ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON 12 JANUARY 2014
If a year could belong to a band, last year would be Northlane’s. A group on the rise during the previous twelve months, by the end of 2013 theirs was a name difficult to escape as their stature continues to elevate both in Australia and overseas. With an already formidable fanbase thanks to the 2011 release Discoveries and a relentless touring regimen, for vocalist Adrian Fitipaldes it was probably their appearance on the Sydney leg of the Soundwave Festival that really brought it all home.
“It was absolutely ridiculous man,” he says. “I wasn’t expecting the reception that we got, but I think we had a lot of happy, proud Australian fans who finally wanted to see their boys Northlane up on the big stage at Soundwave. I saw so many old faces, so many old friends from high school, people I haven’t spoken to in years came out and a lot of people from the local heavy music scene in Sydney were all there. Even people I knew who weren’t necessarily into heavy music but who were friends and family members were there. It was really good, a very special moment for us as a band and it really helped consolidate all the hard work up until that point.”
Less than two months later, Northlane tasted real commercial success with both the single ‘Quantum Flux’ and their sophomore album Singularity hitting the top half of the national Top 40 – Singularity peaking at #3 after an acclaimed viral promotional campaign by label UNFD. That level of mainstream acceptance puts them in a very exclusive club of Australian heavy music acts that until now has really only featured Karnivool, Parkway Drive and The Amity Affliction as members. By year’s end, Northlane had found themselves in another exclusive club – ARIA Award nominees – and Singularity was popping up on end-of-year lists across the music journalism world.
“If you’re in a heavy band and you’re competing with popular artists and more mainstream artists, it’s hard to ignore that. It’s hard to ignore the demand that’s being placed upon that. So it’s very flattering that the Big Day Out as a more mainstream festival will have a band like us on there, and I’m very thankful for that.”
– Adrian Fitipaldes
“I guess that’s the more industry related side of it,” Fitipaldes says evenly. “It’s flattering man. For someone who plays heavy music… heavy music and hardcore has always been about anti-establishment, so when it comes to all the acclaim I’m not too involved in it, but at the same time I do take it seriously. I’m flattered and humbled.”
The singer finds further validation in being selected to tour this month with the Big Day Out, a festival that has a far wider musical scope than the metal and hardcore-oriented Soundwave.
“I’m very humbled by it, because it shows that not just any heavy band can get on the Big Day Out festival. You have to be a heavy band that’s getting big. Because the market for heavy music, as opposed to the market for popular music, obviously the sizes of the crowds are vastly different,” Fitipaldes reasons. “If you’re in a heavy band and you’re competing with popular artists and more mainstream artists, it’s hard to ignore that. It’s hard to ignore the demand that’s being placed upon that. So it’s very flattering that the Big Day Out as a more mainstream festival will have a band like us on there, and I’m very thankful for that.”
The uplifting messages that fill their songs have lead to the belief from some quarters that Northlane is a Christian band, something that Fitiplades has denied in several interviews. Instead, he says he just wants to provide a positive outlet for his audience, an audience that may not always be having the best time of it.
“I think, you know, kids… um, when they’re going through puberty and especially when they’re going through high school… it can be tough for kids,” he says. “Especially kids that are outcasted [sic] and called punks or emos or whatever they get called at school these days, just for listening to heavy music, and I would rather those kids – the outcasts and the rebels – to have something positive to listen to rather than some sort of evil or negative gimmick that’s just made up as a marketing ploy. We’re just trying to be honest and be ourselves. We might play heavy music, but we’re not necessarily angry people or we’re not necessarily evil people or dark people. Music and hardcore was always born out of rebellion, and that’s what we’re trying to do, give people a positive way to rebel, a positive outlet and it’s definitely different to the message that’s being put out not just in other heavy music, but in mainstream music as well.”
It’s an attitude that perhaps belies the image many people may have of the greater western Sydney hub of Blacktown, where Fitipaldes is from. But it came from a belief that was instilled in him by the teachers at his school, who told him that nothing was impossible.
“I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to travel the world playing music coming from Blacktown,” the singer admits. “Although, you know, going to a private school it was really cool because teachers always motivated us and I always tried to be as good a student as I could and they always taught us, you know, ‘Just because you’re boys from Blacktown doesn’t mean you can’t make it anywhere in the world’, and that’s something I’ve always remembered from growing up.”
His recent travels with Northlane across North America late last year have given him a new perspective on the place where he grew up.
“And also, now that I’ve been able to travel around the world, I’ve been able to see the differences and the contrasts between places, and when I came back home after a month of touring in winter in North America, I came to realise that Australia’s a beautiful country, Sydney’s a beautiful city and Blacktown ain’t that bad a suburb! That’s all I can say for some other parts of the world, that’s for sure, and it’s a beautiful time of the year to be home, too.”
Now that they are home, after getting consistently strong reactions to their shows both in Europe and America during their time there last year, Northlane in concentrating on the Big Day Out and some more live work early in the year. There are no immediate plans to begin a follow-up to Singularity right now, but for Fitipaldes the future is bright.
“[Last] year we started to get Northlane out to the rest of the world. I’ve had a lot of new experiences, seen a lot of new places, and that’s definitely been an opening for us as a band and it’s definitely not going to be stopping anytime soon,” he asserts. “Right now we’ve got about 38 days off before we leave for this Big Day Out tour, and what our strategy is, is to try and get a lot of touring done in the first half of next year so we can eventually work on some new material at some point but at the moment there’s not much happening. We’re still in the Singularity mode but something I can say is that Northlane is always looking forward to the future and any way we can improve on what we’ve done in the past we’re always looking to do that.”
