Duane's World Issue 7: Spittin' Fire with Oliver Rae Aleron of Archspire
Oliver Rae Aleron is an absolute beast. The frontman for Canadian tech-metal giants Archspire possesses the fastest and most aggressive vocal delivery on the planet. Attempting to sing like him is not for beginners. Trying to do so may result in your throat exploding, your eyes caving in and your Dad calling you a dickhead. Don’t believe me? Well, come check them out over the next week on their Tech Trek Australia Tour with UK death metal concoctors Ingested and Aussie three-headed savages Werewolves.
Upon their return to Australia for the first time in 5 years, Wall of Sound got to talk to the legend about touring in the wake of Covid, his time away from us in Australia, butt-hurt keyboard warriors that don’t get jokes and having your mum watch your head explode.
Watch the interview here or read below...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkEONw63Tr4
Duane’s World: I’ve got to tell you, Archspire are one of my two favourite things coming out of Canada. The other one being Letterkenny
Oliver: Sick man. Oh man, that's awesome. I used to work in kitchens. I worked with one of the Letterkenny guys. He lived in Vancouver. And yeah, it was before he joined the show. He was a bartender at a restaurant I worked at and he was pretty funny dude. I forget who he is in the show. But yeah I've only seen like an episode of the show.
DW: There's nine or 10 seasons. We've watched the lot
Oli: Do you ever fuck with Trailer Park Boys?
DW: No. There’s so much shit out there now. I think it's one of those things that I've got to sit down and binge
Oli: Yeah, that's a good one. One of our only good exports is Trailer Park Boys.
DW: I'll get started on it. So, I've been following your band Archspire for a while. I got to see you guys in 2018 when you came out here with Psycroptic and Hadal Maw. I'll tell you now, that was the loudest fucking show I've ever been to. Without an inch of GST, my hearing changed after that night.
Oli: Well, we’ll have to fire that sound guy.
DW: It was awesome. But in that time, you’ve had a massive five years. Just off the top of my head, you’ve been on TV doing that Jason Momoa show, See.
Oli: I did that thing with Jason, which was which was pretty cool. I just hung out with him and got into See and helped him with his performance, which is pretty cool. But yeah, other than that, no other TV spots, but just just working on making music videos and stuff like that.
DW: Making your heads explode and melt on the video for 'Drone Corpse Aviator'. And the reaction video from your mothers. Man that was next level.
Oli: Yeah, I was I was stoked to get our mums in there for something metal.
https://youtu.be/tS1_j2pOTa4?si=7qRXLPvnYtNd6U9j
DW: But one of the things I used to love watching was your Instagram page. You used to come up with cracking jokes and your cooking segments and all that sort of stuff. I went looking for it and I can’t find it. Have you been cancelled, mate?
Oli: No, you know what it was is it just it stopped bringing me joy. First, cuz I got a dark sense of humour. And I kind of say whatever. And I think a joke is a joke and that should be appreciated. But you know, when you're playing in a band, it's like, if you're a comedian, people expect it. But I'll say stuff that if a comedian said it, it would be considered tame. But because I'm in a band, it's considered like the worst thing someone could say, which started to just kind of get to me after a while. I realised that I like pissing people off.
But if it's to the point where I ended up getting stuck reading these comments about people just going to war about a joke that I made. It sort of started to bring me down and affect how much joy I was having and making these jokes. What's the point? So I just got off of it.
And also I find on tour, everyone in every band is always on their phone. It's like opening up a fridge that's empty, and you're opening it up 100 times a day. There's nothing to eat in them. So, for me, it was like just being bored on tour, constantly checking Instagram, and with no gratification. So I just got off of it. And now I'm on tour, I make more jokes in person, and I use my brain a bit more because I'm engaged with people. I figured I'll just save it for the shows and just build that stuff up and use it as material when we're playing.
DW: Yeah I've seen comments like, ‘That was the funniest show I've ever seen', but you do a joke, and then followed up with some fucking noise.
Oli: Yeah. It gives me a chance because, for me, the hardest part about playing is not the music. It's in between the songs because I feel like a lot of bands, they’ll take themselves too seriously, or they'll be really awkward. And so I've always wanted to just add that humour element to let people know we're having fun, and you guys should have fun and you bought a ticket to see a performance. We’re not here to be tough and fucking clicky. We're here to have fun and I'm gonna say dumb shit.
Hopefully people will be like, I love that band. But the singer is a prick or he's an idiot. I'll embarrass myself so people have a story to tell. That’s fun for me.
DW: You'd want it to be fun because I've seen your touring schedules through North America and through Europe. One gig count was 23 shows in 29 days, another was 25 shows in 29 days. That’s got to be gruelling. But I think forward to this upcoming tour that you've got coming down here to Australia, you’re only here for seven days, and you're banging out six shows.
Oli: With markets like that, it's really hard to coordinate and to make it worthwhile for us. We want to play in every possible place we can. But it is a business for us now, and it's our main job, it’s got to make sense for us. Flights are fucking pricey. We wanted to make sure that when we came back, it was going to be well received.
Luckily Dave from PSYCROPTIC is the one bringing us back with his booking team which is really cool. Now that we have this album [Bleed The Future] that we haven't played any of those songs in Australia, it just seemed like a really good time to come back. Australia was the place I would probably move to if I didn't live in Vancouver. I love it. I went there for Christmas with my girlfriend because she's from Australia. I fucking love everything about it. So for me, it was instantly let's go back as soon as we can. Luckily, we just made it work this time and we tacked on Japan. Really looking forward to it and the weather. Here (in Canada) is gonna be shit. So we get to go have some nice weather and hang out with some crazy Aussies.
DW: The weather is just starting to shape up. Now when you get here, you’re bringing INGESTED with you. Their album Ashes Lie Still last year was a cracker.
Oli: Yeah, that was a killer album. We just met them. We played some festivals in Europe and they played a festival with us. So we got to actually meet them and hang out and we just clicked right away. They're good English blokes. Same sense of humour and just really cool guys. So Australia is gonna be even better now. These guys are possible.
DW: Also, you’ve got the WEREWOLVES shirt on, I see. The other support on the tour. I’ve been listening to them and they're very good.
Oli: Yeah, they're awesome. I mean, I'm a big fan of everything that Dave does is just killer. (Dave Psycroptic is also the drummer in Werewolves)
DW: Psycroptic have got a show coming up. They're supporting Cattle Decapitation.
Oli: Oh, sick. Oh, you know what? Our sound guy is doing Cattle Decap’s sound so if the sound is bad, let me know and I'll fire him. Yeah, let me know either way. But yeah, those guys are a great time to hang out with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VOUyfPjxOk
DW: They’re one of my favourite Aussie bands hands down. But the other thing is, it’s been a couple years since your album Bleed The Future. I have to ask, even though you're absolutely smashing this tour around the world, is there any chance of new music in the near future?
Oli: We're trying really hard, we’re writing right now. We're trying to get some more riffs written before we leave for Australia. It's just such a hard balance for us to make because we need to do the tours so we can live. But we know that people that like us are waiting for more material.
Two years is a while and it takes us so long. Want to write because we write everything from scratch all together in one room. So nobody just comes in with like, ‘Oh, I got these two riffs, let’s all learn them’. Someone comes in with half of a riff, and we tell them it sucks, and we rework it. So we'll jam for a week, and we'll have like two riffs, because we throw so much stuff in the garbage. We have probably 10 albums worth of shit that we've thrown away since we've started. Whether that's being overly picky or not, we just want every riff that we play for every person in the band to really like it, so no one's playing something that they're forced to play.
So with that being said, it makes the process take way longer. But we're trying really hard to get the next album out as soon as we can. We know when we get back from Australia, we're gonna buckle down for a good chunk of time and just try to try to bang it out. But no definitive date.
DW: I bet there'd be musicians out there who would love to go digging through your garbage for some of them riffs
Oli: I don't know, some of them are pretty bad dude.
DW: You’ve been touring your ass off, especially in the wake of COVID. Traditionally when bands come to Australia, they’d do five shows in 12 days, and they’ll see the sights, but that's not happening anymore. I’ll see bands, they're here for three days, and they fuck off. So how are you faring in the wake of COVID, especially with the rising cost of touring?
Oli: You know, it varies so much from region to region. But, there's all the online complaints from bands of how expensive it is now, which is true. But for us, we saw a really huge increase in ticket sales after COVID because there was that big need for people to go back and play shows. And we were lucky enough to have recorded an album during COVID. So we have new material to come out on the road with.
I think the timing for us worked out really well. We had new material when everything was opening back up and sort of rode that train. So it worked for us. But also I think a lot of bands don't really micromanage their overhead. They don't nitpick. Can you have full colour shirts printed on both sides for every shirt design, because that's going to lose this amount of money. You need a black and white shirt to kind of balance out your per dollar per unit amounts of profit, right? And people like them. How much extra money are you spending on things you don't need? If you get a rider to make yourself feel cooler, that's costing you way more than going to Walmart and buying fucking some bottled water yourself. So I think there's smart ways to do it. They're not as glamorous.
I think a lot of bands, middle-range bands also, they'll go on tours with bigger bands, so their guarantees aren't as big. Their overhead is really expensive, and then they don't make money. I think if you go out and do your own headlining tour, even if you're a small band, then you can make it work. You can live off of it. It's just not as glamorous. Not as many people show up, but they're all there to see you. They all buy your shirts. So I think for us, that works because we built that up. But a lot of bands are like, 'Oh, we get to tour with Cannibal Corpse', but maybe they're making nothing per night. So they get the glory of saying they're on tour with the band, but they're not making the actual profit to make it sustainable.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CwDGccwsqCY/
DW: Yeah, for sure. But I think you're also selling more tickets because the words getting out man. Your fanbase has obviously grown in that five years. You're doing larger venues now. Are there any venues where you like to pinch yourself?
Oli: We just finished doing some summer festivals in Europe, which is going from a few hundred people to thousands of people. You get so used to touring, and every job you have you're gonna find the things that are annoying about it, but I definitely would take a step back every once in a while. I'll be like, this is fucking sick. You know, you complain about a shitty meal and then you go out on stage and there's that many people that listen to you talk about how fucking saggy your balls are. It's about perspective.
The festivals were a moment where I was like, this is really cool and I never expected really. For me personally to get to that level where I have the attention of that many people, no matter how stupid what I say is. So that's a good feeling.
DW: Well mate you'll see me running around in the pit for sure. I can't wait to see you guys. Thanks for your time, Oli.
Oli: I look forward to meeting at the show dude.
DW: Dude, absolutely. I'll be there.
Oli: Thanks, man. Good talking to you.
Interview by Duane James @duanejames666
Archspire's Tech Trek Australian Tour kicks off tomorrow!
Tickets via Soundworks Direct Presents
Archspire - Tech Treck Australia Tour
with Ingested and Werewolves
Oct 11th – The Zoo, Brisbane
Oct 12th – The Basement, Canberra
Oct 13th – The Factory Theatre, Sydney
Oct 14th – The Corner Hotel, Melbourne
Oct 15th – Lion Arts Centre, Adelaide
Oct 17th – Amplifier Bar, Perth*
*Werewolves not appearing
