Another act right there in the thick of it is Sydney modern prog rockers Breaking Orbit, whose superb debut album The Time Traveller was released approximately a year ago to virtually universal acclaim.
After a stunning 12 months and a very busy 2013 so far, including a nationwide jaunt with Dead Letter Circus earlier this year, the band have headed off on their own headlining tour of the country as you read this, and pull in to Melbourne this Friday. Drummer Mark Tyson joined us prior to the tour from his home in Sydney to tell us all it.
“I think we’ve been really lucky in the last 12 months, with the album and how that’s come out,” he says, “and so for us, this headline tour is a good consolidation of all the good stuff that’s happened over the last 12 months, so it’s pretty cool.”
And the band have not been idle in the last year, as far as writing new material is concerned, and Mark promises that some brand new songs will get an airing on this tour. “We’re really excited,” he enthuses, “’cause we’ve got some brand new stuff to throw out there as well, keeping it fresh and all that kind of stuff!”
The tour is actually to support the release of a brand new single, the third one lifted from the album, closing track Silence Seekers, which showcases the more atmospheric side of this hard hitting progressive rock act.
“Yeah, it’s one of the tracks off the album, we decided to promote that one because it’s the big, emotive…well it captures a big emotional moment, it’s a real crescendo,” he describes, “and it’s one of the tracks on the album that we love, it probably came out the best on the album, for us. So we’re definitely looking forward to thrashing that one out, should be awesome!”
The Breaking Orbit live show is definitely not just another band playing their live set; they endeavour to put on a show full of light and shade, colour and movement, and bring in an array of percussive elements to add to their already highly complex and interesting progressive rock tunes, as Mark explains.
“Love this question!” he laughs. “I guess one of the things we try and do the most is try and use as much energy as we can to communicate with the crowd and engage the crowd. It’s one of those thing where, whether you’re into the progressive rock sounds, like whether you’re a die hard Cog fan and stuff of that genre, or whether you’re just into to good songwriting or the whole staging thing, we try and bring everything to our shows. A great live presentation, the show, what it sounds like and all those kind of things.
“For those who haven’t seen us, it’s a real opportunity to step outside the bounds of what you hear on the record. And we engage in that live percussion element very heavily, and it has a great visual impact as well as being a hell of a lot of fun for us!”
The album has had a superb response in the year that it has been out, and the band have been very excited and encouraged by the reaction, both here and overseas. The band have strong ambitions to expand their reach beyond our shores and take their sounds and live presentation to offshore markets.
“Even overseas, we’re just stoked that it’s getting such a good response over there, because obviously for us that’s a great goal in life, to step off and capture that European market, and eventually the States, or whatever other paths we can possibly conquer!”
And in the shorter term, there is the matter of writing and building towards a follow up to The Time Traveller, and Mark tells us that work is well underway on the band’s sophomore effort.
“We always have a large backlog of stuff,” he reveals. “Half the tracks on the first album we’d been playing for quite a while and then we went in and refined them for the album itself. We have a lot of stuff that we’ve laid down over the last three or four years, so we’re cultivating those ideas. I suppose they’re slightly influenced by the bands that we’ve touring with, and the sounds that have been coming out in the last little while. Bands like Twelve Foot (Ninja) and Dead Letter (Circus) and all that kind of stuff.”
BY ROD WHITFIELD
