Raw, Real & Gritty With LUKE GRUNTS From CLEOPATRICK

Interview by Kris PetersFifty years of servitude in any industry is a great achievement, but fifty years in the music industry is something special.In an industry that rewards only when you have something of value to offer, bands are churned through the machine at a rapid rate of knots. Yesterday's heroes can quickly become tomorrow's nobodies with everything from changing fashions to styles to bad press being an avenue for failure.Australian rockers Radio Birdman are one of the few bands to not only survive half a century in the music industry but somewhat thrive as well.Radio Birdman were one of the first Australian bands to harness the punk rock attitude that swept through Britain, doing things their way no matter the consequences. They are one of those bands that as soon as you listen to their music you get the "ah, that's who sung it" feels, with an infectious and flippant brand of music showcasing all the hallmarks and foundations of great Aussie rock.To celebrate the occasion, Radio Birdman will hit the road for the Birdman 5-0 Tour, starting June 21, with fellow Australian icons Hard-Ons along for the ride.HEAVY caught up with founding member and guitarist Deniz Tek to take a trip down memory lane. We start by asking if Australia is ready for the finale."The venues that we're playing are essentially the same venues we played on the last tour," he began, "and the last couple of tours. The last time we went around Australia was just before the pandemic in 2019, and it's basically the same venues. We prefer to play two to three shows in a smaller club rather than one big show at the Enmore or the Palace or something like that. It's better for us to play in smaller places."It's a bittersweet tour, celebrating 50 years of the band, but also serving as a swansong, so we ask Deniz how long the band has known they would be ticking both things off at the same time."Just since November," he replied. "We hadn't really talked about it until then, but I was back in Australia for my daughters wedding and the band got together socially, and we talked it over and thought it might be a good idea."In the full interview we take a moment to reflect on what a great achievement 50 years is, the success of presale tickets, limiting the shows and why, what fans can expect, what the band expects from their crowds, the emotion that will surround the last ever show at the Manning Bar in Sydney on July 7, having Hard-Ons as support, Radio Birdman's legendary outsider status and how well it fits, being the underdog, what he has achieved personally and musically over his career, what's left for him to achieve, the band logo and some insights into its origin, his top three commandments of rock and more.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/heavy-music-interviews--2687660/support.

4 Mars 202415min

Interview by Kris PetersAs much as music and finding success in the industry is largely about talent, the occasional bit of good fortune or right place right time ethos certainly helps.Melbourne synthwave outfit Dark Water discovered this last week when they were announced as national support for Ville Valo on his upcoming Australian shows. The call-up came as a shock to the band, who just two years ago were questioning whether or not they still had the fortitude to pursue a career in music.Blending mournful synth-pop with sweeping atmospherics and gothic undertones, Dark Water are the perfect choice to supplement the great Ville Valo, with Seb joining HEAVY recently to share his excitement. We start by asking if it has sunk in yet?"It definitely does not feel real," he smiled. "I feel like it won't feel real until we've left Melbourne. Because we've never actually played outside of Melbourne. It's a massive deal, we're stoked. It feels like it just came out of the blue, and we're very happy about it."We ask if he is a bona fide fan of Ville Valo or if he will be discovering more about him on the tour."I was a fan of HIM, and I did not know that he started a solo project," Seb began, "so that was the first news to me which was sick. That was an exciting bit of information."In the full interview, Seb talks more about getting the call-up to play the shows, how it feels to be personally selected by Valo himself, what to expect from Dark Water, what this opportunity means to them as a band, a history on the band, their upcoming debut album and more.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/heavy-music-interviews--2687660/support.

4 Mars 202412min

Interview by Kris Peters25 years ago, an album by an Australian punk outfit started making ripples in the music scene that quickly turned into rips in the very fabric of music. It typified the Australian laconic sense of humour and general apathy towards anything even remotely resembling authority, and would go on to become a landmark in Australian music history.It didn't help that the title was so ambiguously brilliant that potential images of the outcome are still being broadcast today.That album was Hot Dog Daiquiri and the band The Porkers, who were about to embark on a rollercoaster of musical extremes and extravagances that is currently being celebrated as The Porkers take to the road to celebrate a quarter of a century of what could possibly be one of the worst tasting cocktails ever.HEAVY sat down with vocalist Pete Cooper to find out how the shows have been going."We've been around for a while," he said, letting the cat out of the bag. "We're currently on tour with the Hot Dog Daiquiri 25th Anniversary Tour - which is our album we released in 1998 - which is actually 26 years ago. We've already done Queensland and this weekend we're heading to Victoria, then we have Sydney and all sorts of places after that."With the tour already part way through we ask Cooper how they have been going so far."Pretty crazy," he smiled. "You can probably tell from my voice, but last weekend's shows were pretty hectic. I've come home with a good dose of the flu and a sore throat, then tomorrow we're off to Melbourne."In the full interview, Pete talks more about the shows, the difficulties posed by touring as you get older, how the 25-year-old songs have been going down and if they have stood the test of time, his best memories of making the album, which Porkers album is his personal favourite, their blending of punk, reggae and funk and how it was received in the early days, future plans and more.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/heavy-music-interviews--2687660/support.

1 Mars 202420min

Interview by Kris PetersAfter taking a couple of years to fully find their feet again after a prolonged absence, Aussie funk/rock/metal dance machine Mammal are finally ready to unleash their second full-length album on the world with the release of The Penny Drop on March 6.After disbanding in the same year their debut album The Majority shocked our airwaves in 2008, the members of Mammal all ventured in differing musical directions in an attempt to fill the void but despite the quality of their work individually the chemistry and creativity that the members enjoyed as Mammal remained elusive.After announcing a much-anticipated reunion in 2017, Mammal haphazardly released the singles Community, Crime Scene, Dead and The War, almost teasing their fans with the hint of a greater body of work but making them wait until the smoldering beast had fully regained its hunger.That hunger was displayed for the world to see with last year's single Keanu Reeves, very much a song cast from the Mammal mold but with a heavier underbelly than what some may have expected.The album title became the second track released, offering a small glimpse into the overall sonic picture that while still quintessentially Mammal also offers up a myriad of welcome surprises.HEAVY sat down with frontman Ezekiel Ox earlier this week to find out more."It was a huge process for us, getting it together," Ox explained, talking about the new album, "because we had a transition of bass players which led to this record. Since Mammal's been back since 2017 we've put out Community, Virtue Signalling and Dead which were all with Nick Adams, our former bass player, and then we put out Crime Scene and The War and this album is our first long-player. We're a rock band and a metal band, so it's not like we needed to put out an album. Apparently, now you're supposed to just do singles, but we feel like we wanted to make a statement, and I don't think there's any doubt we have. Full credit - speaking in footy parlay - full credit to the boys and full credit to the producer Jimi Maroudas, full credit to Tyson Fish and also to Forrester Saville who mixed and mastered this record. You're only as good as your team, and we have the absolute bomb on this record so it sounds the way it should, everyone's performance is great, and we felt like we had a chance to stretch our legs on this. We're pumped for the release on March 6."We ask if musically, The Penny Drop is what fans would expect."I think so," Ox offered. "I don't think it's a massive departure. The main thing - whether people notice it or not - is Nick used to always write the first riff. So when we started writing for this album, we didn't really know where to start. For those that don't know, Pete, our guitar player, is a farmer and operates this huge acreage up in North West Victoria, and he went from a point of view where he started writing a riff a day for 30 days and just rinsed everything he could. And that was new for us. As opposed to starting with the groove, we started with the riff - which obviously leads to the groove - and then Zane went through the process of putting those together into songs, and then I went through a process of freestyling over two days. I just went down to Melbourne and got drunk and had a bit of fun with the boys, and they'd throw ideas at me, and we came up with… I think we ended up freestyling for about 20 of them and 17 of them ended up getting written and then five of them got dropped, and you end up with the 12 songs that you have on The Penny Drop. Different process for us, but it's a weird thing, Kris. I think it's a negative thing to do to monitor yourself when you're working. You just want to be working with each member as a whole and as an individual. You wanna be really conscious of doing your job, not self-monitoring too much and letting the producer and letting the engineers focus on what the whole thing is. That's a really important thing to do, and I think we all did that really well. I know that Kade came in last, which we thought was fair. We didn't want Kade having to do too much development because we thought that would be unfair for a new member, but I think on the next album we're gonna want Kade to be a lot more involved because he's not a new guy anymore. He's been here for over two years now, and he's played shows with us, and he's such an instrumental part of this record. I can't wait for everyone to hear what he's doing."In the full interview Ezekiel talks more about the freestyling lyrical process, why The Penny Drops is not for kids, how it differs to debut album The Majority, the collaboration with Fresh Violet, Mammal's live show and maintaining the intensity, writing for the album, future plans and more.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/heavy-music-interviews--2687660/support.

1 Mars 202418min

Interview by Kris PetersAfter laying a solid platform last year with their debut EP Vol 1: Superdead metal outfit Suffer The Evenue have spent the last 12 months planning and refining the follow-up to best showcase their musical prowess.By harvesting the essence from their first release, Suffer The Evenue felt more comfortable following their creative instincts on this one, which in turn allowed the band greater flexibility to integrate more sounds and influences into their work.The South Australian groove metal/hardcore hybrid are premiering their latest track A New Empire through HEAVY this Friday, March 1 at 5pm AEST, with everything mentioned above and more packed into the track which envelops more grove and touches of funk over a foreboding and heavy as fuck metal underbelly.A New Empire is the lead single taken from Suffer The Evenue's new EP Vol 2: Superdeader which will be unleashed on April 12.HEAVY caught up once more with vocalist Nick and guitarist Dom to talk about the single and EP.We start by asking how they are feeling after approaching the new EP release with the wisdom gained from the first offering."I feel like our approach has been different," Dom began. "We learned a lot from the first run and now the second one I think the songs have definitely taken a step-up. Our writing has definitely taken a step-up, and we're definitely coming together more as a group. It's not just… like all of us were showing our skills in the first one, but this one's more of a controlled group effort, which has been a good way to write."We press the boys on the musical direction of A New Empire and what they were going for with it."Probably a bit of a journey," Dom measured. "There's influences not just in music, but outside of the music as well. It's got a bit of a horror theme vibe to it and I think when the film clip drops it will all make a bit of sense. It's definitely very influenced by a lot of different genres outside of our music, but I enjoyed the journey of the whole song. It starts somewhere and has the start, middle, and end.""When we were thrashing this one out for the first time and piecing it together, I was a spectator to start off with," Nick added. "As a spectator I noticed the other guys were all on the same page when working on a song from point A we got to a certain point in the song and everyone said nah, we have to change this song now, and we're gonna do something particular. They were all on the same page straight away and it was awesome. What they came up with was just… it hit right, felt right, and it was smooth."In the full interview, Dom and Nick talk about some of the more experimental aspects of A New Empire, why it was chosen as the lead single, the similarity between the two EPs, how they differ from each other musically, run through each of the four tracks on Vol 2: Superdeader, explain the thought process of each song, plans for the rest of 2024 and more.HEAVY would like to thank our sponsor RODE. Intro music taken from Brown Snake, the second single release from Dreamkillers new album, which will be out later this year. The song is premiered on March 14 via HEAVY.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/heavy-music-interviews--2687660/support.

29 Feb 202414min

Interview by Kris PetersIt’s been almost 20 years since Bruce Dickinson released his last solo album Tyranny Of Souls back in 2005, but the wait is almost over with the release of The Mandrake Project on March 1. Much has happened with Dickinson both professionally and personally between albums, and he pours the bulk of it out on this, his seventh solo album, which is once again completed with the assistance of Dickinson’s long-time collaborator Roy Z. Dickinson is no stranger to releasing albums between his solo project and Iron Maiden, but we pose the question if he still gets nervous in the weeks before an album drop. "Nervous… I wasn't so much nervous about this one,” he measured. “I was just really excited and frustrated. The whole thing is we spent seven years making this record because of COVID and all that rubbish and various other things. I got sick for a year with throat cancer, but basically after seven years we got together and made the record, and it's been ready for release for about a year now. So people who have heard it are freaking out about it saying isn't it amazing, wow, this is the best thing you've ever done, and I'm like 'I JUST WANT IT TO BE RELEASED’." The Mandrake Project is an album seven years in the making, giving Dickinson time to pour more of his heart and soul into the musical aspect of the recording than usual. As a result, the album is more than just another hard rock release from the solo project of a famous frontman. It is more of a musical journey that transcends time, space and expectation that eventually comes back to the true essence of what got Dickinson interested in music in the first place. “Well, obviously, back in the day looking at stuff I dealt with Roy Z,” he recalled, “who’s my partner in the record and the producer. He co-wrote probably two-thirds of the songs with me, the rest of them are all mine. We did two really good records, Accident Of Birth and The Chemical Wedding, which in the back end of the 90s people thought was a very influential record. And then we did Tyranny Of Souls then back in Maiden, so this was like unfinished business. There's definitely another album here that we could do. Continue the line as it were, because we started to diversify a bit on the journey. Chemical was fantastically heavy, and we wanted to kind of go beyond both of those albums so have more diversity on this record but also make it… when it was heavy, it was really heavy (laughs). Things we couldn't do, for example, in the context of Iron Maiden. Because Maiden’s got its own style, and we've got gazillions of songwriters in Maiden, so this is very much stuff where you say… some of this you would never hear on a Maiden record. So that was the basic idea with the album. I do need to mention that it looks like a concept album, but it's not. There is a 12-episode comic that goes with… as a companion to the album, but it's an independent, free-standing entity also called The Mandrake Project and the first issue was released on January 15. The Mandrake Project is going to go on for the best part of three years, so every three months we'll do a new episode of a 34 page comic. End of this year will be four issues, or the first book if you like, and that will come out at the end of the year as a full, complete issue, and then we'll crack on.” “That and the album combined look like a concept,” he continued. “From a presentation perspective they are, but from an artistic perspective, they're separate. They're like two free-standing trees next door to each other. You can't see the connection, but it's there because the roots talk to each other. But that's in fact what they are. If you listen to the album, but you never bother to have a look at the comic, that's just fine. And vice versa. But if you dip in and out of both, it's a lot more fun." Looking through the album track listing, there’s no song actually called The Mandrake Project to be seen, so we ask Dickinson what greater significance the title has. "That's quite an interesting point,” he smiled. “There's no title track per se. The original title of the album was going to be If Eternity Should Fail, which is actually pulled from a Doctor Strange episode of the comic. That song got pulled off and put on the Maiden Book Of Souls album, so I was cool with that. I thought I will repossess the song when we get around to doing the album - which of course we didn't for years because of all the circumstances. But when I finally came around to record that song I actually changed the title to Eternity Has Failed because I tweaked some of the lyrics and some of the story in the comic - there's our little two trees connected by the roots again - and I thought I need a title that sums up both the record and the comic and ties it all together. And this is where the two things really start getting linked. I've had two pages of scribbling absolute garbage, silly names, I won't tell you some of them because they're embarrassing (laughs) and I just kept churning at it saying "no, no, almost, no, oh my God get down the pub and forget about it" and then finally - I don't know why - the word Mandrake popped in my head and I had a good search of who else used anything Mandrake. I like Mandrake. I like The Mandrake Project because it sounds like some secret government clandestine thing. It sounds mysterious and you think what is that? That's a great intro to a world. And that worked for the comic as well, because The Mandrake Project is the name of this scientific organisation that is clandestine, which has developed technology to effectively bottle the human soul at the point of death and store it and then re-introduce it into something else. I invented these two characters, Dr. Necropolis and Professor Lazarus and a very basic story. By the time seven years had gone by, and I'd been locked up for three years (laughs) in a little apartment with my girlfriend binge watching Netflix, the story had moved on and I'd actually done a bit of work on it and taken a bit of advice from friends of mine who are Hollywood screenwriters. I ran the story past Kurt Sutter, who wrote Sons Of Anarchy. We had a zoom call together, and I ran the development of the story, and he was the one who said that would make a great comic. I said what do I do, do I write a script and send it to Netflix, and he said no, it will go in the bin but do a comic. So it ended up at four episodes in one book, so I wrote a couple of episodes and thought no way is this four episodes. Eight episodes then, and in no time at all it was no, this is twelve episodes and that felt just right. I rang the comic company and they were great. I expected them to show me the door, but they loved the story. They loved the idea. It's not a superhero comic by any stretch. It's much darker." The Mandrake Project has become a deeply personal album for Dickinson, with the vocalist admitting tapping into his fears, problems and truths brought out the absolute best in him. "I mean, all albums should be personal experiences,” he shrugged. “In my opinion, the best albums are, usually. This album wasn’t like therapy for me, but it kind of is in there's a big sweep of emotion on the record. In particular, the last three songs really go to some very moving but in some ways tragic places. And I couldn't have done that 20 years ago. There's a lot of mumblings about life and death, quite a lot of death on the record, and that's because I got a little bit closer to it than I really wanted to when I had throat cancer. I imagined I did anyway. You confront the possibility you might not be here in a couple of years, and you think well… how does that make me feel (laughs). Years ago when people asked me if the experience changed the way I thought about life I went ‘no, no, no, nah. No. It was just a bad cold’. But looking back nine years ago when I got diagnosed… looking back I realised actually yeah, it has changed the way I look at life. My perspective is unbelievably precious. Everybody should hang onto it and squeeze the last bits of life out of life. Right until your croaking breath because this may well be the only one you've got, and The Mandrake Project kind of addresses that. It's like, is there a God? And if there is, what kind of God is he? Is he a poet? Maybe it's just the force, Luke? Or maybe he does nothing at all. There's a few things along with that. There's a lot of underworld references, there's a lot of… not too much sci-fi on the record.” Before finishing up, we feel obliged to ask Dickinson what we can expect from the Iron Maiden tour of Australia later this year. "Death, destruction and skull doggery mate,” he promised. “It's gonna be amazing. I do 40 shows solo starting in April until 21st July, then I go lie down in a darkened room for two or three weeks and I wake up in Australia, and we start rehearsals in Perth. I'm really looking forward to it, we all are. We love Australia as a place, as a country, as the people who live there. We’re gonna have a blast. The only thing that would be almost as good as touring there with Maiden would be bringing this project down to Oz at some point. Obviously we're not gonna be doing 10,000 seaters,Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/heavy-music-interviews--2687660/support.

29 Feb 202411min

Interview by Kris PetersGreek metal masters of mayhem Suicidal Angels tomorrow release their eighth studio album Profane Prayer, reaffirming their growing stature as one of the leaders of the next phase of metal evolution.Since forming Suicidal Angels at just 16 years of age back in 2001, Nick Melissourgos (vocals, guitars) has overseen a changing of the guard of sorts, kicking things off with the band's debut album Eternal Domination which set the musical landscape ablaze.After being invited by Sakis Tolis of ROTTING CHRIST to do their first European tour soon after, Suicidal Angels quickly found their stride and set about laying a decimating sonic landscape in their wake, forcing people to sit up and take notice.Landing the support slot with KREATOR set about a fresh chain of events that saw Melissourgos strike up an enduring friendship with Mille Petrozza, and since then Suicidal Angels have made every post a winner.Four years in the making, Profane Prayer is already being lauded by fans and critics alike, with HEAVY spending some time with Melissourgos earlier this week to document the rise and rise of his band."We're a thrash metal band from Athens, Greece," he declared proudly before we begin talking about the album. "We are about to release our eighth studio album and in a couple of days we hit the road for the first European tour for this album. Afterwards we go to the United Kingdom, Spain and Portugal. The whole booking process for the concerts is taking place, so we hope we can get to other markets as well. We had some plans for 2020 to come to Australia, but due to the COVID situation we couldn't make it."We ask Nick how the nerves are kicking in just days out from release."A bit, to be honest," he admitted. "Before this pandemic stopped the whole planet… it actually hit us quite hard because we had just released our previous album Years Of Aggression on August 2019, and we were about to do a huge, extensive tour. As I said before, we were even planning on going to Australia and the USA and Canada markets, places we hadn't been before. Two and a half years we were off the road, and then we tried to do some small tours mostly here and in America to promote the Years Of Aggression album and gradually and slowly came back to the reality of the after COVID situation. It took longer than usual to release a new album, but it was because of the situation, and now we're quite anxious and nervous but also excited with this release. We really hope to get back on the road and the life we used to have."In the full interview, we ask Nick to go deeper into the musical side of Profane Prayer, how much they experimented with their sound on the album, how it differs to previous releases, how much growth Suicidal Angels have left in them, the early days of the band and how serious he was about it, what things he has learned about life and music over the journey, upcoming shows and more.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/heavy-music-interviews--2687660/support.

28 Feb 20249min

Interview by Kris PetersManchester death metal outfit Ingested are the gift that keeps on giving.Since their 2020 album Where Only God May Tread, the three-piece masters of metal have released roughly one album per year, culminating in The Tide Of Death And Fractured Dreams which will be unleashed via Metal Blade Records on April 5.Following the bleak firestorm that was Ashes Lie Still, Ingested have produced a more upbeat body of work that more reflects where the band are at personally in their lives.Never afraid to experiment within and beyond their genre, Ingested thread a myriad of subtleties through each new release, allowing themselves to explore different sonic plains while still remaining true to their core. It is an approach that has seen the band rise rapidly through the ranks and should see them ascend even further with The Tide Of Death And Fractured Dreams.The band produced the album themselves with the guidance of recording engineer Nico Beninato, further expanding their musical horizons, with guest appearances from Chimaira's Mark Hunter and Sylosis' Josh Middleton enhancing the finished product.Vocalist Jason Evans joined HEAVY to tell us more."We've been sitting on this album for well over a year now," he began. "We released our last album Ashes Lie Still in November 2022 and then four weeks after that album was released, in December 2022, we went into the studio and recorded The Tide Of Death And Fractured Dreams, so we've had this album done and dusted for well over a year. The way that we like to work is we like to work ahead, because we're always writing. So when an album's done, it's done. Let's just get in there, get in the studio, get it recorded, then what we're doing then is we're giving ourselves time to really prepare for the announcement and release of the album. So we've had a year to make sure the artwork looks amazing, make sure the music videos are all looking great, so that's how we like to work. We'd rather give ourselves the time to make sure everything's exactly how we want it to be for the presentation of the album so when it does get announced and people know that it's coming, everything is ready. We don't like rushing around. We like it done. I'm excited to finally announce to everyone that it exists and that it's coming out. We don't have to wait that long, but in the meantime we've just released the first single, Paragon Of Purity, with a music video. That's doing really well. All our fans seem to love it, and then we've got more. We've got more coming out in the run-up to the album's release and probably beyond the release as well. We've got loads of stuff coming. We've just announced a headline tour through the UK and Europe, which runs through April and May. We're taking out Fallujah and Vulvodynia, so I'm excited. It's gonna be yet another busy year for us."In the full interview, Jason talks more about The Tide Of Death And Fractured Dreams and what to expect, what Ingested were going for musically, what things the band experimented with, the two guest artists on the album and what they each brought to their song, the process of producing and the benefits to the band of knowing how, their release process and how the band harnesses its creativity, fans reactions to such frequent releases, how much musical growth Ingested have in them and more.HEAVY would like to thank our sponsor RODE. Intro music and end song 'Paragon Of Purity' by Ingested.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/heavy-music-interviews--2687660/support.

26 Feb 202430min