Airbourne

Interview date

22 Novembre 2013

Interviewer

fimbultyr

I N T E R V I E W

Interview David Roads (face to face)


Thank you for according an interview for auxportesdumetal.com. First, how did you choose the name of the band?

Jon and Ryan came up with the name of the band, quite a long time ago. It would be better to ask them the question… Airbourne is a simple name, easy name to remember, kind of a fun name I guess. We threw a few names around, bur Airbourne was the catchiest, and we have stuck with it. We didn’t want a too complicated name for people.

And your music evolved slightly from rock to metal. How this evolution happen?

Well, we’re still more rock’n roll than metal… We are a kind of a mix between AC/DC and Motörhead, a faster version of rock’n roll. So yeah, some songs are more metal than others; this is the way our music has evolved since the last few albums. There are definitely metal influences in our music, Judas Priest or Metallica.

You were influenced by many great bands; do you consider yourself as the ones who are taking up the torch?

You know, we’re one of the only young bands to do what we’re doing. We hope that the bands who influenced us will keep touring a lot, but they are growing older, and they won’t tour for thirty more years… But we just want to continue doing what we do, as long as we have the will, and the support do to so.

About Motörhead, Lemmy is not going very well these days, how do you see the future for Motörhead?

Yeah, it’s a tough time for old Lemmy; he had to pull a tour, because he hadn’t been well. You know, Lemmy is pretty tough, I think he can go through it. You know, Lemmy is Rock’n Roll, he is Motörhead, he played in a band all his life, it would be a hell of a loss if anything happened to Lemmy. You know he is getting a bit older, I hope he will hold through. I think he will hit the road until the day he dies, that’s who he is.

The line-up of Airbourne has always been very stable, how do you explain that?

Yeah, we’ve been who we are, for about ten years now, so, it works well, and you know, if nothing is broken, nothing has to be fixed!

Do you consider that you have a rock’n roll life?

It depends on your interpretation of what is a rock’n roll life I guess… We are a hardworking band, but we love to drink, and have a bit of a party, but when on tour we are very very busy, it’s kinda… you play nearly every night, and on the days off it’s often to drive to the next place so we spend lot of time in the tour bus. But we all like a beer or a whiskey. You can’t party extremely hard every night, because… You’ll die… We believe in what we do, every night, we play at one hundred and ten percent, no matter how we feel, sick, cold hungry, angry…

Talking of beer, what is your favorite beer?

I really enjoy my home Australian beer, V.B., some draught from time to time, but European beers are so good. There’s a lot of German beers I like. I drink a lot of French wine as well. But I love to take V.B., my home beer.

What’s the strangest thing that happened to you on tour?

Actually, yeah, that’s not strange, just bad… what happened to us recently, we were playing a show in Strasbourg, all the gear was in the truck, all the show stuff was in it, and the truck get caught at the border. The crew was on the bus, but we had no gear, and none of it could come in time for the show, so we thought that we had to cancel the show, but the two support bands, Corroded and Black Spiders, they lent us some of their stuff, we played with their guitars, and we went to a rental and cleaned any gear they had, some old Marshalls, amps, and we took everything that we could. So we put up the show, it was difficult; really, I played with a white SJ, which I had never played before. We managed to pull the show off. We didn’t have the Airbourne banners, so we had to hang a t-shirt up, and this was our banner, a little bit of a joke you know (laughs). But it worked!

And what is your best memory from a tour?

Well, that day was probably number one, but this tour has been awesome, with a lot of great shows. But that day, it started as a disaster, but we managed to pull a great show that night. Even without our own gear. But I think tonight will be probably memorable, playing in Paris, 3900 tickets were sold, so tonight will be pretty awesome.

How would you describe your last album?

To us, we just wanted to write a ten-track album, and to bring it a little more back to the style of "Running Wild", so we just wanted to put out a good album, you know, to rock out. And we think that we achieved it, we’re really happy with it.

Which Australian bands would you advise?

There’s a lot of great Australian bands, like Rose Tattoo, The Angels, The Skyhawks, The Easybeats, AC/DC, The Screaming Jets, The Poor. The Poor, they’re a kind of modern rock band. They were around in the nineties. If you like Airbourne, you’ll love the Poor, they really influenced our music as well. So go and check them out if you’re searching for good bands.

How often do you give an interview without AC/DC named?

Hum, well, sometimes, but, you know, we like them a lot, they are one of our main influences. We’re great fans of AC/DC, don’t get me wrong, we love this style of music, but this the Australian way of playing rock’n roll, crude, no pedals, you just plug a guitar in a Marshall. Being compared to AC/DC is not something we’re ashamed of, but I think we’re not a tribute band.

Any last words for this interview to your French public and our readers?

Yes! Thanks to all the French fans, you’re absolutely awesome supporting Airbourne, and we love coming and playing for you guys. Keep rocking!


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