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Rocking The Riffs With LEON MONACO From ORPHEUS OMEGA · HEAVY Music Interviews

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  Oh yeah. So I'm Leon. I'm the bassist of Oorvious Omega and we're
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  about to tour of the country. We're touring as part of the Riff and
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  Tour, which is a play on Riff and t Rip and Tear from the
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  Doom franchise, and just partnering up with our mates in Triple Kill, and
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  we're going all over the place. We're doing Gold Coast, Brisbane, Sydney,
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  Canberra, Melbourne, Ballarat. We're also unfortunately with that Triple Kill,
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  we're also hitting up Perth a bit later in the month and mil Juror at
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  the start of October two. So we're going everywhere and we cannot wait.
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  Yeah the full leo, thanks for joining us today. Pleasure to be here,
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  Thank you for having me. As you say that, The Riff and
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  Straw kicks off in Ballarat on August twenty fifth, mate, and I've got
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  those through September twenty thirty. Per But you just told me about another one
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  ot over Yeah, I know. It was just just came out like what
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  yesterday, the day before. Sorry, Yeah, we just got announced to
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  be playing I believe it's called shark Fest. Oh yeah, nice, which
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  is all day, all ages rock and metal music festival in mil Juror at
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  the Mildura Race Course. So that's gonna be yeah, shark Fest twenty twenty
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  three. It's gonna be lots and lots of fun. It's that raw kicks
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  off in just over two weeks, mate, So are you ready for it?
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  Oh? Man, I am so excited. We've only played one show
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  all the year for twenty twenty three, but it's because we've been putting all
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  of our eggs into this huge to our basket, so we cannot wait to
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  get out there and just yeah, I have this awesome month long adventure.
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  It's going to be great. You mentioned the planning that goes into a straw
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  of this, Brover, How do you prepare on the other side, Like,
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  how do you prepare mentally physically for a big one of shows like this?
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  I guess step one is make sure you have enough work leave, But
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  physically I guess I just did dry July, so you know, take that
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  work. I've worked on myself. A couple of the other band members have
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  all been like, you know, hitting up the gym and bobbing up a
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  little bit just to try and get a little bit healthier, a little bit
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  fitter so we can move around and jump around on stage without our old man
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  backs complaining. Yeah. Just and then as soon as the tour begins,
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  we're like, we always do our best to eat well during the days,
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  even if we're having a couple of beers or whatever happens at night. During
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  the day, we're like, no, no, no, we still need
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  to be adults where we're not twelve anymore, we're not twenty one anymore.
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  We can't do this to ourselves. So we've gotta we look after each other
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  and we look after ourselves, and that's a big important part of it.
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  And I noticed it was pretty spread out too. Is that just to sort
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  of capitalize on the weekend rounds more so than didn't do midweek Yeah. I
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  find if we have like an international band come in, anyone will come out
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  on a weeknight, on a Tuesday night or something to see an international band
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  because they're here, you got you've got to see them. Whereas capitalizing on
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  those weekends is definitely a bigger way, an easier way to do it when
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  you're an Australian band and you're up against all the other Australian bands, and
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  yeah, weekends are just definitely where it's at. We don't mind traveling midweek.
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  We kind of like it. I think one of our shows in Gold
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  Coast is on a Thursday and then there's a Sydney one on Sunday. Always
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  happy to play the off Friday Saturday night shows. Just need the punters to
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  come out to meet us half way too. Yeah, very very good.
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  And you mentioned it's been a while aside from that one Gigirl this year,
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  it's been a while since obvious Amiga has hit the stage, right, So
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  what can bands expect from the shows? What do you new for us since
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  last time? Well, we've just released a Children of Bodem cover of Hay
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  Crew Death Roll to celebrate the twenty years of the album Hey Crew Death Roll.
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  For anyone playing at home, it's the red one. They're one of
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  our biggest influences and we really wanted to honor that. This is like a
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  twenty year old album. It's been definitely the biggest influence of us, so
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  we wanted to give back to that and we've recorded a cover of that.
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  I'd highly I'd highly suggest people will be expecting that on the tour. We're
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  probably gonna be playing that every show. That's a that's that's adding to part
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  of the rotation. Earlier this year we released our Portraits EP, so that's
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  a five song EP where each member of our band wrote an individual song.
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  Some of the singles have been come out since towards the end of last year,
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  but a couple of them came out this year. So if you didn't
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  catch that Melbourne show where we played earlier this year, you still have a
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  half of a Portrait EP that hasn't been played to you yet. So we'll
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  be playing a lot off that, and for anyone who's attending either the Melbourne
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  or the Canberra quest Fest. We've also got a couple of extra little fun,
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  wacky surprises because they're the fun, they're the fun dress up gigs.
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  We have to play. We have to play into that, don't we.
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  Oh, of course you do. Run and you mentioned that the EP Portraits
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  that came out, as you say, it was five songs or that,
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  with each band member contributing one song each. So I want to run through
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  those songs individually made tell us a meeting behind each. So we'll start with
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  within these walls. Within these walls, I guess is about you know,
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  breaking shuggles, breaking out of them, being your own person, being free,
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  that kind of symbolic metaphor of just you know, like getting out,
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  getting out of one's shell and you know, conquering one's demain. That one's
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  written by Chris the Melco, our guitarist and singer, and he's like,
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  I want to write a song that everybody can chant along too, and can
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  pump their fists and have a bit of a mosh and have a real big
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  anthemic chorus, and yeah, and I reckon he nailed it. And that
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  one. That one features Andy Gillion of x Moore's principal mess or just by
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  knowing him as an excellent guitarist in orchestration writer in himself. So that song
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  has like a lot of orchestration and all that real kind of nifty stuff that
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  Andy just brought to the table and was absolutely phenomenal. With the second song's
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  Edge of Forever, which is my song, I funnily enough, have never
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  properly written lyrics to a song before, but wrote this one around the time
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  I was getting married. So it's kind of a love runaway song where like,
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  oh my god, we're running out of here together, We're breaking free,
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  blah blah bla blah, like that kind of vibe. But I also
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  had I was told by Chris, our guitarist, around the time of writing
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  it. I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing. He goes,
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  write about anything in your life at the moment. Just don't talk about the
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  specifics, just write about the emotion. I'm like, cool, I'm really
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  just liking my parents trying to take over this wedding a little bit here and
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  then. And he's like, cool, right about that. So that's where
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  my I guess inspiration of Edge of Forever, where you know, we're on
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  the cliff and we're about to jump off together and going to this plunge and
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  bye bye, you can't control us anymore. That was that influence. We
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  have a Dissimilarly Destruct, which is the song the middle track, written by
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  our keyboarders Olive Keswick Gallagher or Kes. She wrote this song as it's a
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  bit of a sad, bit of sweet kind of song where talks about the
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  internal struggles she was facing around the time of the transition or prior to the
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  transition, where she was talking about, you know, take take these particular
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  pills or make your social life a lot better. This is loneliness, this
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  is this is hard, this is difficult. So a bit of a bit
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  of a deep dive into that kind of song goes into a bit of a
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  psyche at the time, but then the whole end of it kind of talks
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  about this awesome like breakthrough and rebirth and everything also, which is really cool,
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  really beautiful. So yeah, go go olive for that one. The
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  Prophecy by Matt I actually don't really I apologize to Matt our drama. I
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  don't really know what this song is about other than I feel like it is
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  just party energy. In terms of a Melodeth song, it's a melodic death
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  metal song through and through, both in the delivery in the music as well
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  as in the in I feel like a lot of the phrasing in the words,
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  it's all a lot of the words in it will just be very I
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  don't want to say typical is a bad thing, but just very like,
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  all right, this is a Melodeath chorus. These are the words you would
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  hear in a Melodeth song. This is the vibe, that's what's coming out
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  of it. So unless Matt actually did have an actual motive behind that song,
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  I'm very sorry, Matt, I apologize. And the final song Luke's
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  Song, our other guitarists, our other rhythm guitarist, and probably the newest
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  band member to our band wrote a song loosely inspired by the video game Out
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  the Wilds probably one of my favorite video games in the last couple of years,
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  to be honest, also where you're an explorer and you're you're an archaeologist
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  kind of person, and you're exploring a solar system and trying to find and
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  uncover the answers to the universe, which is being very small and the world
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  is infinitely big, and all of those kind of existential crises kind of come
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  into question and coming to play in this song. So it's really really cool.
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  And that song includes you on strid Soil work Fame, and he absolutely
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  kills it. He's incredible in this song. Probably my favorite song in the
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  EP apart from mine, because as you say, well, that's a unique
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  way to do stuffing by like, are you going to continue doing sort of
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  things out that in the future or is it all going to be more collaborative
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  in the future. I reckon it'll be a bit more collaborative in the future.
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  Don't tell anyone. We have some stuff in our back pocket ready to
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  go very shortly. But this one was kind of like a Hey, we've
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  got Luke and we've got Leon, these new members in our band. Everyone
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  now is a really cool and really competent and strong songwriter, and we want
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  to release an EP to tied us over before whatever is coming up next.
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  So we want so we found this to be kind of like the oh,
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  look what we can pull out, look at what we can do, and
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  we've turned it into this. It started as a real quick and easy idea,
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  I hate you write a song. You write a song, let's just
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  release it and let's just move on. But we've had so much fun doing
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  this. We've done a show, we're now touring the EP. We each
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  song has like its own color scheme, so because each member have their own
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  favorite colors, so we've played into that and done a music video for every
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  song except for Luke's. Stay tuned in the next couple of weeks. But
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  yeah, so we've actually kind of lent into it really hard. We've done
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  a pile of vinyl that have been incorporated and included all of the actual colors
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  the EP and everyone's individual colors too, which is really really fun, really
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  cool. So yeah, I don't know if we're going to go doing it
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  forward because I feel like we've put all of the effort into the individual into
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  this EP. But going forward, I reckon we can now that we know
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  where everyone can sit, we can really collaborate and create even better us going
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  forward together. Yeah, well that brother, So back to the chore,
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  like, yeah, we doing the writer shows with Triple Kills, so White
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  choose them as storing partners. They are truly the most beautiful people in the
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  world. They're just incredible. They're very, very awesome, awesome competent musicians.
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  They put on such an excellent, great fun rock metal abused live show.
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  Example, they played just on Saturday in Melbourne. We're supporting Night Flight
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  Orchestra and for anyone at home who don't know who Night Flight Orchestra are,
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  they're Beyond Strids or Soil Works and side project where they wrote abba inspired rock
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  music and touring that around with just as much glamor as you'd expect from the
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  Swedes, like truly truly a dance miracle to witness, and Triple Hill were
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  on that level too. So if they're pulling out the stops to be on
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  just as high of a playing field as say, Night Flight Orchestra. Then
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  why wouldn't we want a tour with them. We've got the metal, like
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  the heavier metal energy with the breakdowns. They've got the breakdowns of the heavier
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  metal energy two. But we're both really about the smiles about it. Other
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  metal bands out there at the moment will be like, here's how top we
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  are. Here's here's our muscles, here's our tats. Here's like here's our
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  show of force, here's our gutta rules. We kind of take we kind
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  of put a spin on that and go, let's have some fun. Let's
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  have a dance. Here's a breakdown shore, but high five your neighbor,
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  Like, let's let's smiler about this a bit more. Yeah. So I
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  feel like we compliment each other really well. And we toured with them back
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  in twenty twenty one a little bit. We were meant to do and Os
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  tour, but it got cut down to Joe Victoria because restrictions. So ever,
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  since that Mini too it, we're like, no, no, we
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  have to do this properly. We'll put it down the road, but we
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  have to do this properly, so we're finally finally able to do it properly
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  again, and we honestly you'll just can't wait. Would be fine. We're
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  starting three new Spotify playlists through heavy so using songs of your own. Give
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  us one for the playlist that is should revue up to party, one for
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  the playlist that will save your marriage maybe after the party, and one for
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  the playlists that could potentially end your marriage. Oh okay, but one for
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  the party. I reckon should be the I reckon it should be within these
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  walls. The first song off Our Portraits EP, the one to save your
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  marriage, is the one I wrote about my marriage, which it's a bit
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  of a love song, like it's you two running up into the distance together
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  and realizing all the struggles are out there and not internally called edge of forever.
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  So I recommend that one and the one to break up your marriage,
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  Oh let's go, Let's go with Luke. Song exists to observe just because
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  as soon as you start hearing go On sing, you're gonna want to break
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  up with your partner immediately and and go find that beautiful bald Swedish man and
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  bed him forever. That's what's going to happen. You watch well, I
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  might leave that chill chill, I buy myself to listen to that one.
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  Then oh yeah it trust me, you're in for a treat. And as
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  mentioned where in the final stages of working on a music video for this for
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  that song too, So there's going to be a bit more you know,
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  flair and funness to coming out on the socials with that one within the next
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  couple of weeks. So keep your eyes peeled. Yep, fair well,
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  thanks very much for you try. The Riff and Raw or Riff and Draw
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  kicks off on August twenty fifth in Ballarat, goes through Gold Coast, Brisbane,
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  Camera, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and then in the new one now
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  in and mil Jura. Yeah. I don't know if we're calling it part
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  of the festival, but it's like it's like a week or two later after
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  Perth and anyone who in mil Drew who's missing out will come see you two.
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  So don't you worry, lots. I'll make it to either the Bruce
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  or the gold Coat show. We'll have a beer and oh man, I
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  can't wait. Thank you very much, my dude. All right, so's
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  brother, have a good night, go knock off now bro, catch you
• 16:48
  later, yeah,