“We were stoked by it,” he enthuses. “We didn’t know we were put forward for it or anything, we just got the email saying, ‘You’re playing Soundwave’ and obviously a bunch of our friends’ bands are on there, In Hearts Wake, Deez Nuts, Dream on Dreamer, so it’s good to see them starting to get a few more Aussie bands on there as well.”
One of the great things about Soundwave is the sheer diversity of the lineup, within rock, metal, punk and alternative music. From Thy Art is Murder to Simple Plan to Pennywise, to just about everything in between, it’s an extremely broad palette of sounds for the open-minded punter. Lee agrees, and feels it is the way it should be.
“Yeah, it’s good,” he says. “I like the real diverse lineups, you get that opportunity to see bands you probably wouldn’t have seen normally, so it’s good.”
For the uninitiated, Lee believes that the experience that his band provides punters is that of intensity, energy and interactivity between band and audience. “It’s heavy!” he states the obvious, laughing. “Just energy, the boys are moving around constantly up front, we try to put on a good show for everyone. Hopefully they (the crowd) goes off, and we can bounce back off them, and obviously the harder the crowd goes off the harder we go off.”
It also means that 2014 is going to start exactly the way the band’s 2013 was, that is, with Thy Art is Murder heavily in demand. Lee tells us that recent times in the band’s eight year history have been insane, and that all their dreams are starting to come true.
“Yeah, busy!” he emphasises, when asked to describe the band’s 2013. “The stuff that’s been happening in the last year and a half for us has been pretty much everything we’ve worked to achieve, and now we get to do it, so we’re all pretty stoked on that.”
And it won’t end at Soundwave. In fact, the festival is just the beginning, as the rest of 2014 is looking just as busy for the band, with multiple tours soon to be announced. Plus there’s the small matter of their third album to be written.
“Straight after Soundwave we’re straight over, back to the States to do the Emmure tour,” he says. “And then we’ve got another couple of tours in the works, that haven’t been announced yet. So just doing our best to keep busy, and slowly start writing for the next release, whenever that pops up.
“We’ve got a fair amount of stuff already written,” he reveals, “so it’s just a matter of keeping on working until we’ve got enough material, and then puts our heads down and jump into the studio.”
Any hints on the direction of the next Thy Art is Murder record, and what’s been influencing your writing? “We do try to keep our core elements in there,” he explains. “The main stuff, the fast, thrashy kind of stuff, but a lot of our new stuff has got a lot of ambient stuff behind it. I don’t know, whatever me and the boys decide to come out with!
“Everyone’s got a pretty diverse musical spectrum. We listen to everything from Prince and Fleetwood Mac to Behemoth and Cannibal Corpse…we don’t want to have an album of ten of the same songs.”
BY ROD WHITFIELD
