Future Palace Have Their Sights On Their Debut Australian Tour At Good Things…

With emotional intensity and expansive soundscapes, Germany alt metal act FUTURE PALACE have been traversing the avenues of post hardcore, metal, electronica and synth pop since forming in 2018. From the vocal acrobatics of Maria Lessing through to their bewitching sonic output, FUTURE PALACE also just unleashed their fourth studio album Resurgence, retaining their crown as one of the biggest rising acts in modern metal. With their first Australian tour locked in at Good Things Festival and side shows with The Devil Wears Prada Maria Lessing talks to Rob Lyon about the excitement of heading here for the first time.

Exciting news that Future Palace are playing Good Things 2026. What a way to have your first Australian tour here in Australia.
Yeah, we’re excited. Like it will be after our headline tour, I think a week after. So I have to watch out that I will stay healthy and everything because it’s winter here in Germany then. But we’re very excited to fly into summer, to be in Australia in general. We’ve never been there as people, and not as a band also of course. So that will be a crazy life thing, which I mentioned earlier is something a lot of people will never even experience in their life. So we are so, so, so grateful for this opportunity and especially with such an amazing festival is insane to us. So we’re very excited.

Good Things is the premier music festival in Australia. It’s definitely one of the biggest. What does it mean to you to be playing such a highly thought‑of and recognised festival?
It feels like we’re getting seen, to be honest. It feels like our efforts are being seen that we really put into this band and also into this album and into everything. There are moments where it feels like running on a treadmill, which is something I talk about in one of our songs.. You somehow sometimes don’t see the process a lot of times and this is a moment where it really feels like yes, this works, work pays off, hard work pays off and it is so rare for German bands, especially our size, to make it out here and to cross the seas. Yeah, it’s just a very big milestone for us personally.

Does it actually feel like you’ve turned a corner and, like you said, the hard work is actually starting to pay off? Four albums in, it definitely seems like you’re making some serious inroads?
It feels like we’re being recognised a little bit more internationally. We always had streamers in Australia and receive messages, but having the opportunity to tour there is very different. You have to be realistic, like financial‑wise and all that stuff, and of course people need to trust you and see potential in you. To have that trust and people see that potential, it’s just extremely nice for us to know and to receive that feedback. We really want to use this chance and try our very best and give our very best and we’re just very grateful that we are able to do this.

Well, what an album to do it with — Resurgence. I know it’s only been out for a month or so, but that’s an incredible album.
Thank you. Thank you so much.

What are some of the other bands that are on Good Things that really excite you?
Looking at it, the question would be: which band is not interesting to watch? Because what the hell? Like Polaris, we have not seen them in a while, very kind guys. I really like The Devil Wears Prada, Neck Deep, Bilmuri, The All‑American Rejects, what the hell? Simple Plan, Limp Bizkit, I’m very excited for them, never seen them live. Oh my God, I think it’s a very crazy line-up. What I’m most excited about is that we can play more days with them. So I will pick a band for each day that I can see, so I can see as many bands as possible. Neck Deep are also very fun.

What can fans expect from Future Palace when they see you play at Good Things?
With festival slots, of course we have to compromise everything a little bit more, but I always try to still, even when we don’t have much time, show the core of who we are and that we are an authentic emotional band with very, very, very personal topics that I think are not oftentimes talked about on these big stages. I talk about mental health issues that I struggle with, my traumatic past. I talk about equality for women in the world, in this industry. I talk about uncomfortable things on stage and I also show how I feel about them. I feel like our shows are always supposed to be a safe space for that, to feel, to talk about that, to be who you want to be, and be open‑minded. That is pretty much who we are and what we are. Of course we’re always trying to give the best show we can and get the people into this story and vision of the current album. That’s at least what I’m always trying to do with the outfits, the stage stuff, the lights, the interludes. I’m trying to get people into the story but also into that mindset.

Those themes you mentioned are very strong and important. Do you find that when you perform these songs it’s as much therapeutic for yourself as well, to not only communicate your story but try and heal as well?
Yeah, definitely. There is a thing in psychology I heard once that everything you say out loud, your brain believes is real. So both versions. I sing a lot of negative things, but I wanted to create a positive album also for myself. So for example, singing Cyclone, the chorus “I won’t rewind back to the cyclone of grief and fright,” these things are very powerful and make me feel hope as well and moments, for example with The Echoes Of Disparity, one of our songs, when I scream to all the women in the crowd and say, “I wanna hear all the women,” I see their faces, their anger and also their happiness that their pain is mentioned on stage. These are moments that make me feel very hopeful also for myself and for my own future. But not going to lie, there have been moments where I felt absolutely pathetic because I couldn’t believe what I was saying myself. I was in a very low mindset. But usually I would communicate that, like, oh, I even have a hard time today, but still we want to believe in a better future. That is the ultimate message we always try to convey: that we hope and work for a better future, and that is what Future Palace is about.

Was the actual album itself hard work, or did it come relatively easy? The songs and even creating it in the studio?
It was hard work, but it was a little bit more fun, I feel like, because I tried to be more playful with it. I had high standards for myself, so I went to vocal coaching. I wanted to scream better, I wanted to be better again but also sustainable. So I had to make sure everything I create is sustainable because for Run, our second album, I did everything as crazy as possible but didn’t even know what touring was like. With Distortion, I was like traumatised by what touring is like, so my clean vocals were really tamed. Now with Resurgence I tried to be like the new version of myself that knows touring, is not scared of it, knows how to sustain this on tour, and is brave enough to sing loud again and high again and all that stuff. I also read a few books about creativity and writing exercises, and we changed a lot internally, crew‑wise. The entire process we tried to adapt and improve. Also the studio sessions and everything, we’re now in a different city and with only one person that we used to work with in the past, but we’ve never worked with him entirely. This time we did the entire album with this one producer only, and it was very fun. It was, I think, the most fun I had for a long time doing music.

Do you think all these lessons learned you’ll take into the next album, whenever that is?
Yeah, absolutely. I always take everything I learn and see into the next album. I always try to improve and do the best I can currently do. Sometimes the tricky part about Resurgence was it was so extremely close to Distortion that I was like, nope guys, impossible. I cannot do this. I feel burned out, I keep losing my voice, I am uncertain about my future in general. I had to really find hope and motivation for myself again. That only worked with solutions, clarity and communicating what you feel bad with, communicating what the issues are, and confronting yourself with what’s the problem here right now? How can we improve things? That was the spirit of the album, what can we improve to keep going as Future Palace.

With the album being out for about a month now, do you feel any differently about it?
No, actually. I’m a bit of a crazy person, I can listen to an album and love it, and listen to it again and hate it. That’s just who I am. So that keeps happening in general. The time doesn’t matter. No, I still feel quite the same about it.

Does it go in cycles? When you say you like it and then you don’t like it, is it just based on how you’re feeling on a particular day?
It can be in the same day. It’s very weird. I don’t know what it is, it’s with me in general. I can listen to my vocals and I’m like, wow, this is pretty solid and the next moment I’m like, this is the worst thing I’ve ever heard. I don’t know what it is. It’s not that I don’t like the production or anything, it’s more like, oh, that song writing idea was so lame, or oh, we should have done this instead, or oh, you know. But overall listening to it, I still like it and that’s a good sign.

Does it give you plenty of ideas to think about what might be next?
That is actually a problem of mine, my head is always full of what’s next. Too full of what’s next .

Does that make it hard to sit back and relax and have a night off without thinking about a song idea or whatever?
Not necessarily a song idea. I’m just a very creative person and think about everything all the time. Like, oh, maybe I should do music theory classes again and become a very great pianist, and maybe I should get an electric guitar and learn how to do all the riffs myself. I have ADHD so my brain is extremely active and it’s hard to sit down and chill. But also it’s hard to get going at the same time because it’s so many things I think about too much at once.

Touring Australia for the first time, is there anything in particular you’re looking forward to that’s not necessarily music‑related? Is it climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge, koalas, kangaroos, lamingtons, Vegemite, all that kind of thing?
Yeah, koalas we’re excited for. We will hopefully have the time to see them, and all the nature in general will probably be very amazing to us. Of course also the venues, we’ve never been there at all. I still am a bit more scared because I did the mistake of Googling all the dangerous animals. I am always the unlucky person of the crew and of the travel party. I got bed bugs in Canada as the only person and I’m like, what? I usually have a hotel room on my own and I’m very terrified that I will find a dangerous spider in my shoe. So I don’t know what I would do then. I would probably die from a heart attack, so the spider can’t even do anything!

I think you’ll be alright!
Yeah! I think so too. I will be prepared and aware, but I will try not to focus on that and focus on the beauty of the country. I don’t know that much about Australia and all the places. I know Sydney is such a huge city that I can probably cannot even comprehend. One of my friends was there on New Year’s Eve and she it was too much people. She said it was the most people she’s ever seen and we are from Berlin, like an almost four‑million city, so it’s not a tiny city. We’ve been to New York as well, that was also like, whoah, very overwhelming. So I’m just excited overall. I always like to be not too informed, so I’m more surprised when I’m there. I like that a lot.

You mentioned Polaris, but do you have a favourite Australian band?
Oh, I love Australian bands. I love Northlane. I love Thornhill. I love Alpha Wolf. I love Polaris. Who else is there? I mean Johannes I think is a huge Parkway fan. A lot of the time when I really love a band that I find out they’re from Australia and I’m like, what is it in the air? You know, what is it that they made such great bands? Like what the hell? Stylish. Yeah, like good and stylish bands, like, well, they got it figured out .

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch Future Palace on the following dates, tickets here…

Also playing side shows with The Devil Wears Prada, tickets here…