Presented by Dirthouse Agency, Meltdown Festival is Australia’s newest touring festival and steps up to meet demand for a quality alternative and heavy metal event since the demise of Soundwave (while not to the same scale) and will hit up Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane over successive weekends in May. With the aim to see local bands get the opportunity to play alongside some of the best talent Australia has to offer, the festival will feature the likes of Gay Paris, Child, Arteries, The Black Swamp, Sumeru and Never, with the remaining line up consisting of great local bands from each city.
With the festival around the corner, Aaron Butler, better known as Azza Bok from Melbourne stoner rock band Never, is keen to be a part of a festival celebrating the Australian heavy music scene for a day of good times, great bands and making memories that last a lifetime.
“We’re stoked to be doing that,” Azza beams. “Old Never has been around for a while now, and we’ve had all these plans of world domination like every band, but we’ve had a few hiccups with a few dislocated shoulders and broken bones and broken hearts and all the sorts of things that change your plans for the year,” he says. “We’ve had some setbacks but this is gold, it totally gives us the opportunity to stretch our legs.
“It’s totally something that we’ve always wanted to do, we’re all pretty big fans of a lot of the bands that are playing. Our other guitarist Dan McGougel, one of his favourite bands in the whole world is a band called Child, who are actually on this line-up,” he laughs. “You should have seen him when he found that out, he was like a kid at Christmas getting a new bike. He couldn’t be happier. He makes it his business to see this band every chance he gets and it’s the biggest thing in the world for him to see them regularly, let alone play with them… We’re all pretty stoked.”
Better known for his guitar work in Frankenbok, Azza has been playing guitar with Never for a number of years (alongside ‘Bok vocalist McGougel), and this band is in stark contrast to Frankenbok. Starting out as a ‘piss-take’ side project called The Melbourne Sympathy Orchestra, Never’s true beginnings were based on the idea of creating a porno funk band, inspired by an album called Pornosonic – a Ron Jeremy album, and have since seen the band create a stoner rock feel influenced by the likes of Black Sabbath and Clutch.
“We just wanted to go back to the old school and just do what’s been working for 1000 years and play rock and roll. We wanted to scale everything back, simplify everything and make it simple and easy going so you can spend a lot more time jamming on the groove, and just enjoying the riff – rather than playing 5000 riffs per second,” he laughs.
“Even though I’m playing guitar in both bands, it’s a completely different animal,” he explains. “Frankenbok is full bloody thirsty, Vikings type aggression, while Never is sitting back, getting your dance, getting your groove on, playing guitar… it’s party music. It’s definitely not as intense as the metal. It’s been a really nice break to play music that even our parents like.”
With already two EPs under their belt, Never released their third EP, the appropriately titled Volume 3, late last year, which you can expect to hear at their upcoming performances at Meltdown. As for what’s to come, Azza is just keen to continue the momentum with intentions to fill the year out with monthly gigs.
“We’ve done lots of EPs and there’s always song writing going on. I think everybody in the band has a different idea about what is going to happen next, whether we record a full length, or keep putting out EPs or this or that. There’s a little bit of ‘let’s just keep doing what we’re doing’ and just see what comes about.
“I think what I’ve learnt after a really long time of doing this, is sometimes you can take your well laid plans and stick them up your well laid ass,” he laughs before continuing. “Because we’ve had all those setbacks, at the least, we want to be playing a show a month, just to keep it up. I feel like we’ve got the momentum finally moving now and we really want to keep that going.”
As for the upcoming festival, Azza has just one piece of cliché advice for you all. “This is the first time for this festival and it would be great to see people support it because it’s just going to mean it will come back twice as strong next year. Come down and get in front of live music… that’s pretty much the cliché thing I have to say.”
When & Where: Meltdown @ The Spotted Mallard, Melbourne – Saturday May 12. Tickets via moshtix.
Written by Talia Rinaldo