The Amity Affliction To Emerging Bands: 'Just Fucking Tour'

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.”