Interviews : Double Dragon (Lee Gardiner) – 04/09/2008

INTERVIEW WITH DOUBLE DRAGON (SA) – September 2008.

With their debut release blending the sounds of the Gothenburg Death and New Wave of American Death Metal, from my perception here in Melbourne, Double Dragon could easily be considered one of the leaders of the Adelaide scene, and even of the Australian scene. I recently caught up with vocalist Lee Gardiner to talk about the new album, recent lineup changes and the band’s appearance at the upcoming Against The Grain Festival in Adelaide.

MO: Can you please introduce Metal Obsession.net readers to yourself and the band?
Double Dragon: Hey, my name is Lee Gardiner and I am the vocalist for Adelaide band, Double Dragon. Cheers for the kind words!

MO: Tell us about how the band came into being? And a question I know a lot of bands don’t really like answering, but I’ll as it nonetheless! Using 3 different band names, how would you describe Double Dragon?
Double Dragon: I hate this question, but seeing my boss Is away today I will tell you the entire story.

Around five years ago ( I think ) I was playing in another band called ‘The Undamynd’,  we had planned to break up and organised our last ever show, anyways we had our last show booked and because The Undamynd guys were all based in Brisbane it was a last minute scramble to find a rehearsal room and get some practice in before the show. After trying just about every rehearsal studio in Adelaide we finally got in this real dump of a joint, called Boogie Joints, in downtown industrial Winfield ( South Australia ).

We started jamming for our last show, when after about two songs we realised we didn’t have any weed so we decided to go and ask the weird looking band next door called Double Dragon, to see if we could buy a bud off them as we smelt hooch outside. Because The Undaymnd dudes were complete pussies, they gave me the money and the task of approaching ‘the weird wigger looking dudes’ for some green. I did – only to be told by Roady (DD guitars) “Nah man, we don’t have any” (he had a fucken bong in his hand). Rather pissed off, I replied, “alright then- no worries” when Double D’s former Roady/Merch guy/Driver Sime was like, “Here man I got some weed” so I took it, still pissed off at these smarmy motherfuckers was like no worries, we will play you some Pantera to listen too during your break.. So my old band The Undamynd played Pantera’s “A New Level”, fast as fuck and nasty as hell to try and intimidate Double Dragon.

Little did I know was Double Dragon were actually next door auditioning vocalists,  and after hearing a few songs they got in contact with me and asked me to try out, which I politely declined as I was still sore that they wouldn’t sell us any green. After about The Undamynds last show I was about to leave when I saw all the Double Dragon guys, who came to the show and was like “That was your first Audition”. At the time I was like, whatever fellas , but after a few weeks of talking and getting to know Dan (drums) and Jase (bass) and developing a friendship with them I thought why not I will check out this band with the stupid fucken name.

I remember driving to the first jam, back at Boogie Joints getting bitten by three inch mosquitoes, meeting everyone and being told to just watch for this jam and maybe work some shit out for next time. Within about 1 minute of hearing Moif and Roads play together, I picked up the mic and just went for it, and since that day we became Double Dragon, wrote some songs and began our journey.

MO: With 2 EP releases and a full length (Devastator released earlier in 2008) under the band’s belt, how has the reaction to your music been from both fans and critics?
Double Dragon: So far it’s been really good, we have only had one review so far (from Metal Obsession – click here to read) and we are happy with that. As for our fans, they all seem to be getting into it; we have had a lot of love on Triple J’s Full Metal Racket which is always a positive sign. Because of some of the Adelaide shows we have had to play just to pay the bills from recording we haven’t really had the chance to tour nationally yet, but we are in talks at the moment our booking agent Soundworks and a national tour will definitely be happening sometime this year, which will bring more reviews etc so after then I would be able to answer that question properly.

The music we play always seems to incite bullshit talk about are we ‘metalcore” or ‘hardcore’ which is funny too us as we are probably the biggest metal head bogan stoners walking the streets, but these days if your not playing blast beats your going to get that, so be it.

MO: You have recently parted way with a founding member – guitarist Ben ‘Moif’ Murphey – how did the band go about finding the replacement guitarist James Cunningham?
Double Dragon: Well James just kind of stumbled across us, Ben had announced he was leaving the band, but he was still playing on the album, so we were in weird place where in the studio we were still Double Dragon, firing on all cylinders but outside of their we had no guitarist and a possible Soilwork Tour there for the taking if we could find someone in time. We really didn’t have time to audition and all that shit when a lot of us were still recording our tracks for the album, James had gear, time the right attitude so we gave him a show.

MO: And just in the past few days, word out of the Double Dragon camp is that James is no longer with the band. any word on yet another new guitarist?
Double Dragon: Unfortunately, after Moif ripped up the solos on the album like a motherfucker, we couldn’t afford to spend the time getting James up to speed, and the pressure on him to perform from us, and what he was putting on himself was causing all kinds of negative energy within the band, on stage, and on our sound. After our last Adelaide show with James we knew it wasn’t working out like we had planned and then our new guitarist popped out of no where, told us that he had been getting private lessons from Ben and if he could nail our set would he get the gig… He nailed the fuck out of it and we are very excited to be playing our next show, Against The Grain Festival with him.. I can’t ruin the surprise but our friends and fans are going to love the newest addition to Double Dragon!

MO: The band is signed to Adelaide based label Truth Inc Records, also home to Truth Corroded, Black Like Vengeance + a few more – how has the support been from them?
Double Dragon: Yeah always good. I actually do a lot of work for the label so in a way we its good because we have a lot of control in all the shit we do, and what we want to do, and Jason and Greg ( founders ) are always supportive of anything we put too them. In many ways Truth Corroded and Double Dragon are the old hacks now of Truth Inc records, with the bands being very close friends, and it is through this friendship I believe that has spawned things like Truth Inc Records and Against the Grain Festival.

MO: And your set to plays leading Australian Metal Festival AGAINST THE GRAIN IV in Adelaide on September 13th, surely you’re looking forward to that. Can the fans expect anything special, and what other bands at the festival are you excited about seeing live?
Double Dragon: Against The Grain for me personally is like Christmas Day. Jason (Truth Corroded) started this Festival four years ago, we both have spent countless hours of planning and all the other bullshit that goes with it, promo, shooting the traditional YouTube Joshy Tv Ad (check it out @ www.myspace.com/atgfest) and on that special day in September when the crème of the crop of metal bands are playing in my backyard, with all my friends and family around, it’s a fucking awesome day to attend, play and be involved in. Having a hand in choosing the line up, I can safely say I am looking forward to seeing all the bands, this years line up really has no weakness, from the first band Asphyxia whose album is going great guns with lots of killer reviews from all around the world, to seeing Truth Corroded destroy like always, or the twin headlines Psycroptic and Bloodduster, its going to fucken SLAYYYYYYYYYY! The only thing that will top this is next years Against the Grain, which we want to make bigger and better again, but I think we will wait to recover from this one before we dive in the next one.

MO: And on that note, the scene here in Australia is coming along stronger by the day, what currently active Aussie bands do you think deserve much more attention from Metal fans worldwide?
Double Dragon: Most definitely. But that in itself is pretty much impossible when the Australian Music Industry does pretty much FUCK ALL for metal. When you consider the pool of talented within the musicians of our genre, the shows we all play, the countless hours of kilometres travelled to play in Australia,.. Metal definitely gets overlooked in terms of airplay and Aria’s. I mean, look at Australian hip hop.. that gets big love from Triple J and now some artists can at least pay for their travel.. Why the fuck can’t they support metal bands? I mean sure they have Full Metal Racket which is great.. By not push some Aussie metal during the day and let the public know that this amazing scene full of amazing musicians actually exists??? It really fucks me off when I think about it but also gives Truth Inc Records a big challenge in trying to bring Australian metal to a different audience.

MO: Any plans in the making for future releases? If so, when can we expect something new from the band?
Double Dragon: Definitely, with all the bullshit with Devastator, losing members all that stuff, we are pumped to get into the new stuff. We are already a few songs into the new album and we really want to have some pre production finished by the end of the year.

MO: And finally, do you have any last words to the Metal Obsession readers?
Double Dragon: Yeah… keep on supporting Metal Obsession it’s a great site, keep on supporting Australian metal and always requests local metal bands EVERYWHERE and we will see you on the road very soon!

MO: Thanks alot for your time!
Double Dragon: No, thankyou!