This Metalhead Wants His Kid To Be A DJ Instead Of Joining A Band

“Objectively, it’s hard to get everything in perspective sometimes because you’re working and touring and focusing on the promo side of things, you actually lose perspective on how well you’re actually doing.”

Voyager singer Daniel Estrin sounds a little chuffed recalling the band’s last six months, and rightly so: Voyager toured Europe, playing headlining shows and festival slots in November last year, and capped off the year with a huge national tour in support of Aussie progressive juggernauts Dead Letter Circus and instrumental legends sleepmakeswaves. “It was a different kind of audience, it was weird playing kind of early-ish. Without sounding like a snob, we are used to playing a bit later, but it was a different audience; there were plenty of people who haven’t heard us before, so it did really well for us, and people seemed to really enjoy it,” he chuckles.

"I think hearing it live is a cool replication of what you’d listen to in your bedroom or your car or whatever.”

Voyager were also picked up by Incendia Music Management, who already host some huge names. “The guy who runs it was up at BIGSOUND and saw us when we played up there, and he talked to our manager in the UK, developed an interest in what we were doing and recognised that we had a bit of a substantial back catalogue already, and he was keen to sign us up. He’s integral to that sort of scene – he works with bands like Catatonia and Opeth and the Devin Townsend Project, so he’s definitely very well connected, so whatever doors he can open for us, we’re happy to have them opened.”

The band are heading to the US to play Midweek Mayhem in Atlanta, Georgia later in the year, playing one of their albums in full as per a currently-open judging poll. “It’s been doing really well and people have been really cottoning on to the idea, so it means we’re going to have to rehearse a whole album’s worth of stuff, which is a challenge in itself. I think hearing it live is a cool replication of what you’d listen to in your bedroom or your car or whatever.”

While Estrin considers the scene to be “real healthy”, he’s under no illusions as to the difficulty of the trade, and is extremely grateful for what the band has been able to achieve. He'd certainly expect his kids to think hard about following in their dad's footsteps. “There's never been a more difficult time for musicians; the industry's a nightmare. It's one of those things, like, if I have a kid one day and it's like, ‘Aw, dad, I wanna be in a band one day,' it's like, 'Really, do you really want to be in a band?’” He laughs. “One thing I’m gonna say to the kid is, ‘Make sure you pick a style of music that doesn’t require five people and a lot of gear and a lot of travel costs that a lot of people don’t really listen to. If you wanna be a DJ and travel the world and just press ‘play’, that’s cool.’”