music and releases albums on their behalf. In doing this it creates an online community and a shop window for new bands, as well as a sanitised place for fans to go and read from a trusted source. This is where I first came across Dead City Ruins.
It’s a community environment but it’s also competitive as it produces charts of how many listens a band has had and keeps a league table –Australia loves competition and it pushes the band. You should go have a look- https://www.triplejunearthed.com/artist/artist . Maybe contact your local MP in your neck of the woods and lobby for a simpler world where tax gives good music!
- If you build it, we will come
Have you seen the festival line ups recently? Looked at a metal core? Ever gone back maybe 10 years and looked at the growth of Aussie bands at festival compared to today? In slinks Parkway Drive, then Amity, then Northlane and on it goes. On another bill first we plagued you with AC\DC and Rose Tattoo, then Airbourne took up festival residence but they were loners. Not now as I’m thinking of starting a company that helps Aussie bands with their travel arrangements for the Festival season, then return to Australia for Christmas and knock out a two week tour. Everyone is at it, even Orianthi! The New Zealanders will be taking up the challenge soon with Devilskin.
An UK mate told me that the Aussies love to travel back to the UK because it’s like coming home to the Motherland from the colonies. That’s complete bollocks. It’s no different from following the market and doing the European festival season then back to Oz. Then it’s the climb into the US and eventually on to standalone tours or as a joint headliner. Without fail, every band I speak to have the same goal, which is to get as many gigs as possible under their belt and then hit the festival circuit. They go, they learn and they climb up the bill. At the moment their band’s name might be so low down on the bill it’s like font size 4 on an eye chart but they have to keep climbing as the next band is getting off the plane.
Crazy thing is, with the death of Soundwave in Australia, there is no avenue for lower-league bands to come to Australia without pulling out the stops and paying for a tour. Likely this will be propped up by putting better known Aussie bands on the bill to support the new tourists. This is yet another springboard for Aussie bands to festival glory as they will be mentioned in foreign press following overseas bands.
- Live for the weekend
With the passing of Soundwave we have a few other festivals going through birth pains with Unify looking like the main success story for metal core bands. So what we get now is multi-band bills, maybe 5 bands on a bill, with at least 1 overseas band sneaking on now and again. In the streets of Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane, you can hop across the town catching any number of bands with gigs going to the early hours of the morning. In Adelaide I managed to see 9 bands in 7 hours… just in the nightclub district.
Australia has a pub culture, and a live band culture that comes together to promote Aussie bands. They are unforgiving places, where the audience is on your lap. I’ve seen bands return from European festival glory, put on to a stage that is like a postage stamp, and its only talent and song choice that pulls them through. There’s not enough room for stage lighting in some places and you couldn’t even swing a cat – unless of course it was wearing a crash helmet and was no stranger to concussion.
This creates an audience that knows their bands and expects them to be accessible and at the top of their game. The pubs, clubs, and hotels accommodate most bands because they don’t really give a cracker above which genre it is (see above) as long as it attracts punters. For the bands it’s like a boot camp with a great atmosphere and enthusiastic crowd who demand entertainment. Just don’t expect too much lighting, or security, or sympathy. The sound is clear and loud but may your God help the unprepared. With so many other bands a short walk away the punters vote with their feet and I’ve seen an audience disappear faster than support for some of our recent Prime Ministers. It’s a blood bath at times, but if you are good you get the rewards.
To read from the masterclass of ‘Let There Be Rock’ – ‘One night in a club called the Shakin’ hand, there was a 95 decibel rocking band, and the music was good and the music was loud, and the singer he turned and said to the crowd……’ and so on. The pub culture worked for AC/DC in 1975, and it works today. Whether the pub holds 8, 80, or 800, it’s the same deal the country over. But, whatever you do, don’t come back with an American drawl and an ego, as you’ll last about 5 minutes, chum.
These silver linings have one cloud – Social Media
So Australia and NZ has a strong metal/metal core fraternity, that’s likes to travel, promote each other, and help each other pay the bills, while they gig their way to stardom. The one downside is social media, which is not done particularly well and in some cases not at all. So let’s get a grip guys!
I’ve seen some bands in the UK and US that have just released their first 4 track EP, but you would think that they had just sold out Rock in Rio. That’s the beauty of social media as it allows access to a product without having to travel or dole out some cash. The band can be anything they want to be on social media, and they might not even need PR to achieve that. So you see photos of the band, you have links to their recordings, read a bio, buy the merch and even have a video of them playing live. It could be at the local bowling club disco but you wouldn’t know that. They raise friends and followers across the media, and they grow. When they eventually get an album out, they have thousands of potential customers already primed to consume.
In Australia it’s not that clear cut. Again it may be because the UK and US media have a greater sway in people’s lives, and people know how to create a media buzz. Alternately, it may be because the Aussies are down playing in a pub somewhere instead of dusting off their typing skills. Truth is, it’s a combination of these, and many more. Some do it well, but not many. Those who have the followers through playing overseas festivals have more merch to flog than have news to peddle. So as much as it pains me to say it, social media is the skill that the UK easily outstrips Oz with. But even with that I still believe that Australia will dominate in 2016. It’s the year of the Roo, no doubt about that.
Author: Craig Grant
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