EMQ’s with AVALANCHE
Hi Everyone. Welcome to our new EMQ’s interview with Sydney, Australia Hard Rock band Avalanche. Huge thanks to them for taking part!
What is your name, what do you play and can you tell us a little bit about the history of the band?
Hey my name’s Steven Campbell, I’m the lead singer and bass player of Avalanche. We also have Veronica ‘V’ Taleski on lead guitar, Ryan Roma on drums and Arthur Divis on rhythm guitar. We formed at the start of 2018, Veronica and Ryan had been playing together for a while, I joined the band as a vocalist, then we went through a whole mess of rhythm guitarists and bass players before I just ended up playing bass, and now we’ve just started gigging with Arthur on rhythm guitar as well.
We’ve been playing the local pubs and music venues here in Sydney and a bit out of town as well, and spending time between gigs and our 9-5 jobs in the studio recording for our debut EP “Sent From Hell”. It’s just been released, and we’re really proud of the end product, we’ve got a pretty good response so far and hope it only grows from here.
How did you come up with your band name?
My dad, Adrian Campbell was actually in a band called Avalanche in the 70’s and the 80’s, they used to belong to the same management company as AC/DC, they have even played with them before and some other major bands at that time, we thought it was an awesome sounding name and wanted to keep the rock and roll family tradition going so after going through a lot of other names, we decided to name our band Avalanche.
What country are you from and what is the metal scene like there?
We’re from Sydney Australia, it’s pretty weird here because on the one hand, there are so many great rock, metal and punk bands coming out of Sydney and Australia at the moment, but at the same time there’s a pretty shit climate of live music here, we have lock out laws and noise restrictions, pretty much nowhere is open after 12/1am and a lot of places constantly shut down over noise complaints, or toss out live bands in favour of DJ’s. The places that are still running tho are doing a great job, there’s still some good venues around and it is a lot better in other cities and states that we’ve been too as well. But yeah, regardless the musicians and the fans here are fantastic, we’ve played with both older and younger bands and have built up a friendship with so many of them and after a while you find that everybody kinda knows each other, it does kinda feel you’re part of one big community, some of the more established bands will really take you in and help you out and play a lot of shows with you … if you’re not shit of course.
What is your latest release? (Album, EP, Single or Video)
We just released our debut Double EP “Sent From Hell”.It’s a wild and raw rock n’ rock record about sin, sex and good times. It’s a mix of 4 studio recordings, including our 2 single releases, and 4 live recordings taken from one of our gigs in December. It’s fast and it’s LOUD!
Who have been your greatest influences?
As a band, it’s definitely 70’s/80’s Aussie rock bands like AC/DC, Rose Tattoo, the Angels, Stevie Wright, the Easybeats, and my dad’s band Avalanche. We’re also inspired by all the big rock and metal bands like Guns n Roses, Led Zep, Metallica, Sabbath, Motörhead, as well as the Rolling Stones, The Who, Chuck Berry, and we also have a lot of blues influences as well.
What first got you into music?
Steven: Well I guess it’s pretty obviously my dad, who was in bands in the 80’s as a singer and my mum would always play that kind of music for us growing up around the house and in the car but I didn’t really think about pursuing it until I was about 13ish. My best friend and I started a little duo just with me singing and him playing guitar, all we played was cover songs of Tenacious D. Anyway ever since then, I just kept going and going until somehow I managed to end up in this band. I think for Veronica and Ryan the answer would be AC/DC haha.
Ryan: Hearing my mum playing AC/DC Live At Donnington around the house when I was younger, for some reason after that all I just wanted to do was play drums.
Veronica: My dad bought a cheap-ass guitar for my Brother, he barely touched it so I started playing it. And then when I was 16 I saw AC/DC live on the Rock or Bust tour and from that moment I never wanted to do anything other than just play the guitar. I went out and bought a shitty second hand Epiphone SG from a police auction because I wanted to be just like Angus, figured if I could learn to play half as good as him and Malcolm then I would have accomplished something with my life.
Arthur: Hard to pin point, but probably as a kid hearing Mum and dad listening to gunners in the car and around the house got me to first pick up a guitar. And yeah, can’t imagine not playing now really.
If you could collaborate with a current band or musician who would it be?
We’d love to do something with Airbourne, we think they’re awesome, another great Aussie rock band.
If you could play any festival in the world, which would you choose and why?
We recently attended Download in Sydney and man it was a wild experience. So many people, big bands, drinks what more could you ask for, I think it’s ambitious but man it would be cool to play that festival. There’s so many great rock and metal festival’s in the UK as well, we’d be happy to play any one of them.
What’s the weirdest gift you have ever received from a fan?
At one of our first ever shows I actually got asked to sign a girls tits, don’t know if that really fits in the gift category but it took us by surprise.
If you had one message for your fans, what would it be?
Stay off drugs.
If you could bring one rock star back from the dead, who would it be?
Seeing as how they are still making music it would be so awesome to have Malcolm Young back, recording with AC/DC again for their new album and touring. That would be one hell of a show to see.
What do you enjoy the most about being a musician? And what do you hate?
The only good thing about being a musician is playing music and if it wasn’t for that, no one would do it in my opinion. It’s a vast wasteland of an industry with lots of empty promises and ‘get rich quick’ schemes but at the really deep end of it, it all comes down to just wanting to make something that sounds good, something you yourself enjoy, and there’s a lot of stuff you have to put up with if you just want to do that.
If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?
The big companies should pay musicians what they deserve for streams and downloads, none of this $0.0006 a stream bullshit, and they shouldn’t take cuts of the royalties either.
Name one of your all-time favourite albums?
Steven: I think if “Master Of Puppets” hadn’t been made I’d probably not be playing music today.
Arthur: Hands down, “Appetite For Destruction”.
Ryan: “Let There Be Rock” – AC/DC.
Veronica: “Let there Be Rock: Live in Paris”, the soundtrack album to the movie, that was the start of my obsession with AC/DC and the guitar.
What’s best? Vinyl, Cassettes, CD’s or Downloads?
They all have their place. There is something about putting on a vinyl tho and just listening without any distractions, maybe just staring at the cover art, same for CD’s too. Having a physical thing, especially if it’s your favourite band can feel pretty special, but of course streaming and downloading is more of an everyday thing cos you can do it anywhere.
What’s the best gig that you have played to date?
We played a really good gig down at Kelly’s on King in Newtown a couple weeks back and I don’t know if it was necessarily the ‘best’ gig but I found it the most enjoyable so far. It was a Tuesday night and it had been raining so we went there with very little expectations but when we started playing people from downstairs and outside all came in and we blew them away which was good cause we’d been told to play there to see if we were good enough for a Friday night slot and they asked us back straight away.
If you weren’t a musician, what else would you be doing?
Anything that pays the bills so I can keep being a musician.
Which five people would you invite to a dinner party?
Arthur, Veronica, Ryan, Angus Young and Ozzy Osbourne.
What’s next for the band?
We’ll be gigging non-stop all over Sydney and maybe a bit out of town as well over the next few months to promote the EP, we’re already booked out until the end of July and are constantly booking more shows and working as hard as possible to make em our best shows yet. We’re working very hard with several promotion companies and advertisers as well to just push this EP as far as it can go. Veronica just bought a beautiful new Gibson SG as well, she has 2 now, as well as a Marshall JCM2000 stack that she got last year that she can wait to play the shit out of live. Arthur had to buy a stack as well just to compete with her! So if you’re in Sydney anytime soon, be sure to come along!
What Social Media/Website links do you use to get your music out to people?
You can also listen to the EP across Spotify, SoundCloud and all other streaming platforms and pick up a copy from our Bandcamp, iTunes or Google Play:
https://avalanche2018.bandcamp.com/album/sent-from-hell
https://open.spotify.com/artist/0wF07k0n3MbeOnbLVMXG6X
https://soundcloud.com/avalanche2018official/sets/sent-from-hell-1
https://play.google.com/store/music/album/Avalanche_Sent_From_Hell?id=Bur5c77z2kuqbxhe4cv4y23pikq
We’ll also be selling cd’s and other merch at our shows, and will soon be selling from our Facebook as well. We also have shit tons of live videos and a music video up on our Facebook so be sure to check it out! We hope you’ll enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it!
https://www.facebook.com/Avalanche2018Official/
Jaffa Cakes? Are they a cake or a biscuit?
They’re cakes but they’re just in the shape of biscuits, like a cake you can dunk in milk. Kinda making me hungry now.
Thank you for your time. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
Thanks heaps for having us, cheers and keep things balls deep!
-Avalanche
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