When a long running band, who have worked in a certain way for many years and several albums, step outside their comfort zone and shake their writing process up, it often leads to a major spark of creativity and ultimately to the best work of their career to that point. Such is the case for legendary Perth progressive/melodic heavy act, Voyager. Whilst their first four albums have been excellent slices of melodic prog rock and metal, their brand new album, simply entitled V, is a step up again, and inarguably their finest hour so far in a career whose origins can be traced back to the late 90s.
Speaking to Rod Whitfield from her home in the western capital, long time guitar player Simone Dow tells us that approaching the songwriting for V in a different way was a major contributing factor to the album coming out so well.
“Usually, on past album Danny (Estrin, frontman, keyboardist and founding member) would come in with the majority of the songs written,” she explains, “and we would just flesh it out a little bit, add our little things to it. This time round it was more of a collaborative effort. There was a lot more writing in the rehearsal room as a band. There were still a few instances where Danny came in with songs almost fully written, but most of the songs that were written for the album were done in the jam room, nutting out parts, structuring it, and I think it’s been quite a positive outcome from doing it that way. It was very alien to us, we’d never done it that way before, but it just seemed to flow very naturally this time… we were very inspired.” She concludes.
With the change in the approach to the songwriting, the band are also apparently looking at the promotion of the album a little differently this time around, cutting out the ‘middle man’ to some extent.
“We’re going for mass exposure this time round, we’re doing just about everything ourselves,” she reveals, “this is not to take anything away from our previous label manager, he was fantastic, a great guy, really honest with us. Probably one of the best guys we’ve worked with in the industry, he was so honest with us and open. But we were just becoming very disheartened by the whole industry. You put your album up, and these people take between 40 and 60 per cent, and you can’t really see where the value is going. And you wonder why, out of a $25 CD sale you’re getting $3, or something like that. It’s just unbelievable, it’s a very hard industry. So we just thought we’re going to try this,” she continues, “we might completely flunk at it, it might be horrible, but we want to give it a go, do it ourselves.”
To that end, the band opted for what many acts have been doing recently, a ‘crowd funding’ campaign for the recording and promotion of the album, whereby fans and friends of the band assist to finance an initiative prior to it going ahead, as opposed to simply buying the album after it has been released. In return, people who pledge money to the campaign receive the album itself and, depending on the level of support, all manner of other goodies from the band. Voyager ended up almost doubling their original target, testament to the regard in which the band are held in this country and internationally, and they plan to make the most of it.
“We’re basically putting a lot of the money from the ‘Kickstarter’ (crowdfinding campaign), not only into getting the album completed, mixed and mastered, but also into a massive promo campiaign, worldwide,” Simone states, “so that we can actually get our name out there, and get touring, that’s what we want to do, we want to get out there and play to the fans. We figured that the only way to do that is to put some money into the marketing side of things and try and get ourselves out there. More touring is what we’re aiming for, and getting more reach to fans. So fingers crossed it all works!” She laughs, in conclusion.
And touring is what the band are soon to do. At the time of writing, no official dates were available, but a national tour in support of V is set to happen around July-August, before the band jet off overseas once again. They are confirmed to play the prestigious Dutch festival ‘ProgPower’ in October.
“At the moment it’s just in the works, so nothing’s been confirmed yet,” she says, “but we’re looking at July-ish to kick that off. As soon as we have that info available, we’ll have it up on our websites and Facebook page and everything. But yeah, we’re really looking forward to it, getting out there and playing to our Aussie fans.
“Yeah, it’s the second time we’re getting to play it (ProgPower), but this time we’re lucky enough to be getting pushed quite high on the bill, so we’re pretty stoked about that!”
The new Voyager album V is out worldwide on June 2nd. Australian tour dates to be announced shortly.