Voyager Headline Steel Assasins
Headlining Metal Evilution’s Steel Assassins; the two day barbarian raid of the Sandringham Hotel this November is Perth’s progressive tusked marauders Voyager. The bands notoriety for its energetic live performances has captured audiences worldwide and continues to rise due to the bands innovation and element of sincerity. Metal As Fuck caught up with vocalist Danny Estrin recently to discuss the bands return to the east coast, warm fuzzies and their mission for Steel Assassins.
Voyager has established a worldwide cult following, how do you feel about that? “Pretty good [Laughs] pretty cool, I mean it doesn’t pay the bills yet but yeah we’ll take it”. I have read that the band has been hailed as one of the most original and daring groups on the planet – whence comes this originality? What gives Voyager their edge? “We don’t set out for a specific style; there are so many elements and traits that give it its edge. Some bands just market to the one straight genre you know, there is so much variety to choose from and you think to yourself ‘what are they doing’ we are climbing the ladder because the music of Voyager is accredited to a various use of styles”.
Now you are a German born Australian? “Yes, I moved here in 1992, I was eleven years old”. Has the band ever thought of relocating to Europe at any stage of your careers? You seem to always be over there. “Yeah, I like Europe a lot, I love Australia too, our location, it’s difficult; just being in Perth and trying to organise an east coast tour of Australia can take a lot of work and money. The last large scale Australian tour was with Children of Bodom [2011] it worked well, we were all on a tour bus so you get more out of it. But that’s just the thing, we can’t simply say to ourselves ‘yeah let’s do a show in Melbourne or Sydney’ it’s always a huge deal. I think at this time we just need to suss what’s viable really, I could see it happening”.
Describe the personalities of the band members; I caught the Voyager show in Sydney last year with Children of Bodom, you all have such a dominating stance on stage. “Despite the fact that we play introspective and dark tunes, we are actually all pretty happy [Laughs] a lot of people watching the show don’t really expect it to be so uplifting, a lot of people say to us ‘you can’t smile while playing metal’ that’s bullshit! The band, the fans, you get bored way too early, you have to get into it with the audience, it’s so important. We like to muck around, we don’t take ourselves too seriously even though the music is serious, our last tour through the States was really intense yet we were all still warm and fuzzy with each other [Laughs] So I think we all pretty much display a really enthusiastic attitude on stage, we’re having a blast and everyone feeds off that really”.
The latest album; Meaning of I has had a whirlwind of success worldwide, what contributed to the success of this album? “Foremost the change of label, our latest is Sensory Records; they are a gun of a label. Before them we had underwent some bad experiences. Sensory have been really good to us, total professionals and have definitely attributed to getting us to that next level. The sound quality in the latest album is also far superior to the previous album. These are the basic fundamentals for having a successful album, we have been very fortunate”. And in terms of the style of music, you yourself possess fundamental knowledge of both classical and neo classical music. Do you feel this style will mark itself in the music of Voyager at any stage? “I think the first two albums for Voyager were more power metal with some neo classical, we have sort of given that chapter a tick. I hope it to still have some of the elements of the classical styles; it was the music I was raised on”.
What are the lyrical themes you like to attack in the music? “Feelings and emotions…. Wankery [Laughs] the newer stuff for Voyager, I like to include themes people can relate to, the observation of society and concepts in common day life, and its how I’ve always written. Wizards and dragons don’t do it for me”.
What will the hoards of Steel Assassins be expecting from Voyager come November? “Well I think people know by now that they will get a very cool and interesting live show whether they like it or not [Laughs] I can remember how tough the crowds were at the Children of Bodom gig last year, we thought to ourselves ‘we are going to have to work hard’ the response was positive though”. Is this the reason for the medley? [Laughs] “Yeah, that is very important, we like to play it, it’s a way of connecting with the audience, loosen some of the sobriety. So we always attempt to give an interesting and fun show, Steel Assassins will be a testament to this”.
