2: Vox & Vilification

Prepping for a festival with two weeks notice was exhausting. Austin relished all the meagre downtime that they could squeeze out of their schedule, so he readily welcomed the tiny flashing icon at the bottom of his screen when he could finally flop down in front of his computer. The notification was, mercifully, not for his own messaging server which was full of a mix of friends and fans, but rather his private channel. The little icon was a tiny roaring bear expertly cupping a microphone, with a pulsing red (1) next to it. Dai. 

In The Bog

Private Channel #2 (Voice Stuff)

Forge: Red. Reeeeeed. You got name-dropped today, did you see?

Austin paused, fingers poised over his keyboard, and squinted. Of all the messages he was expecting from Dai, that was not among them. Name dropped?

TexasRed: No? When?

There was a pause. Austin half-expected Dai not to reply. He had sent the message a few hours prior, and they did live in different time zones. But almost as soon as his fingers left the keys, a little “...” appeared in their chat.

Forge: Ahhhh. Wait, yeah. It was an Australian pub so it woulda dropped while you were sleeping. 

There was a pause, and more “...” and then a link popped up beside Dai’s icon. 

Forge: You heard of Vilification? 

Heard of was an understatement. Austin coloured slightly, and was glad he was hidden behind the relative anonymity of his computer screen. He couldn’t resist clicking on the link. It was more than likely a band interview with their guitarist or drummer, but the temptation to check anyway was tantalising. The link took a moment to load, and Austin’s eyes wandered up to the three Vilification limited edition vinyls standing pride of place in his collection on the other side of his studio. 

TexasRed: Course. Gimme a sec.

The article loaded, and Austin’s fingers clenched compulsively around his mouse. 

SludgeFest is just around the corner, and things are looking brutal. Thunder Down Under’s Casey got the chance to “sit down” with the elusive frontwoman of one of Australia’s best modern metal exports, VILIFICATION, to discuss influences, touring and what she is most excited to see coming out of this year’s line-up. 

CASEY: Hello, hello and cheers again for sitting down with us, Noct. I should let everyone know before we start that this is a text conversation we’re having. You’ve become somewhat notorious over the last couple of years for not giving interviews, especially spoken ones. 

NOCT: As a fellow Aussie, I bet you can relate. Not a lot of the international metal folk get the accent after all, and I don’t exactly have a fancy intercity voice. 

CASEY: I’ve got a few friends from small country towns, it's like another language. 

Austin skimmed the article. He knew he would come back and read the entire thing at his leisure. Interviews with Vilification as a whole were rare. Interviews with Noct were unheard of. 

CASEY: A lot of people comment on your vocal style. You tend to blend a lot of older styles of screaming and vocal distortion from both within and outside of metal with some really new, cutting edge stuff. 

NOCT: My favourite artists have always been people that aren’t afraid to blend, to draw from lots of different places of inspiration to find their sound. Mixing something old with something new. It’s fun. Metal should be more fun, some people take it far too seriously. When things start sounding homogenous is when I tend to get bored. 

CASEY: Given that, is there anyone on this tour you are particularly excited about? SludgeFest has a really diverse lineup this year, I think there really is something for everyone. 

NOCT: I’m actually most pumped about your newest announced band. It was unfortunately that Winterguard had to pull out at the last moment, but I think Sludge made a good decision with their replacement.

CASEY: You’re familiar with SYCORAX then?

NOCT: I loved their EP. It came out in the middle of our last tour, I spent a lot of time annoying the boys with it on the bus. And Austin really is something, he’s well worth going to check out even if you aren’t a fan of their sound, if only to watch a really top tier vocalist in action. 

Austin’s toes curled inside his shoes. 

CASEY: Both VILIFICATION and SYCORAX found their start on NoiseTV, didn’t they? Have you guys ever interacted?

NOCT: No, though I subbed to Austin’s solo streams a while back. He sings live and unedited, it's a lot of fun to watch. 

CASEY: I bet that was a thrill for him, you guys are very much in the same sort of wheelhouse.

NOCT: Oh no, I’d be far too embarrassed to ever sub from our official channel. I have a private account I subbed from, he probably doesn’t even know I exist.

The article nattered on for a while longer, but all Austin could see or hear suddenly was white noise. Noct not only knew who his band was, she was quite happy to admit she’d watched him before. She’d subbed to his dumb covers channel. She knew his name.

Austin rocked back in his chair and unconsciously gnawed on the side of one thumb. He’d been excited about performing in just a few weeks, but now, suddenly, he was terrified. They would be playing on the same bill. She knew who he was.

Forge: Red. 

Forge: Red. Yo, man are you still there?

The little bear icon blinked incessantly. 

Forge: I didn’t realise that you two had never touched base before.

Austin blinked, the words marching across his screen taking a moment to register.

TexasRed: What? No. Never. I wish.

He instantly regretted that last part, and his fingers itched for an erase button, but Dai was already typing.

Forge: That’s mad, man. If I’d known I woulda introduced you. I never even realised she knew about Syc or I totally would have. 

TexasRed: Wait….you KNOW her???

Forge: Lol, yeh. I’ve tutored her a few times. Not like...regularly or anything  but I think she struggles to find many female singers that do what she does, and are willing to teach it, or even know HOW. She’s cool man, even when she’s up at dumb o’clock to do lessons.  

Austin couldn’t help but chew on a thumb as he pondered how to reply. The closer this festival got, the more anxiety it was causing him. First Jim, and now this. It was a good, thrilling sort of feeling but he was already losing sleep. The furore that erupted in Sycorax, and to a lesser extent, his own solo projects’ fan bases hadn’t helped either. Suddenly it was like their names were popping up everywhere, and that was scary-exciting. All of his downtime had been spent nursing cups of honeyed tea, or exercising in a desperate bid to keep himself healthy and his voice clean and strong between now and then. 

Forge: Hey tho, I’ll introduce you when you get here. I’ve got a couple of students performing so I’ll be kicking around anyway. Was a good excuse for a holiday.  

Dai was a voice teacher. He specialised in heavy distortion, lots of death metal growls and tunnels. He was Canada-based normally, but tended to festival hop, especially when his students - some of them now big names in their respective genres - performed. 

TexasRed: That’d be rad. Cheers man.

He just couldn’t help himself. Not that it would make the anticipation of this upcoming tour any better. Austin had the growing sense that something surely would go wrong. He was fucked.