Voyager

“It’s interesting you should choose me as the subject for your metal initiation, because we really struggle with the definition of metal,” Estrin says. “People hear ‘metal’ and they think Metallica, Slayer, all that hardcore stuff. And then they hear Voyager and it’s like, ‘This isn’t metal!’ Still, it’s how we’re defined, but people tend to hear us and say, ‘Cool, this is music I can show my mum and she isn’t going to fall over in a heap and die!’” he laughs.

“It’s melodic, catchy, it’s a bit poppy. I appreciate we’re branded as metal, and I love it, but it doesn’t always fit. The first metal band that hooked me was called Type O Negative, a band in the early ’90s. I remember listening to triple j’s Three Hours Of Power and I remember hearing melody, hearing this heavy guitar and thinking, ‘What. Is. This?’ All I’d been listening to up until then had been Nirvana, and the combination of that real heaviness, those chunky low guitars and the amazing melodies completely turned me. And it all went downhill from there! The next week I was there listening to really hardcore black metal, which my dad described as sounding like a vacuum cleaner.”

While Voyager’s popularity at home has seen both national tours and some impressive supports, it is the international successes that really mark the band as an act making steady waves. Europe seems to be the spiritual home of metal these days – and has certainly embraced the Perth lads with open arms – but the biggest response so far came unexpectedly.

“We just headlined a major festival over there in the Netherlands, which was huge and amazing – but the big surprise is, I think our popularity in Europe has been dwarfed by what we’re experiencing in the US and Canada. They’re difficult markets to break. We played there for the first time in 2011, and got invited back for 17 shows in 2012 and the reception was just incredible. Fans around the world are always different, but they always know that we bring a good live show, and while we take our music seriously, we don’t take ourselves too seriously.”

Despite this, there are still rumblings from hardcore metalheads that Voyager have no place in metal at all. Though each album is arguably darker than its predecessor, there is such musical variety within the band that the term ‘metal’ seems rather restrictive.

“I think a lot of diehards just say, ‘What, keyboards? Singing? Blaaarg.’ There’s been a couple of old-school people who only like the old stuff, but generally people from all genres like our music. We’ve got people in the audience singing at the top of their voice through our pop, sappy numbers while wearing a massive Dismember T-shirt. These big, burly dudes. And then there’s the crowds we found supporting Dead Letter Circus, who are more triple j-friendly, and they loved us as well. So there’s a strong crossover, and the positives far outweigh any negatives.”