Daysend Are Locked In For Necrosonic Festival
Necrosonic Festival returns in late August for another instalment of heavy tunes, great food, tasty beverages and gargantuan bands, many resurrected from the ashes of the dead. One such band is Sydney’s Daysend, who return after fourteen years and bring with them their own dug up corpse to form the band once again, vocalist Simon Calabrese, who takes up the conversation.
‘It’s longer for me actually. The last time I officially fronted Daysend was 2006, we’re talking almost twenty years since I was in front of the band. There were a couple of cameos. I left in ‘06 and then Mark took up the reins and continued on. So, for me it’s been nearly twenty years.
I think a number of us had gotten older, people have gone through having babies and all that sort of stuff. Kids are of an age where dads can get back out and do the business. We discussed it over the years, but for me personally, that was my only album with Daysend, it was our debut album and one that got quite a lot of commentary over the years. Still to this day, whether that be online or just bumping into someone at a pub. It was something that I left and didn’t really do a last hurrah. Let’s give this one album another run, just for a handful of shows and we’ll see what happens after that.’
Michael Kodrek, guitarist in Daysend, brings us closer to the current day feelings.
‘Over the years people have been talking about it. Everyone says, ‘Hey, let’s do it again’ then it doesn’t happen and someone else says, ‘yeah, yeah, yeah’ and that doesn’t happen. This goes on for decades. At the end of last year, we got hit up by a friend of ours and this guy started putting me under the pump. He says, ‘Michael, you’ve got to bloody do this Daysend again!’ What I didn’t know at the time was under a separate cover, he was putting these other guys under the pump too. He was hitting up Simon and everyone! He was working behind the scenes like this maestro. That’s where we all kind of got together and finally got the thing over the line. Everyone is now talking about it at the same time. That was that final kind of push that we needed.’
The album in question that Simon mentions is the bands iconic debut Severance which catapulted the band to metal stardom on Triple J and support slots with little known boutique bands Slipknot and Machine Head to name a few. They plan of playing the album start to finish at Necrosonic and the follow up national tour – spread over six months no less – after it as Simon explains.
‘It’s one of those things that we’ve all got day jobs. We’re not doing this to make money. For us, it might add more weight to the tour if people were like, well, I missed you in Sydney because I was away in Bali for two weeks, but hey, next month you’re playing in Melbourne, I might as well go down and see you in Melbourne! It is more to test the waters with this particular album.’
‘If there’s continuation of the band in whatever format after this bunch of shows, that could very well change. The main position is that we really wanted to play the songs of ‘Severance’. Give the people, the fans that grew up on that album and know it and many people I know that are quite younger than me grew up on it, but they were too young to go to gigs back then they’re all pumping up the tickets. They never got to see us live back in the day, which is pretty cool as well.’
Michael takes up the reigns.
‘That particular album, it resonated at the time and people got into it and people still contact us to this day to talk about it. So, we thought, well, we’re all still here, a lot of us are still playing. Let’s just give all these people that keep talking to us about this album, let’s play it for them. Let’s give ’em a bit of a thrill. The other purpose for us is we’re still here, we’re still keen to play, let’s give it a go. Let’s see how we all get along, how we all gel and how the whole music thing fits into everyone’s lives with all their kids running around, the wives on the back and all that kind of thing. If it works, then cool, maybe there’ll be something after it, certainly from my perspective, I’ll look forward to that. I think Simon’s in the same boat too, so yeah, we’ve just got to see how it goes.’
Both members actually left before the follow up The Warning arrived however Kodrek was quickly back in the fold by release, does it mean there is still some unfinished business from both? As normal, Simon goes first.
‘For me personally, yes. Only because I left for personal reasons, nothing to do with the guys in the band, but I had some family commitments and couldn’t commit to the next album. Here’s this album that got quite a lot of notoriety when we released it in ‘03 and we toured America with it. We get back from America and it’s still very well known. I didn’t even get the chance to say, ‘this is my last show with the band’. For me, yeah, was something I just thought I wouldn’t mind giving it one last hit up. It was the debut and it was just took off. It was a little bit different for Australian metal at the time. The other albums are also great, but it obviously evolved into something different. It’s like the first kiss, you always remember the first kiss because it was your first one, right? So even though the next one might be better or different, but you still remember that one. Don’t you think Michael?’
‘I’m just trying to think back to my first kiss with Simon. Nah, no, that was forgettable!’
Simon went to Necrosonic last year as a punter, so last words on the festival will start with him.
‘Last year was the first time I’ve been, it was an amazing festival. With Kent Bartley bringing back this type of festival, it’s really growing. The fact that it’s bringing back six bands that haven’t played in over a decade or more is just amazing. We’ve been resurrected back from the dead, but there are a lot of great bands on the bill, I think we know as mates that we’ve either toured with over the years or respected. I’m really excited seeing fellow mates Brace grace the stage. I mean their EP still gets played in my car constantly on repeat and I just see they’re dropping a new song, which is pretty cool. There are just so many mates on the bill and great Australian Metal icons and international acts. It is a great venue too. You’ve got the way it’s set up, it’s pretty easy to get from one stage to another. Even if I wasn’t playing, I’d be going, catch up with so many friends from across the country that you might only get to see at a gig once or twice a year. It’s just great community of people enjoying great music.’
As for Michael?
‘Everything I’ve heard about it is super positive and they have an awesome selection of bands. I’m a death metal kind of guy, so the fact they’ve got Abramelin playing is something I’m very happy about. I’ve been a massive fan of them since the nineties, so they’re the band that I’ll be going for the most. As Simon was saying, plenty of other bands that we’ve known for years and we’re just happy everyone’s being resurrected together. Like some sort of religious event, we’re all rising from the dead, like we want to be Jesus Christ or something.’
Interview By Iain McCallum
Catch Daysend at Necrosonic Festival on Saturday August 23. Tickets and further information HERE…
