Road Warriors

Aside from a few stiff crowds in mainland Europe (we're looking at you Belgium!), The Amity Affliction have just enjoyed another successful OS tour, ripping into the continent of culture last month with British crew Landscapes and Aussie up-and-comers In Hearts Wake. Now, 12 months on from the release of their ARIA chart topping third record Chasing Ghosts, Gympie's biggest metal export will headline the largest local dates of their career, and affable growler Joel Birch is excited to attack stages as road hardened as they've ever been.

“This is the first [Australian] tour we've really done where we've come off solid touring before it,” Birch admits. “We're feeling much better this time than we were, even for the album tour; I felt like we hit our stride about halfway through that. So it's good, we're fully in tour mode [right now] so it should be a beauty.”

It's been a wild year of highs and lows for the band – with now-sorted label woes briefly mentioned but not expanded on by Birch – and he smiles when talking about seeing more of the world and performing as part of Soundwave, Groovin' The Moo and Warped Tour in the States. But grinding out tours end-to-end is nothing new for The Amity Affliction; it's how they've built their career and honed their skills. The band don't know any other way, and Birch finds it funny that some young acts think they do.

“I see [bands] who are touring hard, [then] I see bands forming with a band manager, a tour manager and a fucking press agent, a record label, and they're like, 'EP coming soon'. It's like, 'What do you mean, man?'” he laughs quizzically. “We toured for fucking six years before we had a manager. You don't need that shit, just hit the road, and then hit it again and again and again. It's almost like they think that shit just happens overnight; they just need to watch those Parkway DVDs and they can get a lesson in what happens. Just fucking tour, it's a simple formula. If you've got something that's going to become successful, like if you have that ability and you keep touring, it will come into fruition.”

The frontman says instantaneous recognition and the visual one-upmanship found on social media has a big part to play in the problem.

“There'll always be those people out there that want to be in a band so they can fuck, or want to be in a band because it's a mark of coolness or something. I know I speak for all of us in Amity; we wanted to be in a band to play music – that was it. It was something that we felt we had to do and we did it and it worked. But nowadays you say you're in a band on the internet and you're in a band – so what? You get one song on SoundCloud and who knows what can happen?” he jokes sarcastically.

“I'm a bit jaded on the whole music industry but I do think that a lot of bands could take a lot away from older bands like Parkway and us as well, not to the same extent, but there's a lot to be learnt from the touring ethics of older bands. Look at Mindsnare, they've been doing that shit for twenty years; they're just passionate about hardcore, no bullshit. I think that would help if people strip away the bullshit and get back to the roots of it all.”

Much like these tips espoused by Birch for young bands, Chasing Ghosts offers a clear message for fans of The Amity Affliction: life is there for living. It's a direct and at times arresting album, but it's also undeniably uplifting because the charismatic vocalist purged the challenging emotions he was feeling into something positive.

“It's still a constant thing, it's not something that you just wake up in the morning and get rid of like a hangover,” he says regarding his depression. “You're stuck with it for many, many years, so I work through it, stay positive and that's the best you can do. I still have my bad days, like everyone does, but just head down, get through it and move forwards.”

Birch still fights his battles, but right now he's happy to concentrate on the summer ahead; epic shows with his best mates, time with his girlfriend at home on the Sunshine Coast, getting waves and doing pre-production on The Amity Affliction's fourth full-length, which the band are already deep into. “The guys have six songs demoed, I just sung on the first one yesterday and Ahren [Stringer – bass/clean vocals] has done choruses on four of them, so we're well and truly into writing mode,” he reveals. “We're recording in January/February so new album around the corner.”