IndiePulse Interviews: Wildheart

Wildheart, a melodic hardcore band hailing from Brisbane Australia. they started playing shows in early 2015 off the back of their debut EP release ‘A Thousand Days’. Going on to play a slew of shows around Brisbane and the surrounding cities and even up to Far North Queensland and down to New South Wales and Victoria. Releasing a slew of songs in the lead up to our most recent release our 2^nd EP “We Are”.

IPM: What inspired you to write music like you do

When we first started out we didn’t want to focus too much on trying to subscribe to a particular sound or genre we just wrote what we liked based on the music that we listened to and enjoyed, and hardcore with super melodic vibes is what we have ended up with. However over the years and myself taking over most of the song writing I’ve definitely let it become heavier as the content we’re talking about has become heavier and just really honing our sound.

IPM: Tell us about the other members of the band, and of your chemistry.

Wildheart is made up of myself Adam Finlay on guitar, Axel Best – Vocals, Kerry Rowe – Bass, Jaya Shinn – guitar and Andrew Cooke – Drums. We’ve had a couple of lineup changes over the years but this is most focused and driven lineup the band has had in a while. Andrew helps me co-manage the band, he has been in the Brisbane scene for years playing in numerous bands and knows heaps of people within the industry which is just as important as writing good music, I’ll tend to lean on him the more I get into writing as I want that to be my main focus. Kerry has a very keen eye on promotion and social media marketing which again is something super important these days. Having said that this is stuff that everyone plays a part in to keep things rolling along.

IPM: What are or were some of the challenges for you in producing or performing while keeping true to your vision of your music.

The biggest challenge for me is when I’m grinding away writing the music and demoing everything, I’m always thinking about if it “will it be good enough?” and generally putting pressure on myself. Eventually I’ll start showing the other guys what I’ve been working on then we just start jamming and rehearsing everything until it’s super tight so we’re basically just walking into the studio super prepared and just tracking; but I always leave room for improvisation and changing things up in the studio as something always sounds different when you’re letting someone else take the reins.

IPM: Tell us about some of your recent shows / performances- anything that stands out, or is there anything that you feel makes for an exciting highlight.

We’ve played some awesome shows this year but most notably would have to be ‘Bigound’ which gives artists a chance to showcase themselves to people throughout the music industry and meet a lot of these big players as well, all in all it was just and awesome few days hanging and meeting rad people and seeing some of Australia’s best talent.

IPM: Any Albums coming out soon or shows you are looking to promote

We don’t have anything new music wise as we only just released our new EP “We Are” However we have plenty of shows coming up in the new year!

IPM: Any “strange tales” or things that may have happened during a show that seemed too weird to be true?

Our old guitarist Haggan managed to dislocate his shoulder at the end of our set on the very first show of our first tour! We thought he was just getting real into the music and got emotions, turns out it was actual pain.

IPM: Where do you see your music going, where would you like to be in the near future, goals, dreams and passions?

I have a flood of ideas for our next release but that’s still a ways off. Our aim is to promote our music to as many people as possible, play to as many parts of Australia as we can and if all goes well get ourselves overseas and rinse and repeat until we run out of gas. (or money)

IPM: What would you like our readers to know about you, Why do you think that they would enjoy your music.

We’ve always pushed to give the most authentic experience possible, writing and recordings good music is one thing but making sure that translates well live making and what your hear on our recordings sounds as good if not better live. It also goes without saying we always give it our all live, I don’t think we’ve ever played a show where someone hasn’t bled or spent the next day in pain from playing too hard.

IPM: Where can our readers find your music?

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/5EBEayVSwI4iTXIENfFYLB

Itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/au/album/we-are-ep/1417548186

Bandcamp: https://wildheart.bandcamp.com

Merchandise: https://wildheartband.bigcartel.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/wearewildheart

Instagram: @wearewildheart

Twitter: #wearewildheart