Breaking Through

Robot Child's new album One More War is a heavily themed LP, something the band only realised after they finished the tracks. “While we were recording, we had this nagging feeling that there was something that united all the songs,” Waleed Aly tells.

“Once we finished recording, one of the names that was proposed for the album was One More War, which is a lyric from one of the tracks. From there we realised that there is conflict and struggle in every song. Some songs are operating on the level of a personal relationship, others are [about] the conflict between humans and the environment, others focus on genocide. So at every level there's this theme that had emerged innately: that we are addicted to conflict, that we have this destructive element within us that we can't escape.”

Robot Child formed after a couple of band members participated in the world's first-ever theatrical production of Pink Floyd's: The Wall in 2009. The band's lead singer Jeff Wortman played Pink in the production and Aly, as the lead guitarist, aspired to replicate David Gilmore's playing. The pair met their bass player through the production as well. Unsurprisingly, Nuworks Theatre, the company that put on this musical, wanted to dramatise Robot Child's upcoming album. The band is currently working with the company, along with a cast of around 20, to turn One More War into a musical.

The band originally intended to record a “narrative album”, but, as Aly explains: “We realised [there were] songs [we needed] that weren't songs we wanted on the album. So, we abandoned that plan, and what we were left with was an album that was about conflict and all the different ways people are engaged in it, but it certainly wasn't designed to be turned into a theatre work.”

As well as writing new music for this theatre production, Robot Child are also preparing for their album launch. “We're hoping to pull out as many stops as we can,” says Aly. “We're working on incorporating video; for example, if we play Sandpit we'd have to use the video.”

Aly might consider checking out stage dimensions before locking in venues down the track though as his enthusiasm recently saw him almost tear the roof off a venue. “In Sydney we were playing the second song off the album and there's a pause before the last chorus,” he elaborates. “I just instinctively jump at that moment and this time I was very fired up, so I jumped particularly high. [However], I hadn't noticed the roof was particularly low, and the next thing I knew I was on the floor and there was plaster everywhere, but the guitar stayed in tune and we just brought it home.”