OK then, I'll say it.
Local metal might not be dead, but is it doing at all well? How many Aussie metal bands has the average punter heard of? Why is everyone seemingly content with the Aussie metal scene still being underground, yet several metal bands in other countries have had success?
To me, success means chart success as well as critical success, not just being able to play gigs while still keeping your day job and having a bunch of fans on the internet think you're really good, and then maybe getting on to a couple of festivals in Europe, way down the bottom of the list in small print amid all the bands whose names you don't know because the font is so obscure.
See, told you I should have shut my trap.
OK, I disagree here. I think it's all about perceptions.
When a lot of people see bands that tour here from overseas, they go "wow, they must be pretty good because they're from overseas" when we have bands that are as good or better. The perception is that because they're touring here from another country they must be somehow better musicians or doing better commercially than the local product.
The fact is that for every one band that tours here or every band that we hear of over here, there's THOUSANDS of other bands that we don't hear of outside of a few internet fans and MySpace page with a bad band logo on it. The percentage of bands from Australia that are doing stuff is on par with a lot of other places in the world when you take in to account population and especially the isolation we have to contend with.
For an Australian band to be successful overseas means BIG money in flights before they can even tour there, or a decent wad of cash (either self-funded or label funded). It's not like, say, France where you can hop in your car and in a few hours you're playing in Germany alongside other "name" bands.
The other perception that people have is that bands overseas are doing better than we are because you see them playing at a huge festival in front of tens of thousands of people. What people don't get is that when those bands AREN'T playing those festivals, they're playing to 100 - 300 people a night tops normally. I saw Doro play in Germany to 120 people. I hear Blaze Bailey was averaging about 60 people a night for a tour he did a couple of years back. Not so good. Most even semi-popular metal bands can do that here with no problem.
We have some amazing world-class bands down here. Just because a lot of people outside of the scene hasn't heard of them doesn't make them less so, and it's the same anywhere in the world - they're not really known much outside of the metal scenes (huge bands like Maiden, etc. not included - I'll get to that point in a minute). A lot of these bands are touring internationally. Dungeon did 3 tours internationally, Psycroptic did 3 I think, Alchemist are headlining ProgPower I believe, Vanishing Point, Black Majesty, Anarion, Mortification.... this is just quickly off the top of my head then too, I've missed heaps of bands out. So we're doing OK I think.
The one thing we ARE lacking is an international juggernaut kind of band (AC/DC and Rose Tattoo aside). We don't have a Maiden or Priest or Blind Guardian here, which is probably a combination of a lot of the above factors about distance and country size I mention, as well as the times being different now. It's easier than ever to put out an album, but it's harder than ever to get it to sell with the way the downloading has affected everything, so building up a massive fan base is harder than ever before when everything is so much of a disposable commodity.
So yes, this is why I disagree largely with people who say the Aus metal scene is dead. It's far from dead in my opinion. It absolutely needs more work and it's far from perfect - that's pretty obvious - but in comparison to other markets like ours around the world, I reckon we're more or less on par.
