Flaming Wrekage have never been afraid of laying it all on the line. Countless Australian tours, storming through Europe, and sweating it out in jam-packed venues throughout Indonesia amongst the dense tropical humidity, while fans destroyed themselves launching from the rafters. They’ve dislocated knees on stage, had merch go missing on tour, been locked out of hotels at 4am, and have even been kicked out of a country! They’ve shared stages with metal royalty including Soilwork (SWE), Power Trip (USA), Omnium Gatherum (Fin), and Psycroptic and throw themselves at everything they do with full force and uncompromising passion.
Their latest album ‘Cathedral of Bones’ will be unleashed via Blood Blast Distribution on February 25th, 2021 and will be celebrated with a huge launch at one of Sydney’s best live music venues, The Crowbar on March 5th. We talked to frontman Dave Lupton about the new album, the personal side of some of the songs and how their touring has been affected by covid.
Andrew: The new album is coming out February 25th, “Cathedral Of Bones”, I had a chance to listen to it the other day and man, you guys have really nailed it on the head on this one. You must be pretty happy with how this one has turned out.
Dave: Yeah thanks man I really appreciate you saying that. We held on to it for a little while, we were initially planning on releasing it last year but for obvious reason we just held off. It was weird, it was one of those ones where we kind of got to the point where we were hearing it too much and we were like, you kind of second guess yourself but you do that on every release. But now we’ve put a few of the singles out and I’m just hearing the response, it’s been really encouraging. We worked so hard on this one, some of the songs we’ve been playing live for a couple of years. It’s a long process but I’m really stoked how it’s come together.
Andrew: Has sitting with these songs and playing them live had much of an impact as far as going in and recording these songs as well?
Dave: Yeah definitely man. I think just road testing certain songs, it gives you another point of reference like playing them every night. There’s a couple of songs we played every night when we went on that European tour so just hearing them on a live setting I think just gives you another point of reference and you’re able to go back and just work on a few more things in there. But I think it’s really valuable to do that and really tightens them up as well and really hone in on certain parts. Like I said we spent so much time especially on pre-pro[duction] on this one, that was a big difference between other releases we’ve done. We just worked with Vo Simpson from Darker Half, he did the pre-pro for this album and it was really productive working with him because he actually filled in for our band for a little while so he gets exactly where we’re coming from. Just having that other set of ears on it as well made a massive difference so yeah, it all kind of came together on this one.
Andrew: Having released a couple of albums previously, was there anything in particular that you really wanted to achieve on this one that you maybe hadn’t done on previous releases?
Dave: I would say we just wanted to hone the product a little bit more. There’s some different areas like I think we got a little more progressive in the songwriting on this one, it’s brutal death metal all the way through but I think there’s a few more influences that play there and for me personally the lyrics are really worked on and exploring some different concepts and stuff. I’m my own worst enemy when it comes to writing, I like to really get it nailed down so I rewrote everything quite a few times. But it was a big challenge, especially with the lyrics just exploring some new concepts and stuff like that but yeah, I was really happy with it.
Andrew: Speaking of, the first single “The Voiceless”, I was reading the press release that was sent out and there’s obviously a personal story behind this one. Would you care to share or maybe elaborate a bit more on what the inspiration was behind writing this particular song?
Dave: So that song, I’ve been trying to write a song on this topic for quite a while and I thought, we had the music down for this one and I thought this is the perfect hook for this concept, the melody really suited this concept well. So I grew up with my sister, she’s got a severe intellectual and physical disability and the song is kind of written from the perspective of my parents. They’re still together somehow but it’s not a normal life, they were there for her at every second, every day so it takes it’s toll and the main concept I wanted to get across is the concept of resilience and it’s a very frustrating situation when you’re dealing with someone who is non-verbal so you have to find ways to communicate and overcoming the mental battle within yourself is very taxing. I’m just so proud of how they handled it, just that resilience factor was something I really wanted to get across. But that was another one where I really busted my chops on those lyrics, I re-wrote those about 4 or 5 times I reckon.
Andrew: Yeah it’s obviously a very sensitive and personal subject but it’s obviously a source of inspiration for you as well. It worked well in the song and I guess it was the main reason you wanted to put this out as the first single from the album?
Dave: Yeah that’s it, I mean it’s probably the most powerful song that we’ve ever done, I think and like I said before the music and the lyrics really sit well with each other and compliments each other nicely but I thought it was going to be the one to have the biggest impact straight out of the gate so it was a no brainer for the first single for sure.
Andrew: So you are releasing the album on February 25th and you have a launch show at the Crowbar on March 5th. As far as I know, that’s still going ahead as normal right?
Dave: Yeah man, the restrictions in Sydney just got eased as well so we were able to add a few more tickets which is nice. I think the venue was only at 70 cap up until a few days ago which is great, we can have a few more tickets now because a bunch of mates that missed out straight away sold out in two days on first release. So that’s good to have a few more tickets and hopefully it goes ahead man, it’s very unpredictable at the moment and we’ve got a bunch more shows around Australia to announce as well but it hasn’t been the easiest tour to book!
Andrew: Oh I’m sure it must be frustrating as a musician being in a band with the ebbs and flows of this covid story that’s been happening this past year. You must of had so many things happen and things postponed over the last 12 months.
Dave: Yeah man we had to cancel quite a few shows. We had a few tours that was just about to get announced and we thought we were in the clear and then something else fucked up so it’s been a bit frustrating. But I will say that last year one positive is it gave us a lot more time to really get everything totally sorted for this album release, like I said before we were going to put it out earlier but I think in a way it’s been better that we waited because we had a chance to do a couple of video clips and this time around we’ve got a few more people involved. We’ve got a few different PR companies, we’ve got one in Australia and one in Europe so it’s just a few more things we sort of have to get lined up and it’s been a good learning curve man, the last few records we just sort of…we’ve always been an independant band and just kinda chucked it out there but this time it’s been a lot more calculated and it’s been a really good learning experience just to make sure that the engagement levels are always there with the content and all that kind of stuff. It has been good in that sense but it has been frustrating not being able to play.
Andrew: Yeah you guys have always been pretty prolific as far as getting out there and doing shows, you guys constantly are hitting the road and doing shows all across Australia so this must have impacted you quite a lot then.
Dave: Yeah I mean that’s why you put in the hard work, you do all the emails, spend the time in the studio, tiny little things in songs and stuff but that’s what it’s all about is getting out there and playing live so it is immensely frustrating. But I think we’ve been pretty lucky in Australia in the scheme of things, I’ve got mates in Canada and Germany and just speaking to them about where they’re at, really puts it into perspective a little bit. It’s going to be quite a while before they get back to gig properly over there. I mean we managed to sneak in a couple of shows at the end of last year, just two of those weird seated ones but it’s better than nothing, I was stoked just to be on stage. But like I said, we usually tour pretty hard but I can’t wait to get back to that. It will happen, we just gotta be patient.
Andrew: Yeah definitely and hopefully come out at the end of all of this all well and good. You need to get to WA as we have even less restrictions than most of the country I guess!
Dave: Yeah and when it all comes back, it’s going to be insane. Everyone is just going to be making up for lost time, everyone will be so hungry for shows. I think we’ve got that to look forward to, when that is we don’t know, it’s a very unpredictable situation but it will happen, just gotta stay up for it.
Read the review of Cathedral Of Bones
Andrew: Yeah exactly. So I want to get inside some of your influences, you touched on that a little as far as influences coming through on this record. I’m curious as to what made you get into music in the first place.
Dave: Ah man it’s a funny story. When I was about 12 I think, Mum and Dad always had Aussie rock blaring through out the house – Midnight Oil, The Angels and stuff so I guess that was my first influence. I still love that stuff today but I remember when I was really young we went to a family Christmas or something and my Mum hit up my cousin and was like, ‘I know you got the black album by Metallica, I just wanted to get that Nothing Else Matters song’, because my Mum doesn’t really like anything that heavy but she did like that track. So just put it on cassette and put it in the car on the way home and I was just like, ‘What is this, I’ve never heard anything so heavy’. So that was the beginning of a long, long road! It’s obviously grown a lot and I listen to a lot of different stuff and that’s one of the strongest parts about our band I think, everyone has pretty diverse influences.
But as far as this record goes, one that comes to mind in the final product is some of the more Swedish death metal stuff. In Flames is one of my favorite bands, they’ve always been a huge influence, the sort of big melodic stuff that we try to get in some of those big choruses, they’re definitely an influence there and yeah you still go back to the early Metallica but more recently just sort of been into heaps of death metal like Carcass and Morbid Angel and that sort of stuff. But yeah it’s funny as well, for me personally when I’m writing I try to get away from metal as much as possible to be honest because when you’re writing and playing it all day, you kind of get a bit burnt out by it. I just like to listen to Tom Petty and Creedence and stuff like that, it gets me away from it and I can come at the song fresh the next day. So just having that separation I think is really important, if you just listen to metal all the time it just burns you out. You wouldn’t say that about Juzzie, our guitarist. He’s just into death metal all day [laughs].
Andrew: [laugh] I totally agree though, I think you need to sort of back off from it a little just to get a bit of perspective and I think the key to any band, at least from my perspective is to have a bit of diversity. When you mentioned melodic death metal, you can clearly hear that influence. I know you guys supported Soilwork a couple of years ago, that must of been a huge honour for you guys.
Dave: Yeah that was fantastic, that was one of the best shows. It was weird though because that was in the middle of recording this album so I think, speaking of being burnt out, we tracked guitar all day so played guitar for 8 hours and then trying to switch your brain over to live mode from studio mode, it was so hard. I just got there and felt really weird but as we got on stage it was so good. Awesome crowd, made a lot of friends that night. The guys in the band were really nice as well, one of the most incredible live bands. I’m sure you’ve seen them but the vocals especially, it’s just really inspiring. He just goes from low death metal scream into this operatic insane voice in one breath, it’s just amazing.
Andrew: Yeah great band and I had a chance to meet them a few years ago, fantastic guys. Obviously they have a different drummer in there now but those guys are still going pretty well. But as I said, I can hear some of those influences in your music with that melodic death metal type stuff.
Dave: Yeah that’s one of my go to’s, I can’t go too long without listening to “Clayman” by In Flames or “Slaughter Of The Soul” [At The Gates], those are always in my Spotify.
Andrew: Well congratulations on the new album and hopefully everyone out there can check it out. It’s one of our top metal albums of the year so far, early days yet but we’ve been loving it so far. Hopefully one day we’ll get you over to WA as I don’t think you’ve been our way yet have you?
Dave: No we haven’t, we’ve been offered once but it just didn’t work out. But I’m definitely keen to get over there. I’ve got some plans in the works, I want to do some proper touring in Australia that’s a bit out of the box because it might be who knows until it’s going to be until we get back to Europe or even Asia or any of that. So I think we can hit some more regional towns and I think that kind of touring will really revitalise the scene a little bit and just think outside the box and play with some different kinds of bands. I’m a big fan of booking mixed bill shows as well, I think it works well for the bands and the punters and just playing every town you can. Just find pubs and just play there and just get metal on the map in those little towns because I love doing those regional shows, when you rock up to places like Lismore or Maryborough or some shit, people just appreciate that you’re there and they always buy all the merch and they go wild. So I think if more bands looked at that instead of just the major cities all the time, then we might have something there. That’s what I’m going to try and look into at the end of this year but fingers crossed.
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