The vocalist of one of Australia’s oldest and most respected heavy metal acts talks about Dreadnaught’s extensive career, their new album Caught The Vultures Sleeping, the state of the Australian heavy music scene and the virtues of Thin Lizzy.
What keeps you going after nearly 25 years of being in a band, touring and making music?
“We’re still very passionate about what we do. Like a lot of people who do things for a lifetime, we’ve in it for the long haul, and for a good reason, and that’s because we’re passionate about making music, and making music for Dreadnaught as a creative outlet.
“Dreadnaught offers us a lot of creative freedom—not that we haven’t had a lot of creative freedom, when we’ve all done lots of different pieces and small parts over the years, or even currently; we do have outside musical interests as well—but the main focus has always been Dreadnaught, and I think the motivation has always been there. It’s something that we just do now. Rather than something that we have to do, it’s something that we want to do.
Our motivation is ourselves. We still rehearse a couple of times a week. The band doesn’t stop; everyday there’s something to do. It’s more than just getting in a room and bashing out some songs.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imHTkikPSco]
What was the Australian heavy music scene like when Dreadnaught first formed back in the early ‘90s; and were there any bands or experiences in particular that inspired you to start the band you were still going to be in twenty-five years later?
“For me personally, it was all the music I enjoyed while growing up. I took a lot of inspiration from Thin Lizzy’s Live & Dangerous. Metal back then was so…just, metal! You didn’t sell out; you didn’t do all this shit.
“It always got me how [Thin Lizzy] could do something like ‘Massacre’, which has got to be one of the heaviest songs ever written; and then turn-around on the next track and play ‘Still In Love With You, which is quite simply one of the most beautiful ballads ever written, as well.
“They didn’t play by the rules, and I’d like to think Dreadnaught are very much the same—covering the whole scope of heavy music, from the slower stuff, to the more mellow, to the long-winded and the slow and sludgy, to the extremely fast.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEboNNkSTew]
Dreadnaught covered Thin Lizzy’s “Cold Sweat” on their 2001 EP One Piece Missing
Caught The Vultures Sleeping, has a couple of ballads as well as some heavier stuff than ever Dreadnaught have done before; did you have any specific ideas about what you wanted to do going into writing and recording this new album?
“One of the things on the new album are the seven-string guitars that we’ve used for the first time, which has definitely given us a different tone on the heavier material.
“We always try to achieve the best song [when we write and record]—all of us have got to be happy with what’s going on. We don’t just stick to our own instruments. Our guitarists, Richie [Poate] and Damon [Alcock] don’t just come up with some riffs. We all suggest things; like ‘perhaps play that there,’ or sometimes the guys will say ‘this needs more there’ or sometimes even ‘this needs less’.
“When we’re working on new material, we’re not just thinking about ourselves. We’re thinking about the common goal of achieving a good song. We always take time out to write. When we were doing Down To Zero (2005), we spent two-or-three weeks straight, just day-in day-out, just getting the songs right.
“We do a lot of quiet sessions—not just getting in there and bashing everything out and not being able to hear or take notice of the subtleties in songs. When everything’s turned up you can get away with things and think ‘oh, that’s alright;’ but when you strip it right back and just sit there with a metronome on, you can really get into the subtleties of a song. Also, we’re very big on tempos … We might play to a click-track, but that tempo’s got to be correct, and it’s got to feel right.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSnzQB0QGVM]
Do you have a favorite song from the older Dreadnaught material?
“I’m a bit partial to ‘The Gobbler’. It’s a song that’s nearly twenty years old now, but I think that when we wrote that song we kind of turned a corner in where we were heading. It’s only just over three-minutes long but those three-minutes taught us something different about how we could approach songs—that they don’t need to be just verse-chorus, they don’t need to have a solo in the middle or anything like that.
“It’s just a song that begins and then pushes to the end, and I think that’s something that we discovered years ago; that songs need to move where they move. So I think song started a good ball rolling for us, as far as knowing where we needed to take a song when we’re working on it.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPa0VLZbt8M]
It’s been seven years since your last album, have you noticed any changes in the Australian heavy music scene since then?
“Definitely. There’s a lot more bands—a lot more bands—and there’s a lot more bands doing really well, and taking Australian heavy metal to the rest of the world. Bands like Mortal Sin and Hobb’s Angel Of Death really paved the way back in the ‘80s and those bands are still revered overseas, and I think today there’s even more music being made and there’s still plenty of venues willing to have gigs on, which is a really good thing.
At this stage in your career, is it still one of your aims to have an impact overseas, or are you focused more on the local scene?
“It’s definitely part of [our aim] to have a global audience. We’ve had albums released in America, and we’ve had them released in japan and we’ve been to Japan to tour, as well as some European distribution, and because we haven’t done anything for so long, this album will be geared up to do that [as well].
In the pre-internet age, we were still able to get distribution in other countries, so it’s definitely something that’s on the cards for this album, and we definitely won’t be waiting for so long to put out anything new. We’re not getting any younger, so it definitely won’t be another seven years before we put anything else out, that’s for sure.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACnNrKUwzdA]
Are there any newer bands, or just bands in particular, who are around at the moment that you’ve played with or heard that you think people should be checking out?
“We’re heading up right now to Ballarat to play with Wildeornes. They’re a great band—they’ve got a couple of our guys in them: Damo and Richy—and they’re just excellent. The only way you can describe them is just that they’re a real heavy metal band; that’s what they do.
“I’m more than proud of bands I know like Truth Corroded, King Parrot and Desecrator, who are touring overseas and doing really well. We’ve known all those guys for a lifetime basically, and I couldn’t be more proud of them for taking their music to the world.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ankXzw5CL-4]
Australian fans can catch Dreadnaught on their current tour around the country, where they’ll be playing their new album, along with a couple of “old favourites.”
Caught The Vultures Sleeping is out now, and can be ordered internationally through nervegas.com.au.
