| Band name | Avalanche |
| Members | Steven Campbell – Vocals/Bass Veronica Taleski – Guitars Ryan Roma – Drums |
| Location | Sydney, Australia |
| Founded in | 2018 |
| Similar artists | AC/DC, Airbourne, Guns n’ Roses, Motörhead, Led Zeppelin, Free, The Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry |
| First release | “Sent From Hell” (May 1st 2019) |
| Links | Facebook | Twitter |
| The Music Addict’s Verdict | Raw, a bit sloppy, but 100% rock. My new life goal is to use the phrase ‘Get back to Fuckwit City’ in real life at least once. |
How was the band formed? We started in Sydney at the beginning of last year. Our drummer Ryan’s dad owned a steel factory that he and Veronica, our guitarist, used to rehearse in. Between them, they knew how to play every AC/DC song and would jam on a mix of blues, rock and metal songs every weekend. Eventually, Veronica brought me, Steven, into the mix as they needed a lead vocalist. We went through a whole mess of bass players and rhythm guitarists until I took up bass and Veronica took over all guitar duties.
We started playing in all the local pubs, clubs and music venues in Sydney and started making a name for ourselves. We’d meet a lot of other bands, often a lot older than us, but they’d like us and ask us to play more gigs with them, or the venue would ask us back to play more shows, so we seemed to get a pretty positive response. We also spent a lot of time writing and recording between gigs and have already released 2 singles on Spotify so far, and we’ll be releasing our debut Double EP ‘Sent From Hell’ on May 1st.
What’s your songwriting process like? It’s pretty collaborative. Usually one of us will come up with a riff or a title or some kind of idea and bring it in to rehearsal and then we’ll work on it with the rest of the band. Sometimes its very spontaneous and we can work out a whole song together on the spot at rehearsal, other times, me or Veronica will go home and work on it by ourselves and structure it in our own time and then bring it back to the band to complete, and were constantly trying to get it as close to perfect as possible. We just think if you go through the trouble of writing a song, why not try make it the best song it can be: why write filler material?
What are your influences? Veronica is very influenced by a lot blues and early rock and roll like Chuck Berry, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Elvis, and also a lot of bands like the Rolling Stones, Free, T. Rex, Mountain, Cactus, Kiss… But her biggest influence is definitely AC/DC, same as Ryan, he also loves Motorhead, Metallica and a lot of British heavy metal and thrash metal, like Slayer, Judas Priest and Megadeth. I came from more of a stoner rock and psychedelic background, my favourite band is Black Sabbath for example, but the rest of the band and I are also very influenced by Australian rock music like Rose Tattoo, the Angels, Stevie Wright and the Easybeats.
How would you describe your music? It’s either gonna make you want to fight someone or fuck someone. Its like a punch in the face from start to finish, gut busting, high energy rock and roll.
What’s the one thing that makes your band stand out from the rest? We play a brand of hard rock that not a lot of people have heard in a while, we try to create the most massive sound possible through sheer volume and force rather than distortion and effects. Were a guitar band, nothing fancy, we play rock similar to the bands of the late 70’s early 80’s when rock bands were starting to get faster and harder but remain a rock n roll band, so there’s lots of blues elements and turnarounds but its fast and loud, and we have a powerful, growly vocalist that really mixes well with the high volume guitars, thumping bass and thrashing drums, it’s really bare bones rock which you don’t find a lot of these days, and thats what we think makes us unique.
What’s your latest release? ‘Sent From Hell’ is our debut double EP release with 4 studio recordings and 4 live recordings that we multi-tracked at one of our gigs. It’s a gutsy rock and roll record about sin, sex and damnation, played through the interpretation of our generation but inspired by everything that came before.
The opening track ‘Sold My Soul’, delves into the story off the crossroads and signing deals with the devil, ‘Balls Deep’ and ‘On Your Back’ are about exactly what you think they are; the latter a slower rhythm based rock n roll track and, the former an anthem with an outro solo that will kick your ass. The last of the studio recordings is ‘Head First in Hell’, which is actually the first song we recorded for it. It’s a fast-paced hard rock epic, our answer to songs like ‘Riff Raff’ and ‘Number of the Beast’; killer solos, crazy dynamics, loud AF drums, and powerful melody lines that grab the audience by the throat and never let go.
Then the B-side has all the live tracks, including; a live version of ‘Head First in Hell’, a song about telling someone to fuck off in the most Australian way possible called ‘Get Back (to Fuckwit City)’, a mean fast and groovy bluesy song called ‘Run Like Hell’, and our closing song; ‘Down in the Gutter’ probably our most high energy song, unwavering from beginning to end, it’s about being down on your luck and sick of taking everybody’s crap.
What are your plans for the next few months? We have shows booked out until July all around Sydney and possibly some shows out of town as well, were constantly adding new dates. We hope to gig as much as possible to promote this EP, were really going all out with promotion, we’ll be selling CD’s, T-shirts, stickers and other merch at each of the shows and online, and we’ve been rehearsing non-stop to really make every show a performance that you’re not gonna forget.
He's also a regular contributor at the excellent news site Montreal Rampage
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