affliction addiction

"It's been a pretty mental year,” Ryan Burt says, as though he's angling for a nod in some awards ceremony called Understatement of the Year. The Amity Affliction drummer's soft, laidback voice further underscores his sentiment's miscalculation. Even a casual observer could see that the whirlwind run that followed in the wake of their third album, last year's Chasing Ghosts, has been downright huge/life-changing moment for the five-piece.

“Ever since Chasing Ghosts came out and went to number one it was this kind of mind-blowing moment, and since then it's kind of been non-stop. The album tour was crazy, the biggest tour we've ever done and straight from that we went to America for two months, came back for Christmas and then we did Soundwave and regional stuff here and there. It's been non-stop, but we're totally used to that by now.”

“Every tour gets crazier and crazier, but we're very humble, so we just have to kind of take in all the stuff that's going on around us but at the same time keep our heads down and focussed on what's coming up, sort of thing.”

Though there was a precedent set by Australia's premier hardcore dudes, Parkway Drive, that Amity – with their weird, non sequitur song titles and idiosyncratic, genre-mashing approach to making heavy music – could make it up to the tippy top of the ARIA charts left every jaw in the Australian music underground agape. The members of the band were even flummoxed by the news.

“We got a phone call as our label found out, and I guess everyone was kind of gobsmacked because we didn't see it coming. We were up against two pretty big names, like mainstream bands, so when it came through we all just took a step back and went 'whoa, this is really unexpected and crazy'. We never thought that a band in our genre or style could get number one, but I guess these things happen…” Burt starts laughing, “It's still pretty hard to comprehend.”

While Amity were coming to terms with their third album's success, the jealous parties in the Australian hardcore scene were crying foul of the band's rise. The tall poppy syndrome was in full effect, but that didn't seem to bum Burt or the rest of Amity out in the slightest. “You can be told you're selling out or whatever. And all the kids like to think that they're the cool ones who were listening to us from day one when we were nobodies, but every band gets bigger. And as soon as you start getting popular, more people hate you. But whatever, it doesn't really matter.”

The drummer reckons that scene denizens wouldn't have reason to be sour on The Amity Affliction if they got their own bands' shit together. “The problem with bands in this day seems to be that they focus on recording something awesome first instead of touring and playing as many shows as possible, like we did. They focus on having something cool to show their mates before really doing the hard yards about getting their name out there. Because there's no real secret to it, you just have to play as many shows as you can and tour as much as you can. That's how we did it.”

Amity's high post-Ghosts profile has also opened some amazing doors for the band when it has come to playing live. They've earned coveted slots on some of the country's biggest music festivals, and been able to showcase their dirty verse/pretty chorus hardcore to the average festival punter.

“Mainly since Chasing Ghosts came out, we've been doing these mainstream festivals. With Big Day Out last year, which was our first taste of the mainstream festival, then we're doing Groovin' the Moo, Pyramid Rock and all those other things where we end up getting lumped in with The Living End and all these hip hop and rap artists, and we really enjoy that. Because we don't just listen to hardcore, so to get out there and share stages with some of these guys is really cool.”

Again, this move towards the mainstream seems to have irked some of the hardcore guard, but Burt doesn't seem fazed by that. Everyone's got their own thing. “If they're still holding on to that old hardcore thing, that's cool. But you've got to realise that bands can't just play the same club shows to 200 kids as a career. We're all getting older, so we want just want to hang out with all different types of people playing all different types of music.” Rather, the drummer thinks that Amity finding slots on some of the country's most prestigious music showcases is more a situation where the scene as a whole, rather than one band, has moved towards the spotlight.

“The hardcore scene has grown a lot over the last few years, so maybe now people are realising how it can fit in with the rest of the Australian music scene. We're a little bit different because we've got the pretty parts and the singing, and also the album went number one. So that's given us a lot of notoriety, but mostly I think the hardcore scene's growth over the last couple of years has helped it get to this point where it's big enough to mix in with everything else.”

The next festival on the band's agenda is Live It Up, a new one that is giving underage kids the chance to get exposed to a diverse range of Australian musicians, who for the most part would be playing 18-plus clubs. Lamenting the licensing restrictions that all too often keep the kids out from shows, Burt explains why Amity were happy to jump on the Live It Up bill, even if it meant sharing stages with the likes of rappers like Pez.

“A lot of the shows we play these days are 18-plus, and a lot of our younger fans are missing out. And we feel bad about that a lot, so this is a good festival for the kids that are under 18... We did a festival that was similar in Melbourne and that did really well, so it's good to that's happening in Brisbane as well. Because a lot of these places now, the licensing is really hard when you're trying to put on an all ages show. So to have something that is purely for the younger kids is really good.”

With high-profile festival slots on the horizon and their place on the Australian live scene seemingly cemented for the time being, the band are turning their attention towards overseas. And, as their success in Australia is a testament to, The Amity Affliction are happy to put in the hard work before they reap their rewards.

“We are going over to the States and doing Warped tour for three months. Having an album at number one here has made people over there really stand up and take notice. And I think, other than when you've made it at home, America is the place to be, really. So we'll do our best over there, but it's a tough place.”

Amity Affliction will be playing the following dates:

Saturday 13 April - Live It Up Festival, Brisbane QLD
Saturday 27 April - Groovin' The Moo, Maitland Showgrounds, Maitland NSW
Sunday 28 April - Groovin' The Moo, University Of Canberra, Canberra ACT
Saturday 4 May - Groovin' The Moo, Prince Of Wales Showgrounds, Bendigo VIC
Sunday 5 May - Groovin' The Moo, Murray Sports Complex, Townsville QLD
Saturday 11 May - Groovin' The Moo, Hay Park, Bunbury WA