can one person make a difference?

[amber_lee_melbourne]

How does one get their favorite overseas band to play in australia?
Had some success getting interstate bands to play by asking bigger bands to have them as supports, but what about further away bands? Anybrains know?
My only idea so far is to appeal to festivals like the big day out to include them on the invites!

 

[Chow Mai Dong]

How does one get their favorite overseas band to play in australia?
Had some success getting interstate bands to play by asking bigger bands to have them as supports, but what about further away bands? Anybrains know?
My only idea so far is to appeal to festivals like the big day out to include them on the invites!

I'm not sure of the exact process, but it'd probably go something like...

* Approach band and/or management about how much they'd want, under what conditions, and when they'd like to tour.

* Taking the above into consideration, work out a budget - how much you'd need to pay the band (and support bands) for playing, and paying for food/accommodation/transport/venues/gear hire/merchandise/promo/etc for both the band and touring crew, and then estimate how many punters you'd get and then work out an approximate ticket price in an attempt to cover the costs.

And after that you'd go back and forth between the band/management and venues and so bloody forth to book things like venues, flights, support bands, etc. I dunno all that much to be honest, I'm not a promoter but I work for one as a general live assistant. Doing it on your own would be a fucking nightmare, three heads (or four or five) are better than one, and there'd be shitloads of work to do on tour (a good sense of logistics goes a long way), plus there's things some people forget about like organising working visas or whatever. Mark Streaton nearly did his head in with the Abaddon Incarnate tour since he was basically handling everything except mixing, he didn't even have a lighting guy sorted out so I offered to fill in at one of the shows.

Asking the Big Day Out organisers to put a particular metal band on is just futile.

 

[union9]

You've pretty much summed it up Chow. It'd be a fucking headache. Again, I'm not a promoter but I am in a band and have seen first hand what is involved. The reason why half the bands we would like to see, don't visit our shores, is basicly due to under popularity in Oz, and/or lack of funds. Getting metal on the fucking Big Gay Out is a bad idea in my eye's anyway. I HATE the whole festival scene. Outdoor gig's are far from as good as indoors, when you put sound quality, Ticket prices, amount of fuckheads attending, getting a drink, taking a piss into the equasion. But that's just my selfish opinion. And the fucking SUN. Daylight and metal. Not good. And The Big Gay Out organisers would NOT put anything other than mainstream, watered down, money making, "pop-ular metal" crap on their stages anyway. Fuck the Big Gay Out!

 

[Shadow298]

Well, The Pimp NeonBlack is a promoter (The Masters Of Metal & NeonBlack Productions) and I's used to work in a bar that books interstate metal acts and has had one large international band (Pungent Stench) play there and I's can offer you some very, very simple advice for getting international bands to come downunder:

1: Make friends with as many big promoters and record compnay people as you can. The Pimp recommends people like Modern Invasion, Metal Warriors, Chatterbox, Shock Records & Roadrunner Australia Ltd. But make sure that they have a large working budget for tours and bands and all those little things like advatising.

2. Make friends with an international band somehow. The best way is chat rooms or band site e-mail address.

3. The most important: never set your hopes to high or aim for a massive international band to come downunder. The main problem with getting international bands out (apart from all the things that Union9 & Chow said, which are all important things as well) is money!
International record companys still don't believe that Australia is an important place to let their bands tour. Especially when competing with markets such as the European & South American Tour circuit or even Japan. Australia doesn't measure a speck compared to these places and the money they can pull in. So unless you have a massively wealthy backer, it's hard to even turn a record companies head to look down here, let alone convince them to let send a band out on a promotional tour to test the waters.
The only times we really get an international band out (before this year that is) is because the bands themselves have wanted to come down here (such in the case of Edguy, Mayhem and Pungent Stench who toured ten years ago) and it is only because of the good crowds and enthusiasm of fans did the other metal bands back in Europe even care to consider us.
So unless you want a fairly small international band to venture to these shores and are willing to pay well and do a lot of work, getting an international band out here is next to impossible.

But those are just The Pimp's raves and opinions. Do not hold to close to them. I's even allow people to challenge and correct them without the fear of flaming.

But the best person to talk about this with would be Alex (aka entersix), because he is aiming to get some international bands out here during the course of the year.

Good luck to you, Amber Lee.

Peace
The Pimp NeonBlack

 

[Goreripper]

All three of you have made excellent suggestions, but the key one is: budget. Most bands lose money on tours, so unless you can guarantee the loss is going to be minimal, they're not likely to make the trip. If you email a band with the idea of touring, they will more than likely put you in touch with their booking agent, and it's basically them you'll be dealing with.

Petitioning the BDO wouldn't work; rumour has it the next one will be the last, anyway.

 

[Clarky]

or u can do what we did
got sponsorship/endorsement deal through earache records, now we have a contact overseas, and it has recently opened up quite a few opportunities.

 

[Chow Mai Dong]

Petitioning the BDO wouldn't work; rumour has it the next one will be the last, anyway.

That's what they always say.

On top of that they'd probably tell you they've already got a heavy metal band booked (Metallica)... pfft... even The Age described them as being a "death metal" band, wankers. I'd expect that sort of shit from the Herald-Sun but not The Age, heh.

-Ash

 

[Clarky]

That's what they always say.

On top of that they'd probably tell you they've already got a heavy metal band booked (Metallica)... pfft... even The Age described them as being a "death metal" band, wankers. I'd expect that sort of shit from the Herald-Sun but not The Age, heh.

-Ash

death metal aye
hey gore we should get spawny onto em

 

[amber_lee_melbourne]

wow you lot could prolly put on some kick-arse events if you all got tegether. Thanks for the wealth of replies.
I havnt any cash not a single frakking cent but time I got plenty of so I guess I'll just have to hassle the powers that ker-ching!
Your right about the big day out of course. I havnt been to that gig since '95 or round there. Not since I was a little high school chickie! lol

 

[Goreripper]

death metal aye
hey gore we should get spawny onto em

Heh. But seriously, what would The Age know? Aren't they the cunts that did that article in their weekend magazine about metal that basically pretended to be a serious study of the scene but was really just taking the piss out of it? Mainstream media doesn't know shit. The daily paper up here called Fear Factory a punk band once.

 

[thehellishone]

Mainstream media doesn't know shit. The daily paper up here called Fear Factory a punk band once.

ROFL. Oh that's gold.
But it's not just the media, the average person doesn't know anything about metal. I had a guy I used to work with try to tell me Nickleback were thrash metal. It took me about an hour to stop laughing at him . Poor bastard.....

 

[Goreripper]

ROFL. Oh that's gold.
But it's not just the media, the average person doesn't know anything about metal.

That may be so, but where does the average person get their info from? Usually, the mainstream media and, as has already been established, the mainstream media don't know shit.

 

[thehellishone]

.....so it seems the majority of the population are destined to believe that Creed are Heavy metal and Metallica are the extreme of the extreme. Satan help us.....

 

[Goreripper]

What does that matter? We know the truth!

 

[thehellishone]

so very, very true.
But the next person to try and tell me Murderdolls sound like something I would listen to is gonna get a kick in the teeth

 

[Clarky]

i was listening to meshuggah the other day
chaosphere album
i get from a mate
OOO MAN THIS SOUNDS LIKE SLIPKNOT YEAH!!

im like err *throws meshuggah in the bin*
people ruin 2 many bands for me

 

[Celestial-Todd]

haha... I was listening to Earth the other day in my stereo and a mate of Shayne's says "this is a fucking rip-off of Slipknot"

I almost put his head through thye fucking wall!

 

[Clarky]

haha
im seeing earth tonite
should be good
their off to the UK soon for a tour

 

[Goreripper]

haha... I was listening to Earth the other day in my stereo and a mate of Shayne's says "this is a fucking rip-off of Slipknot"

I almost put his head through thye fucking wall!

That shows how fucking dumb they are... Earth sounds nothing like Slipknot.

 

[Clarky]

yeah everyone knows earth are an entombed rip off