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The Eye Of The Storm With AGE OF EMERGENCE · HEAVY Music Interviews

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On day. I'm based in vocals, Adam drums and Matt guitar and a
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little bit of backing vocals. Guys from the band Age of Emergence. Thanks
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for joining us this evening on this morning today. Hello, Yeah, so
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age you have emerged. It's recently released your new EP, That All Seeing
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I Part One, So I know it hasn't been out that long, but
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how's the earlier response been. Yeah, we've got a massive amount of views,
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but yeah, no one's said anything negative so far, so yeah,
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it's been pretty positive. Like most people seem to think it's better than or
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better or just as good as stuff we've done previously, So that's a positive
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thing. I guess done as well. So that's also good to know that
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the efforts at least being I don't know, it's the efforts being appreciated that
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we put in, so that's always a good thing. And the sounds and
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what we're chasing, Yeah, we use we use more of the like the
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so I guess the current modern recording methods with this, Yeah, all the
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plugins and stuff like that, I guess which probably Yeah, I can see
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why all the bands are using it now is it's it's amazing. It's like
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night and day, so I think compared to trying to get good sounds out
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of vamps and stuff like, we used to spend hours trying to dial in
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a guitar tat and something and realizing it's still still needs work or something,
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and time you can just press the button I want, goge you'r a tone
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or something and bang there It is sort of thing and amazing, isn't it?
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The time consuming parts of the city on the drum recording, But that's
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there's not really much you can do about that because a lot of the mini
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plugins for drums just aren't up the standard as one a real drum kids.
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So at least these guys can get their instruments done quickly and it takes to
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do an extra time. We've set up tone chasing and whatever. At least
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so I know it's my authentic sounds. So yeah, pretty true. I'll
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tell us a bit more about EP from a musical point of for you guys,
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and what are you're going for with it? Oh? I guess it's
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more of a conscious effort to try and because we've obviously been trying to create
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our own unique sort of sound. Oh, it's not unique, you knowque
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not reinventing the wheel or anything, but we've always tried to. I've had
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a sort of sound I guess that I've been going for for a long time.
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And I think this time I really obviously a lot of people had a
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lot of time to sit at home and think about stuff during all the pandemic
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lockdowns and stuff like that, and that's when I started to really just I
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just, I guess, rite in a more sort of pedemic sort of way,
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like and rewrite a lot of stuff that I probably previously wouldn't have.
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They didn't rewrite some of the stuff on the last dpiece so much, and
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man, Matt sort of just like tweaked ideas a bit more into it and
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just try and make it, you know, perfect as far as what we're
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going for, not perfect as in actually perfect, but perfect is in getting
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close. I still didn't. We still haven't really got the exactly what we're
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going for. I think we're getting closer each each sort of group of songs
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we're doing. Now, I think to the to the overall sound and I
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really want to get to I guess the end of the road or whatever it
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is. And very cool now the old thing, and I has only got
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four tracks on it, guys, So I want to run through each of
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them individually and tell us a bit more about the song and what it's about.
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So we'll start with the All Seeing Eye YEP titles kind of explanatory.
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Really, do you mean the lyrically or just I just got about the musical
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composition of it lyrically. Just just give us a bit of a rundown on
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the song itself and where it f it's I suppose with the EP it was
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written on the Actually Dean plays Dean's a guitarists originally, Yeah, I actually
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I write a lot of songs on guitar and so and then me and Matt
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sort of combining guitar ideas, and then I sort of write bass lines like
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after that sometimes or sometimes I write a song on bass verse, but it's
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usually starts with an acoustic guitar and then then it goes to electric guitars and
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then then the bass and drums come in, I guess, But this one
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there, this one's definitely more of a I guess, more seventies inspired.
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I'm a big fan of like obviously Zeppelin, Sabbath, Purple Pink, Floyd
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and all that sort of stuff. So I get it's a tribute to those
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type of bands. In a way, it's like our version of poor Man's
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version of steweight Heaven or something going for maybe, I don't know. Songs
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were ly written by well, largely written before I even started putting drums to
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them, so I had I followed their structure and I just added added in
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the background stuff and applied my style to what they were doing. And well,
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obviously they liked it, otherwise they wouldn't be sitting here. Always a
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heavy influence in most of the songs, but we still love all came juicy
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influence as well, but we so we're just trying to combine what we enjoy
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ourselves and hopefully I think you know that. You know that with a review
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that we're overall. I guess we're basically a hard rock band essentially with metal
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with a metal influence. I guess. Wait, all right, we'll move
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on the second track, Futility. That's probably my favorite one to play like.
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It was something that but we had ideas four ages ago and we gave
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them up on it and then we just Dana and I stuffed around with it
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and he shed once and said he actually, we'll add a couple more risks
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to it, and just yeah, we've had ideas for ages, and that
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one's just it seems to flow better now, so we thought, yeah,
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we'll definitely, it's definitely something we hope, we hope we'll try and get
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people headbanged a bit more, just try and make it a bit more sort
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of upbeat, faster paced, and a bit more crowd pleasing style, I
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guess for that for that sort of things what we're going for, like australierheads
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that are more banger start of style, and some of our some of our
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previous songs were all sort of six minutes, I guess. So we did
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consciously write a few shorter songs this time on the on this one or whatever,
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and with that as well, like I tried, I tried a few
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different sort of things at the start of that, and I couldn't get anything
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to work, and I'm just like, well, why don't I just try
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a poor man's glass beat? And then I just gave that a crack and
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put that on. It just seemed to work, and I'm still working on
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getting it. So there's actually volume and projection behind it. When I'm playing
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live, but as it's recorded, it's kind of like, okay, well,
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there's least you can hear that heavy element coming in there to it.
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I know, George Klaias, I can't blast it two hundred and fifties three
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hundred bpm. No, I'm with you. Act it's like, I'm the
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least it's at least you can hear heaviness behind it, just with the the
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intent of what's being played more than anything else. We love our system of
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down to so when we first hearts influence from that too, I guess I
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when writing it, so I sort of I remember saying to Matt, I
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really, I really wanted a song that we haven't done, a song that's
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like like more of a tapping sort of high rifts, that sort of intro.
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Either a lot of our songs just start on the you know, the
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low d or lower down the heavy sort of registered. This is like conscious
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effort to try and have that sort of you know, those cool sort of
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A lot of bands have those cool intros with a high high register sort of
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note, like cool little parts coming in. Then the sort of then the
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band comes in with a heavy riffs sort of thing, and the first we're
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trying to emulate that of it with this sort of thing too. I guess,
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very cool. Okay, then you've got God's Can't Allow yeh. That's
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one of the film clips on tables. Like a lot of people that have
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listened to the even friends that live in a state whatever, it's good to
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hear the honesty and they reckon. That's one of the songs that close the
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best. I've just had people say that, and it's another song. We
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finished the set this live too, because it's just it's got to Yeah,
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that's why we did a film clip. I guess it was just because we
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did the film clip for we probably played it the most, like it's the
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tightest one as well, so we finished off the set on. Obviously it's
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obviously based around that. That intro riff is a big part of the vibe
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too, Like it's just kicking off with straight into that that roof at the
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start and then and then introducing the bridge roof and then going into the verse.
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I guess it's another attempt to write a shorter song as well and sort
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of make our ideas more concise and you know, relatable, try and try
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and build our fan base a bit more sort of thing, and the outro
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is really fun to play. It was Adams loves it and you said we
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should finish with that song. Yeah, good idea. It was hard work
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structuring now trying to go something. It's a Middle Eastern sort of vibe on
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that that guitar riff that I kind of like. I was like that,
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that that's sick. I like that. And then it was kind of because
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I'm obviously be dream theater thing I've heard, like the sort of prog influences
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in that, there's like it's mastered on in there as well. Yeah,
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a bit of master it on, a bit to go Dura, a bit
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of Opez sort of floating around in there. And it's like, okay,
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well, you know it's obviously because it flows, it's it's it's structurally.
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It makes a lot of sense. People understand it when you do it sort
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of that way, Like there's a lot of prog stuff that you hear that
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a lot of people are like, well, I have no idea what that
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is, so I'm going to just push that off to the side. This
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one. It's kind of like, okay, well, they kind of get
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it because it's structure properly. We used to be a destroyed it songs that
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went for ages and people and said that it's cool make more, and I
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think we're doing that and we enjoyed doing that, so yeah, that's what
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that is. One of the criticisms we've had with our earlier stuff is like
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that people wanted to sort of yeah, flow more and yeah, more more
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cohesy, if I guess that's what we consctably tried to do that for sure
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with this sort of stuff, right, and they'd be finishes with mind game.
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Yeah this is yeah, this is more of the This is more of
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our old sort of stuff, but we're still trying to make it concise.
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But it's you can see in my game that's more of the sort of I
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guess the structures we used to do is like crazy, a bit crazier like
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sort of structure wise and just the type of risk we throw together for that
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sort of stuff. But we we wrote it. I actually wrote a lot
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of the guitar for this time, but we scrapped it from ours. We'll
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searching for the verse and we come up with its pretty pretty poor timing.
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And yeah, we we spent a lot of time working on mine game,
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like really riding parts and changing. We had a different chorus for a while,
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and I came up with a chorus for a fine day, just just
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I wanted something to groove a bit more for the chorus. Just the chorus
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is flat how he's originally rode it. I think we sort of we got
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the groove in there a bit more. This is what was sort of going
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for with all this whole ap really just try and make it bounce a bit
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more and overall so people can bang their head more more. Groove central actually
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three or six. Definitely four, but it can also be written a six.
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It's it still makes sense because it's kind of not that Waltz feel that,
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yeah, it's fun paying for it's just different prices. I added the
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three something the one who probably understands the climes and you stuff a little bit.
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They just throw something at me and I'm like, oh, okay,
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I can work that at that's seven or whatever, then buy it, whereas
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they kind of a lot of the time don't more. But I think there's
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that. I think I think there's more intelligence in not knowing what you're doing
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and just doing it by instinctive feel then mapping it out and then making it
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feel disjointed. Like you listen to a lot of the more modern PROC stuff,
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even by bands like Tessa Rakt, it kind of it feels too intelligent
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in a way. It's like this ms articulous to map this stuff out,
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and it loses that groove in some places. But with these guys, it's
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like it's just a natural thing and all I've got to do is just try
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and mock that in and make it feel right with people, which you know,
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it's I'm enjoying doing that anyway. So cool. Now, the part
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one of the titles suggested the CP is just the first chapter. Is that
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correct? Oh, yeah, we're definitely intending to do part two. Yeah,
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we've got some new stuff written, but I want to, well,
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we want to write some new, brand new ideas to chuck in there as
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well. I think, just sort of as long as we've got some.
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We were going to record an album just it was barely just the cost that
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we end up doing, we decided to split it into two parts just so
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we can stagger it a bit and sort of make it viable. We'll try
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and make it viable, I guess. So there'll be another four songs probably
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coming which will make you full that album, and then you kind of put
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two things together to have it as an album and hopefully hopefully the themes will
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tie together. But some of the stuff written sort of ties in pretty well.
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But there's a few idea concepts I want to try and bring in there
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to I guess bring a more positive vibe to close it out in to some
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extent too, instead of just being all big brothers trying to kill you and
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all this sort of stuff, and the system itself is collapsing under its own
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weight. Yeah, is there a timeframe by that is that this? Maybe
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you're probably probably probably next year. I'd say more realistically next year, because
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after we finished off for two, we'll probably start actually germ and jam and
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the songs and working out what we're doing for each one, and then once
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they're ready, we'll then plan a time Frank when we're going to record and
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release the next the next part, and then probably do more touring after that.
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We want to bring it out too that Adam hasn't really learned yet so
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first time that we still enjoyed playing, and I've got to go back to
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the catalog and brush up on what's needed. It's like I can see why
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with a lot of bands that have changed drummers like Slip not recently and Dream
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going back with Fortnoy and all that sort of stuff. It's like you've still
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got those songs that have been written and recorded with someone else that you still
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need to be able to play this for me finding time to go and listen
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to. Okay, we want we want to be doing and stay these four
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so we need to we need to get you along those ones. It's just
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they've got to give me a list and I've then got to go through and
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work out, workout, have a doll at you mentioned before. Guys like
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you're currently about halfway through a chord to promote the EP which start on April
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eighty the Newcastle. So how the show has been going, Yeah, looks
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were getting We're getting some we're getting some good, good feedback from the crowds
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awesome. Yeah, Paul Matt is wibably the biggest credit done so far.
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There's a great metal scene up there, Like those guys up there are lovely
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so Big Chot had to James Schaeffer, who was the host for that gig
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in conjunction with the Metal United down Under team. So that show was so
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well organized, well advertised, good crowd, good venue. Yeah, the
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other shows had the one on I side, Melbourne had a decent We had
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a decent crowd last night. There was that it was cold and wet.
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It's like, but Melbourne I think is one of the events, one of
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the places in Australia that had like you can walk four or five blocks and
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find another venue that's putting on, Like you've got to compete with everything else
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that's going on. But it's like people still, oh they might like certain
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venuine they'll go there to see what's what's there, So you get like the
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loyals of venues and it's obviously just trying to make sure that you're you're giving
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them a show that they're happy with today. Then they then don't go and
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find somewhere else. Canberra was all right, It was mostly the crowd was
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mostly there for the first two bands. They stuck around and checked out checked
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out US and US and Talison and big big shout of the Talison boys.
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Those guys are unreal. But yeah, before had healthier crowd there and then
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it was all and Gun's also like it's one of those places, sort of
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like Newcast that only has one or two venues where you can go to see
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live music, the other on being Dicey Riley's and they usually put on a
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lot of cover bands. But yeah, it's like that the people will keep
17:15
in these sort of regional centers. They want to be able to go out
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and see live music. It's just bringing it to them is sort of like
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the logistical problem. Alpha wol for one of the biggest bands currently in the
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country, and they they're playing places like Tamworth and it's like, okay,
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well they're going at least playing the regional centers and bringing heavy music to people
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all over the all over the country, the places that want to actually hear
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it, so you know it's by you. We like coming outside Newcastle because
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it's like you get to introduce other people to our music and also kind of
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bring music to people who may not have otherwise. It's good beating and just
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everyone as well out with the Carbon Black Boys seeing there's a cool there is
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a cool hard that that mister beginning last night, it's held together with band
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posters and it's like not what last's help made. Like the junk yard up
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in Newcastle, Like the Junkyard is one of those venues up there that's held
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together the same way, and they've got posters of bands and stuff from happened
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they just yeah yeah, and they're just spattering them all over the walls and
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you can feel the history when you walk in there. Same with the Wickham
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Park Hotel, same with the stagger Hunter, And it used to be the
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same with the Cambridge, Like you walk into the Cambridge a new Castle and
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you could feel the history of all the bands that had played there, from
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Silver Chair all the way through all the heaviest stuff that's come through town.
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And it's sort of disappointed for USh being from Newcastle seen on some of the
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Newcastle venue sort of shut shoding up. But it's when we travel around we
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see that that's happening everywhere anyway. It's like it's not just us, it's
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it's everywhere, which is a shame because music's the heartbeat in this country and
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has been for a long time, at least since the late sixties early seventies
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when AC DC and stuff were coming up, Like everyone wanted to go out
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and see a good, driving, hard rock band, isn't that Yeah,
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Now, a lot of people don't even want to leave their home. It's
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like all on Spotify, going out and spending ten dollars on a scoo and
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a lot of people that'll probably keep people at home as well. So I
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guess there's a lot of the shows we're doing this time we were actually supposed
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to do back in We were supposed to come to Melbourne in twenty twenty,
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like April twenty twenty sort of thing. So it's taken us four years to
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so that's still only our first show in Melbourne last night. Even though we've
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been we've been a band for well what nearly ten years, eight except eight
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nine years or something. This is the first time we've actually got our ship
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together to actually get to Melbourne, get to Brisbane, and so you can't
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expect to be to be a thousand people there. Obviously working our way up
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and we're trying to work out what sort of what sort of places biggas and
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what sort of places don't, and obviously I think we'll target the places in
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the future that where we're getting the best response. I suppose it's the most
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most sensible thing to do. Definitely go back to Port Quarry. We got
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this more two weeks. I think, isn't it first to June? Yeah,
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Lismore there, listen, Lisbo will be cool. Yeah, Lose is
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one of those again, it's one of them. Brisbane obviously, we've got
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Brisbane and Bunderburg will be cool. Say that actually like that. The tour
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does continue tonight. May the ad didn't Geelong before hit lis War and during
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the first he got Sydney on June the fifteen. We've got Brisbane too,
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is going to be good. I think it'll be a decent crack for that
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one. But we made it. We made a sort of conscious efforts to
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just make it a sort of all prog night. We haven't seen many.
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We haven't seen many. We haven't seen many progu nights lately. Obviously,
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there's you know, the the black metal death metal scene, the sludge doom
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scene is just going crazy at the moment. It's just the thing. Yes,
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we're sort of on the yeah death. You get a lot of bands
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like Diana's Murder around as well as Parkway Drive, but you don't get to
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see a lot of a lot of actual prog. Like, if you want
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to see prog, you've got to either come to Melbourne or go to Brisbane
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because Melbourne. There's two bands from Melbourne that are real good. It's Terror
21:48
Mays and Nighbor of the Scars, which are both from the opposite ends of
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like the sort of prog spectrum. NATO's more like Opeth, whereas Terra Mase
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is probably more like Dream Queen's right Bats Warning that sort of style. And
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then you're Caligulous Horse, which is sort of like just the heavy version of
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Pink Fluid. Almost Yeah, but we're still I noticed even last night with
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the Beans we haven't played before. They're definitely turning out and they're a bit
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more modern progue where we're still always going to have an old Sabbath influence as
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well. People Steel Bigger. I had a few young fellows last night,
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more into the naval courts come up and say yes still like some of the
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old schools chuck and a lot of bands using back in the tracks nowadays as
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well. And we haven't quite stopped. Well, we're always always a shed
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and you know how to we're always well, we used to jam in a
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previous drummer that had to retire from us, any shed, and that's just
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how we'd always know, like cranking everything up, and but you just run
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off other people how to chase that scene you're after. For the style,
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we're always going to have a certain we definitely be We've definitely been getting a
23:02
lot of cool ideas already from a couple of the programs we're playing with us.
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Things we should be doing with our sound that we're obviously going to incorporate
23:08
in the future before we sort of record again, and stuff like that,
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just like whether the sort of setups they're using and what gets the sound that
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the we're sort of they can see that we're going for, but we're not
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quite sort of getting in some respects live or whatever and tuning with the guitar
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suits team's voice. It's always done that way. It's also the other the
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other thing as well. With the last recording session. It's like a lot
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of bands are recording a different way to the to the ways of a lot
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of people were used were used to way back when, like a lot of
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studios moving away from the live jam aspect because it means if you need to
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correct something, it's very difficult to be able to do that when you've recorded
23:52
it live because you shift one thing to try and move it into time.
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Everything else is then that half beat out or whatever. So it's sort of
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like learning to record to a click and learning to do post production where or
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pre production where they're recording the guitar and the bass to a click. I
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go in with drums and I play with their tracks that are to a click,
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so that way, when they take the guitar and the bass out,
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the click is still there, the drums still there, and then you can
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line everything up. Stuf's perfect. I don't want to use a clip track
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personally. Drums are trying to make sure at least the double kicks are in
24:37
time. I'd like to be playing. That's for the future. You want
24:41
to if something happens, you know, someone might move away to work,
24:45
you can still send each other music. That's what people do it, yeah,
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because we still want to have that live aspect where you can rock up,
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play your songs with your eyes shut, because you still need to do
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that. And I don't know what you do way either. If we're going
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to jam it out, we may as well do it right. But it's
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like it's just really into Yeah. For the recording side, it's more like
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I wouldn't want to play life to a click track, because I think that
25:17
had just detracts from the live vibe. But if I'm recording something to a
25:21
click it's at least okay. Well, it's easy for the engineer. It
25:23
means that if we need to drop in drop out for a part, you
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can because you have to click there. You just go okay, bang straight
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way straight there with guitar back bass, like, you can just go okay,
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well this is the solo. We'll just drop you straight in where the
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solo is, give your four count drop in, record the solo, okay
25:41
next. In reality, well, when we were recorded this EP, the
25:45
studio engineer was sort of skeptical that we could sort of pull it off,
25:48
he thought, and he thought it be heaps of hard work and it just
25:51
all went really smoothly away without the click track, and he said we were
25:55
like, was it, Well, that were the amount we're off? You
25:59
can't tell basically if we are. Yeah. And I think that that's down
26:03
to how tight these guys are with each other, as well as just how
26:07
much I practice, because I do practice on my own tool. Just I
26:11
don't like playing into one because it's like I didn't feel like I'm playing I
26:15
feel like the term of my change is life. But it's also like a
26:18
feel more rigid in what I have to do at that point, like if
26:21
I want to try, if I want to try like fancy Phil and I
26:22
want to go slightly off a slight different media or or modulate the field little
26:30
bit. The click kind of throws me out because I'm not really practiced doing
26:34
that sort of stuff, and it's so I can do it, I just
26:37
can't do it to a click. So like I practice like rudiments and just
26:41
being able to play generally in time with myself. That way, when I
26:45
go and play on stage, I'm like, at least I know I'm in
26:48
time with myself and these guys getting lock in and feel comfortable that it's all.
26:52
It's at least going to sound locked in, and that's you know,
26:56
when it's sounding like one guy's out or whatever. And if you start playing
27:03
life to click tracks, that can kind you can kind of get that someone
27:04
might be very good at doing it, someone may not be, and then
27:10
you get it just throws you out too much. Ruddy guys. Well,
27:14
thanks very much for your time today. It's been a pleasure to speak with
27:17
you. The EP the All Seeing I Part one is out now you guys
27:21
have got to show in Gee Long tonight. You got to live, didn't
27:23
he Brisbane? Butderburg coming up, So if you live in any of those
27:26
towns, go and support the boys. Thanks for your support, Thanks very
27:30
much for shutting to us.