AIRBORNE
DO YOU LIKE PLAYING ON SMALL STAGES?
AIRBOURNE: We play at clubs every now and again, except because of restrictions and stuff like that. I haven’t done a 300 to 500 person event in a while; as it is harder to play with all our gear in a small space. When you get to the gig and play it is hard as the gear is right in your face.
WHO IS YOUR BIGGEST INFLUENCE IN MUSIC?
AIRBOURNE: Well he’s a big fan of Malcolm Young. In Melbourne Cherry bar use to do a few gigs AC/DC nights or boxed off nights. Malcolm would just come out of nowhere, AC/DC would pump to the wall and you know and he’s always been a big fan ever since. Our love for Rose Tattoo, AC/DC and The Angels so he has naturally got that right hand for the job.
IS IT AN HONOUR TO PLAY WITH DEEP PURPLE?
AIRBOURNE: Absolutely we pulled in last night, rolled in on the bus stop and Deep Purple was playing. That was cool, as I have been a Deep Purple fan for a while now.
HOW ARE THE NEW SONGS GOING?
AIRBOURNE: They are going great; we always got the circle pits going. It's really good that our fans are singing all the words we wrote. We also sing a song for Lemmy its ‘All For Rock And Roll’, when we say this one is for Lemmey we have the shirts going up in the air and they chant for him, it's great.
IN 20 YEARS HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE REMEMBERED?
AIRBOURNE: We would like to be remembered as a band that always had a good time playing Rock and Roll. We try and bring good live music and good vibe to the stage that is what we are about.
ARE YOU GOING TO CLIMB THE STAGE TODAY?
AIRBOURNE: Well, we did at Rock and Ring. We will see have to get down there and have a look, if they have wrapped around the front of it. If I climb up you might not see me, so we have another idea. I still climb at gigs, I never say never and I have to go and touch some wood now because we are talking about it.
WHAT ARE THE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU THE MOST IN YOUR EARLY YEARS?
No one turning up to the gigs, it's always a bit shit if that happens. We come from Australia and it has the world's most deadly spiders and snakes. We are surrounded by sharks when you go swimming. You could die if you put your shoes on and there is a spider in it, if it bites you, you will die. We go in the back yard, and if the snake bites you and you die. We come from Australia a lot of scary things.
WHAT IS THE BEST THING WHEN YOU PLAY MUSIC?
AIRBOURNE: The crowd, we love walking out there and there and seeing a sea of people. When you see them holding up metal horns it makes you feel so good.
WHAT'S THE CONCEPT BEHIND THE LAST ALBUM COVER?
AIRBOURNE: Well it’s pretty literal, the single from the album was ‘Breaking Outta Hell’ and Joel was drawn on the album cover, except we drew him in a more skeletal way. It is supposed to be a version of ‘Breaking Outta Hell, and all Joel’s skin is burnt off, or something like that.
The meaning behind the new tour art work, with the bomb is when a bomb drops it is coming out of hell is and breaking out of hell no matter what. You give it everything you got kind of the way we play shows you give it everything you got.
HOW WAS THE SHOW LAST YEAR AND WHAT DO YOU THINK THE SHOW WILL BE LIKE THIS YEAR?
AIRBOURNE: Well last year we had 40-45 minutes and now we have 70 minutes, we will go start to finish nonstop. Go hell for leather, so we are going to go give it everything we got.
YOU ARE ALWAYS CRACKING OPEN BEER CANS OPEN ON YOUR HEAD, WHY?
AIRBOURNE: I use to do it with my wrist and one day I split the vain and blood was coming out. I thought to myself, I can't do this again. So I thought I would use my head, because let’s be honest there’s not much up here anyway so it’s not really doing damage.
ARE YOU PLAYING MUSIC ONLY FROM THE LAST ALBUM TONIGHT?
AIRBOURNE: We have a bit of a mix of stuff, from the albums we are doing a few songs off this last record we will do quite a few of those because that’s the album tour. We are still going to give you that heart scene, you know we are ten years down the road now.
ARE YOU GOING TO RELEASE A DVD?
AIRBOURNE: One day, we are accruing some footage, that is the plan. We want to give you the most epic live concert, with this new technology of film with 360 degree camera's and all this sort of stuff so we are trying to figure out the best way to give it to you.
WOULD YOU SAY THESE DAYS IMAGE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE MUSIC ITS SELF?
AIRBOURNE: Never, look at us. I just got out of the shower, play hard play loud.
WHAT IS YOUR DAILY ROUTINE?
AIRBOURNE: Wake up hung over. Hope I don't have food poisoning like some of us today, Ryan has food poisoning from last night. We normally find catering, have lunch, get ready to play the show and sometimes go down to the stage to look around. We also see what is going on half way through the show and start drinking, we drink after the show and the cycle starts again.
WHY DID YOU CHOOSE TO MAKE A NEW RECORD?
AIRBOURNE: We love touring, we love to record, we love to rock and if you have a new album you get to come back to awesome festivals like Hellfest.
DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEAS FOR THE NEW ALBUM?
We have a few riffs kicking around we have already started working on new things no actual concept yet just a few tough riffs I have some on my phone I could plug in we have a few things
DO YOU THINK AC/DC IS DEAD OR NOT?
Never AC/DC will be forever.
HOW ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE BAND?
Who knows Brian Johnson got up on stage recently with Robert Payne and Paul Rodgers so he’s out there singing never say never with AC/DC. They say let’s do rock or bust then Phil Rudd can’t make a tour and Angus says ‘fuck it’ we are going on tour. We will get Chris Slade or Brian Johnson back. Axel Rose, the only way to get him on stage on time is to break his legs and he’s like the guy you can't move put him in a chair. AC/DC is never say never say die.
WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO OTHER BANDS?
Do what you love, play what you love, play all the time and play everywhere. Take any gig you can, drive anywhere there is no bar far enough to drive, there is no place to small to play just get out there and play. When someone says you need to cut your hair man, you need to shine your teeth, you need to sound like nickel back or something, you are like fuck off man we play rock and roll and that’s what we do stick to your gun's.
WHAT DO YOU MISS FROM WHEN YOU WEREN'T FAMOUS?
Nothing has changed, we don't think we are famous. We are sitting here talking we are the same. We use to work at a pub before we moved to Melbourne and got the band going.
DO YOU PLAN TO MAKE A MOVIE?
Like real life spinal tap or something like that. We have a documentary about the band that's about to come out soon, it's a small one not a big one.
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE METAL SCENE IN AUSTRALIA?
It's very hard these days as a lot of the venues have been knocked down. If you play a 200 capped venue and then there’s no jump in spot. The problem is the venues go from 200 to 400 and then they go thousands. When they knock down venues they take away the 400 person venues for noise complaints, the government says your venue is ‘too loud’ and ‘we are closing this joint down’. Then they build apartment blocks so it’s really hard and our government and our Australian government does nothing for Rock and Roll. So if you want to send something from France to our Prime Minster send him a little envelope saying from France, we love your band's give them some heart get them over here.
WHAT'S THE BEST PLACE IN AUSTRALIA TO PLAY?
The Bendigo Hotel, we are good friends with a band called ‘Desecrate’, check them out. They have toured over here a few times, but it's very expensive to tour from Australia to overseas because it costs so much.
HOW DO YOU FEEL HERE AT HELLFEST?
It feels like coming home, with any show in France. They sing all the words they can sign the guitar riffs and today we are going to walk out there. We have an army here, French Rock and Roll resistance it’s so good we love it.