Matt Harrison On Trying To Take On The Malcolm Young Role In Palace Of The King

"I guess, yeah, it did all start being a kid, watching AC/DC live and seeing Angus [Young] playing an SG," Palace Of The King's rhythm guitarist Matt Harrison (aka Harri) recalls. So did he dress like his guitar hero as well? "I didn't go that far actually." Surely he would've been in school uniform sometimes at that age though, right? He laughs, "I probably was at that age so, by default, I probably did come home, pick up the SG and I was doing the full Angus." Even though Harrison's just mentioned the younger Young brother, Malcolm is his "favourite guy in that band". "Even at a young age, especially watching the live concerts, you can kinda tell that he was like the team captain sorta thing and everyone was leaning on him for tempo - you know, especially their extended jams; he was kinda leading the way and locking it down with his right hand," Harrison praises.

"We need to take every opportunity that comes to us and whatever the hell it takes for us to make those opportunities work..."

Palace Of The King toured Europe last year and Harrison observes, "The European audience, and rock fans, treat Australian rock as though it's its own genre, if that makes sense? It's sorta like 'Hard Rock', 'Heavy Metal', 'Thrash Metal', 'Australian Rock' to those guys and they dig really, really deep into Australian music through bands. You know, they might be introduced to Australian music through Airbourne, or AC/DC or Cold Chisel or whoever it may be. But they're crazy into it to the point of digging really deep and getting to Billy Thorpe and Buffalo, Stevie Wright and really obsessing over it... And it was amazing to talk to people in the middle of Spain about Australian music in a more detailed sense than you probably would with most people over in Australia."

"Since day one", Harrison says that Palace Of The King "made the commitment" to always put the band first: "We need to take every opportunity that comes to us and whatever the hell it takes for us to make those opportunities work - financially, time-wise, all of the above - then we just do it." When asked whether this devotion has ever cost band members their jobs, he admits, "Unfortunately the reality of it is that it has led to a couple of us, including myself, reaching a point with our bosses where we're unable to continue committing to - whether it's a full-time job or a part-time job, due to touring opportunities that come up at various times."

So now we're wondering who takes on the Malcolm role in Palace Of The King. "I guess that's a role that consciously I've tried to take on myself... and that was something from day one that Leigh [Maden], the other guitarist in our band, and I wanted to have, I guess, more defined roles than we had in bands previously." This involved one member "taking on the role of rhythm guitarist and trying to, you know, lock down with the drummer and bassist and be part of that section of the band". "[That] was something that I really wanted to do and Leigh's an amazing lead guitarist and has that side of the spectrum covered so um, yeah! I guess we've got quite defined roles in that sense in this band."