Soundwave Festival: The Great Equalizer of Bands

The overseas festival touring circuit seems like your normal, average music event when you look at it on paper, but when you take a glance backstage, it’s a totally different animal. These large festivals will fly out bands from all over the world to draw people to their international showcase to give concert attendees something special.

I spent this weekend wrapping up a farewell tour with my band The Swellers on the biggest Australian festival tour called Soundwave. What most people don’t realize about these gigs is that the bands are all flying on the same planes, staying in the same hotels, and riding in shuttles together. Watching bands from drastically different genres be forced to coexist is like watching some strange social experiment. The interactions are absolutely bizarre and if you take advantage of your surroundings, you can come home with some pretty amazing stories.

If you think you and your band are “the normal ones,” think again. The second you walk into the backstage area at a festival, you will instantly notice the division of bands and crew like they’re kids sitting at different tables in a high school cafeteria. You’ll see the old 90s skate punk bands wearing khaki shorts and black band t-shirts, younger Guns N’ Roses-looking rocker bands with throat tattoos, very old European black metal guys, and then the bizarre big name acts trying to make their way as quickly as possible from catering back to their room. Everyone has their clique and they’re sticking to it. If a band like All Time Low or Fall Out Boy happens to think they’re hot shit (they’re actually both super nice), they will instantly get humbled when someone like Slash walks by with his bodyguards. There’s always someone bigger so it doesn’t matter what your status happens to be.

We were only in the country for a few days but made enough interesting friends. The first day, we shared a flight and shuttle with the singer of the cello-driven classical metal band, Apocalyptica. We broke the ice and ended up sharing a mutual admiration of punk and hardcore. Who knew? After that, we’d always get a smile and a wave when we walked by. I was heading to the lobby in our hotel and a tall, frowning European metal guy was standing next to me, waiting for the elevators. I cracked a joke about how long they’ve been taking and he smiled and introduced himself. Turns out he was the main cellist for Apocalyptica and was very surprised I was familiar with his band and planned on seeing them already. Simply by shooting the shit, I made another buddy in a strange place. On the way to their Sidewave show (small club show, still part of the tour), we stopped for burgers and saw a familiar face wearing shorts, tall black socks, and rocking a head tattoo. I did a double-take and realized we were sitting right by Rob Halford of Judas Priest, who was enjoying a burger without being recognized or bothered. We arrived a bit too late to the show and Marilyn Manson was already playing. Our friends on the tour were hinting at a special guest musician that night and during the encore, fucking Johnny Depp walked out and played guitar on “The Beautiful People” with them. The humid, smelly room erupted into a flash of iPhone screens and the place went wild. This was a normal night on Soundwave.

A few nights ago, we returned to the hotel drenched in sweat and sore from our set. The guys filled a box with beer and water from the fairgrounds so we could have free drinks for the rest of the night. Noticing we were struggling with our gear and had no one to grab the box for us, a nice guy in a black shirt walks up and offered to help. He wasn’t doing anything and figured he might as well kill some time and be nice. He went up with the elevator with us and we found out he’s the bass tech for Godsmack. When the elevator reached the top level, he casually blurted out, “The funny thing is, I used to be in a band that sold over five million records.” Of course we asked what band he used to be in and after grinning, slowly looking side to side and building up the moment, he said, “I played bass in Alien Ant Farm.” We all lost our shit because we remembered him being the guy making the goofy faces in the “Smooth Criminal” video. We invite him back to the room for a light-hearted hang out and it instantly turns into a Vh1 Behind The Music episode about the guy’s life story. We heard everything from the bus crash that nearly ended their career and the singer’s life to how he almost played bass in Metallica. I tried to use my inquisitive insight on the music industry to get the conversation going and was cut off with stories about how Lars Ulrich told him, “I am so tired of hearing about your band from James. I really, really like you guys, but I’m so sick of hearing about your band.” That story happened a few more times as more drinks were had.

One thing bands can form a kinship over is sharing brutal timeslots. Our band and Canadian punkers, Fucked Up, built this bond. We both played during Fall Out Boy, Slipknot, and The Smashing Pumpkins the first two nights. On one of the days off, we noticed their singer Damian was wearing a WWE Performance Center shirt. And just like that, wrestling nerd friendships were formed.

International festivals seem to bring out the best in people because anyone from the same continent has something to bond over instantly. It’s a nice taste of home even hearing a familiar accent or talking about donut shops, in this case Tim Horton’s. I was finally able to watch Fucked Up play the next two days after their time slot was switched to earlier in the day and it was a real trip. Damian stood in the crowd the whole time, hugged every single person he could, and took pictures with anyone who asked while going crazy and screaming into their faces. At the end of the day, I got the full experience and truly appreciated the band from a new perspective.

My favorite experience on the tour was crossing paths with legendary Norwegian black metal band, Mayhem. Our band consists of nice suburban kids from Michigan and Canada playing pop punk and we got to share a shuttle with a band who may have eaten the brains of one of their dead band members. We were leaving the Brisbane show and a stern tour manager walked up to me and politely asked, “Is it OK if a member of Mayhem rides with you?” We graciously accepted. He responded with, “You will be riding with Necrobutcher.” That was the coolest sentence. I’m sure we annoyed the hell out of him on the way back. The next day, the whole band rode from the airport with us and I overheard them settling a missing guitar situation for their New Zealand tour. “We could borrow a guitar from Judas Priest, detune it, scrape off the inlays, then kill a small mammal and paint the guitar with its blood.”

In a few short, chaotic days, we connected with musicians from all walks of life. None of us made sense together, but the social experiment was a success. Crowds were entertained, bands were treated well, and we all went home with stories to tell our friends and families. Opening your mind to other types of music, or at least the people playing it, can introduce you to a whole new world. Being nice to people is the best way to get new friends or prove some people truly are dicks. I had a blast on our final Australian tour, solely due to its weirdness. Soundwave was the perfect way to end it for us.

Jonathan Diener is/was in The Swellers. Follow him on Twitter – @jonodiener