Perth Rocks Festival is happening Sunday, 15 September 2024. The intrepid Stephanie Jewell got to speak to some of the bands ahead of the festival to get to know them and what fans can expect to see.
For the next interview she spoke with Legacy Alive before their rehearsal at Vision Studios. Legacy Alive are Jacob Kenny (vocals and guitar), Owen Fisher (bass and vocals), Curtis Sucksmith (guitar, synth and vocals), and Frank Lupino (drums and vocals). Steph was lucky enough to sit down with the whole band as they got ready for Perth Rocks Festival.
Steph: Tell me, what is the origin story for Legacy Alive?
Jacob: That goes waaaay back.
Curtis: How long now, I think it is 18 years? We used to work together, and we liked the same music, and we ended up jamming and we have been in a band ever since. We don’t hate each other that much so it’s been pretty good.
Jacob: I was drunk at work at 17 or something and you (Curtis) were training behind me with headphones on and you were like ‘dude, are you drunk?’ And then we realised that we like music at the same time, so it was really good.
Curtis: Lots of overlapping interests, which is awesome, a lot of people have come and gone over the years but now we have these other two and it’s been great.
Jacob: Longest serving now.
Steph: How did you come to be in the band, Owen?
Owen: I joined the band in 2019, at the start of the year. It’s funny how it happened. I had just graduated school in 2018, and I left my high school band. I brought all of my guitars off Curtis who was working at Sound Centre at the time. And I walked into the Sound Centre, I can’t remember what I was doing, I think I was picking up something or something to do with my guitar. Curtis briefly mentioned that he was looking for a bass player, and I just threw my name out there just to see what would happen and didn’t think anything of it. A couple of weeks later, I went to go service my car, and I was playing bowling or something to kill time and I got a phone call. I almost ignored it thinking it was my mechanic, but I picked it up and it was Curtis. He asked me to come in and audition that day for Legacy Alive.
Curtis: I asked if he could come in *now* because we were all here.
Owen: I didn’t have any knowledge of any of their songs or whatever, but I was super keen. I think it was about 8.30pm at night that I came to Vision Studios. I think whoever was auditioning before me came out and I came straight in and pretty much gelled from the first minute. I had very little knowledge of the band at the time and it kind of all sunk in there and then. We came together about another couple of weeks later and it just cemented it from there on. It has been a lot of fun!
Jacob: What was your second ever gig with us?
Owen: Second – oh it was Perth Rocks. So, like a month after I joined the band, it was straight into Perth Rocks 2019.
Steph: How about you Frank?
Frank: I won one of those ‘in 25 words or less’ competitions (laughter all round). I was actually playing in a band with Jacob and at rehearsals in between everyone else faffing about, we would start playing Motley Crue covers and just generally annoying everyone else, to the point that we were banned from standing next to each other, at any time. Krissy will back that up. That sort of fell apart, and then Jacob, Curtis and I all ended up doing something else. And then that started sort of winding itself down and these guys needed a drummer. Jacob was like ‘you like?’ and I was like; ‘I like’.
Jacob: And we all still very much like!
Steph: I see that you have just released your new track, ‘Messenger’. Tell me about the story behind your new song?
Jacob: I can comment on mainly just the vocals and the feel for it. We had a bass player in this band named Dan Howell and he died. He had stage four bowel cancer that was discovered very late and he was a close member of our musical family for many years. It made me think a lot about my life, where I am at, and what it is like to get older, and how far you want to keep on doing things. And really, when you attach yourself to a memory, sometimes you shake it and shake it and shake it to make it glow every time you want to go back there. And then eventually you are really old and you keep shaking the thing and it won’t glow anymore. It is kind of a little bit of a feeling, like you end up being the messenger of all of the things that you did, to tell everybody of all of the things that you did, because the memory itself kind of goes away, it slowly fades away. And I suppose that’s just from vocally but musically there are so many different moving parts.
Curtis: We all like a lot of heavier bands and I guess our music, and we had never done a heavier song like that so thought let’s go for it. That’s why it comes across a bit heavier.
Steph: So for anyone who hasn’t heard Legacy Alive before, how would you describe your sound?
Jacob: Not Iron Maiden (laughter). Melodic rock is probably the most even coverage, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we definitely don’t come out like a punk rock band making jokes all the time. But it is a very large, layered kind of maybe symphonic sound, but it is very guitar focused, it is supposed to grab you. It is very focused on big hook you in vocals. Big squealing guitars and if you watch closely, you will see us trying to make each other laugh while we play – a lot! So expect sing along choruses, a bit of ridiculousness, and hopefully something that is just larger than life.
Owen: I think the coolest thing about it though is a lot of people ask before we play, what do we sound like. And we struggle to answer that question! But when people watch us and they give us feedback on how we went, everyone has gone ‘wow, that’s awesome’. But the biggest thing I hear from most people is that they cannot compare us to anything. They can hear different elements and influences and stuff like that but there is no sort of ‘oh they sound like this’. We are very proud to say that we are unique.
Steph: Now that your new single, ‘Messenger’ is released, what is next for Legacy Alive in the near future?
Curtis: We have just been talking about that tonight actually. We have got how many more songs left?
Jacob: Four or five, there is something like five or so songs
Curtis: To finish polishing, and then it will be like an album release for all of that at once, so we are figuring out what we are going to do for that one. We will make a pretty big launch so that will be good.
Jacob: The goal is definitely early next year for it, if we can line up what we are cooking we can get it out for early next year. If we can get that together early next year hopefully, we can put on a show and it’s not going to be like your usual pub show gig, its going to be something very unique and very different. Very special. Hopefully something that we can one and done it.
Steph: Speaking of special, how did Legacy Alive become involved with Perth Rocks?
Jacob: So, Karl was the original person who put Perth Rocks together, back in 2019. He had a great vision, but he didn’t have a lot of tools at his disposal to do it. So, he attached himself to me and a few others to try and help him to put it together. And the brand of it was so good that I just couldn’t put it down. I said to him that its bigger than us now, we have to keep doing it whether we want to or not, we actually have to keep doing it forever. And it was about supporting bands like us, you know. We are not at that level to break through to commercial success, but we are definitely not just playing our first gigs. We have been around a long time, we want a good platform, and it’s really important that bands like us and several others that are on the bill, keep doing that.
Frank: It is becoming the most important day in original music in Perth which is a good thing because original music in Perth is slowly dying which is a sad thing. Which, considering I started in the late ‘90s, the original music scene in Perth is not what it was. So, this is a good chance to put something on that gets a bit of attention and then hopefully reminds people that aren’t necessarily around it all the time that it still exists and its still worth coming to see because original music is great.
Steph: Who are you guys most looking forward to seeing on the lineup of this years’ Perth Rocks?
Frank: I really love Band of Missfits, I think they are really great, their new direction is really cool. At some stage I will probably get naked with Dan from Amberdown or maybe not, we will see. Maybe, I keep threatening him. I think our latest thing is to see who gets sweatier on stage. We will see how we go. Probably Band of Missfits, Amberdown and Ragdoll.
Curtis: Yeah looking forward to Ragdoll, they are like seasoned veterans and so good at their craft and I think they will deliver as usual.
Owen: Yeah definitely Ragdoll, a mate of mine that plays in heaven // alone so I am looking forward to listening to them play live for the first time, and Illyria as well, I have always been a big fan of them too so I am looking forward to seeing them play too.
Jacob: Illyria I am excited to see, for the metal muscle there. Code Red because John is such a wonderful guy and such a great singer and they were incredible last time I saw them play, and Warbirds. I have never seen them before, they have come a long way and I am really excited to see what they bring.
Steph: All great choices! Thank you Legacy Alive for your time. If you don’t know who Legacy Alive are, get down to Perth Rocks on Sunday.
In memory of Dan Howell.
You can catch Legacy Alive and all the other awesome bands playing at the Perth Rocks Festival on 15 September 2024 at Port Beach in Freo. Grab your tickets here. For more information, check out the Perth Rocks Festival on Facebook or Instagram @perthrocksfestival
You can follow Legacy Alive on Instagram: @LegacyAliveOfficial | Apple Music | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube |
