An exciting time of the year for metal- heads nation wide, the late end of February marks Soundwave Festival 2015. Featuring on the line up is power metal legends Dragonforce who have continued on the path they forged for themselves with the release of 2003’s fantastical Valley of the Damned, most recently culminating in the release of last year’s Maximum Overload. The album is packed with the guitar pyrotechnics of Herman Li and Sam Totman and the Olympian vocals of Marc Hudson.

Hudson told us a little about the band’s visit to Australia for Soundwave 2013 “we had a great time last time, it was my first time ever in Australia, obviously just to be in a new country is pretty cool. What’s so great about the festival itself is such a huge thing with so may cool bands, I remember really enjoying it last time, it’s funny and great how the bands all have to mix together. I met a lot of cool people there.”

There was one thing over he wasn’t too fond of, he explained  “I do though have a horrible phobia of spiders, and I’ve heard just the worst stories, but this year I’m prepared for it.” Ahead of their visit this weekend, we chatted to Hudson about things he was fond of.

70s Prog Rock

“I got into it quite late actually, I only really discovered the bands I really like now when I was maybe 18 or 19. One of my favourite acts is Rush, obviously they’re a hugely influential, the and Yes as well, they’ve been like a huge thing for me too.

What I love about prog is the freedom they had in that type of music, they don’t have any time signature or any constraints like that. Most of the songs especially with Rush are full of good vibes, they’re uplifting, good feeling songs, and that’s something I really like in music. What we do in DragonForce (well I don’t because I’m the singer) but we really work on the whole virtuoso thing, in the 70s people were doing it better than a lot of people are doing it today (laughs).”

Retro Video Games

“Video games are one of the things we as a band have most in common between us, we all play video games. Sam (Trotman, guitarist), Fred (Leclercq, bassist), and Herman (Li, guitarist) especially are really into retro video games so, we kind of have a different game on each tour. In the last tour we did we were all trying to play through Donkey Kong – the 1980s version, we like the old school  games, the really difficult ones. I know that Sam draws musical inspiration from video game soundtracks and stuff.

I think Sam is the biggest video game master, he plays a lot of video games, like with Donkey Kong we tried to get the high score on it ’cause theres a cult documentary called The King Of Kong, basically we watched it and Sam remembers that game from when he was younger. He’s pretty damn good, no one in the band can beat him so far, he’s the master.”

Documentaries

“There’s no particular genre but I kind of like weird documentaries, I end up on Netflix just watching through loads of different stuff, it can be about anything but yeah I’m definitely into my documentaries.

Stuff like The King Of Kong. The film The Imposter is amazing it’s one of my fave documentaries, any discoveries like that I find on Netflix I’m pretty much hooked basically – it’s my guilty pleasure.”

Horror Films

“It’s really hard to choose my favourite horror film, I’m probably steeping on Fred’s feet here ’cause he likes them more than me. I like old horror movies like Evil Dead and that kind of stuff, but also some of the more recent indie stuff too.

There’s one film called VHS – that’s the one that freaked me out most recently. It’s a horror movie about a guy who discovered a load of VHS tapes and he watches them all back, and they’re all completely unrelated, but they’re just horrible scary stuff. I quite liked The Human Centipede, though they’re terrible I definitely think they’re cool, it’s more the idea of it that’s scary rather than what you actually see.”

Veganism

“Basically I went vegan for health reasons rather than ethical reasons honestly, it’s definitely a good way to go. I suck at it though, and the reason I said that is because when I’m at home its perfectly fine, I can do it all the time – but we’ve just come off the back of a european tour and basically being a vegan on tour is impossible. Most places have catering they always give you bread and meat and cheese and that’s pretty much it, and I found that if I needed wanted to get the nutrition I needed to sing on stage for an hour I can’t be vegan ’cause there isn’t enough food to go around.

I always thought tofu would be a rubbish replacement for meat ’cause i actually was eating anything before, I went from meat eater to vegan straight away but i was pleasantly surprised with tofu and what you can cook with it. From becoming vegan i’ve actually leant to cook with sounds bizarre but it’s a pretty cool thing that’s come from it.”

Studio Ghibli

“To be honest I kind of discovered it just recently. The first one I watched was Spirited Away, and to be honest the first time I watched it I didn’t actually like it that much, but I watched Howl’s Moving Castle and one called Laputa: Castle in the Sky and My Neighbor Totoro as well.

The thing I like most about it is the music which is kind of odd, but the scores and the way people write music in Japan is slightly different. It’s all really memorable music and the art style is something I really like event though some people watch it and think it’s immature, I think there’s something quite charming about the whole thing.”

Soundwave 2015 Tour Dates

Saturday, 21st February & Sunday, 22nd February 2015
Bonython Park, Adelaide, South Australia
Tickets: Soundwave

Saturday, 21st February & Sunday, 22nd February 2015
Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne, Victoria
Tickets: Soundwave

Saturday, 28th February & Sunday, 1st March 2015
Olympic Park, Sydney, New South Wales
Tickets: Soundwave

Saturday, 28th February & Sunday, 1st March 2015
RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane, Queensland
Tickets: Soundwave

Judas Preist & Dragonforce Australian Tour Dates

Tuesday, 24th February 2015
The Enmore, Sydney (Lic/AA)
Tickets: Ticketek

Thursday, 26th February 2015
Eatons Hill Hotel, Brisbane (Lic/AA)
Tickets: Oztix | Eventopia

Also appearing at Soundwave 2015

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