Australian Heavy Trailblazers Northlane Are Back On Home Soil For Their First And Only Headline Tour In 2024

Australian heavy trailblazers Northlane will be back on home soil this February for their first and only headline tour of the country in 2024. The band will do a full lap around the continent with a packed lineup of guests, featuring Erra (USA), Landmvrks (France) and Banks Arcade.

In extremely exciting news, Northlane recently revealed they’ve recorded new music with their old friend and revered heavy producer, Will Putney. It’s been close to a decade since they last worked with Putney on their breakthrough Singularity (2013) and #1 album Node (2015) and, if that’s not enough hype, Northlane have also announced they’ve collaborated with some of the most influential artists in the band’s history. Watch this space, a new era is on the horizon as vocalist Marcus Bridge discusses.

2023 was a big year for Northlane do spend much reflecting on that or is it time to focus on the tour which starts in February?
Absolutely, after the release of single Dante we are getting ready for the next phase for what Northlane is going to be. We had a very busy 2023 compared to the last few years, it has been good to get back in the swing of things and bring in this next phase of Northlane full of energy.

This upcoming tour is even bigger stepping up the size of venues, you must be itching to get the tour started?
Selling out The Forum in Melbourne is pretty wild and all the other shows are selling super quickly given how many heads they hold. It is very exciting, the Brisbane show has sold more tickets than any other headline we have done. Hoping to see a lot of the same from everywhere else in Australia. It definitely looks like it is going to be a good one.

Are you looking to give the Obsidian more time in the sun after the last couple of interrupted years?
We’re trying to have a pretty vast set that covers our discography but there will definitely be plenty off Obsidian still left to be unturned. There’s a couple of songs that we have not played off Obsidian that we haven’t played that we’ll try and put in the set list. There’s that but also looking in to the future with Dante.

Are you looking at previewing any other new songs on this tour?
We might be playing some new stuff but we’ll have to wait and see. It is exciting and it is a good time to put new music out and playing it for the first time. It always brings a fresh new energy to the set no matter where you put it.

Did the band personally pick the supports Erra, Landmvrks and Banks Arcade?
Yeah, Erra are a band we have been mates with for a long time and they did one of the first US tours with Northlane a couple of months in to me joining. It has been great to see them continue their journey and getting bigger and bigger. We haven’t played with Landmvrks before but they are a newer and exciting band who are absolutely killing it around the world. It is exciting to bring them out. Banks Arcade are another group of guys, local guys who are working hard and there is something fresh with their music as well. We’re always trying to bring a bunch of bands that makes sense to play with us and also bring a bit of variety to it as well.

Are staggered when you look at your streaming numbers to see how far and wide your music is reaching?
I feel like I’ve always got to stop and pinch myself knowing that people around the world are listening to out music, enjoying it and it feel surreal that we’re travelling around the world and people are excited for out music. Definitely looking forward to travelling the world this year and hitting some of those spots. It is good to see that people are still following along and supporting our music.

How is work going on the new album and was it an easy choice to work again with old friend and revered heavy producer Will Putney?
We have a bunch of stuff in the world and it is really good to work with Will again. He has been a part of Northlane’s long history recording Singularity and all through the recordings once I came on board. It has been a long time since we have worked with him and it will be good to get back to it picking up right from where we left off. He is such a talented guy and he has learnt so much since we last worked with him. It was a really good process and the new stuff, I can’t really say to much, I’m really excited about.

Is there much you can say about the new album?
With the stuff we have been working on like Dante is just one side of what we have been working on is the straight forward rockier side of Northlane. I think there was a lot of variety in terms of the stuff we were working on and kind of pulling from all the sounds we’ve had throughout career from Node, maybe even earlier to now, I guess. It’s hard to say, I feel like I say it every time we release music that it’s an evolution of what we’ve already done, but I feel like it truly is kind of blending so many different elements of the sounds we’ve had in our catalogue and not shying away from the older sounds as well.

Does anything else influence that at all? Do any particular bands that you’re listening or your own music heroes influence that?
I’m not sure if it’s interesting for Northlane but I feel like there’s never a particular band that’s pushing it. I think it’s more so if looking for a particular sound, there’s probably bands in particular that would influence Jon, our writer who writes all the music. But as far as I know and as far as he’s kind of said, he was wanting to explore something a bit more guitar focused this time around, but still having all of those elements, those electronic elements we’ve had throughout the last couple of albums. I guess kind of leaning a bit more on the guitar again for this bunch of songs. That’s about as much as I can give away. I think it’s just a continuation both in terms of what the songs are about as well as “Obsidian”, but not as down and depressing as Obsidian. Maybe there’s still some kind of serious and deep topics that we’re talking about, but I guess it’s not all this grim negativity.

Is that likely to be a 2024 release?
Yeah, I think we’ll be continuing to just trickle stuff out over the next year. So yeah, there’ll be some more stuff coming in 2024.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch Northlane on tour with Erra, Landmvrks and Banks Arcade on the following dates, tickets from Destroy All Lines…