Voyager is supporting Rhapsody of Fire in North America. How did this happen?
Danny: We got a call. They said: “Do you want to do a 17 show tour with Rhapsody [of Fire] in North America?” We said yes. And now we are here. That was pretty much it. We have the same booking agent as Rhapsody [of Fire]… yeah… so the package is Rhapsody [of Fire] and Voyager.

How is the American public treating you guys so far?
Alex: Good. They have been treating us fantastically. They did when we played at the Progpower Festival as well [Atlanta USA, September 2011]. We had a lot of attention from that show in particular. We had a bunch of progpower fans come up to us and say “Great show! We saw your last year at the Progpower and you guys were great”. Overall: loving… really warm reception, you know? People have been really kind to us.

Danny: It has been really good to us because people in the States and Canada don’t know us. So, this is the first exposure they had to the band and I can confidently say that in pretty much every show, at the end, the crowd was like “Wow… who are you guys? This is amazing” which has been really nice. So, this has been a really successful tour.

You guys are coming here all the way from Australia. How hard is it for you to tour in other parts of the world?
Alex: It’s fairly difficult because flights are thousands and thousands of dollars for us so, if we can try to work out a way to fund that we’ll do it. But, it’s been so worth it. We don’t really care about how far it is to travel, you know? We did a 46 hour flight to ProgPower. Yeah! It was long.

Danny: (laughs) Plus 24 hour driving as well.

Alex: We landed in LA at the beginning of the tour.

Danny: This tour…

Alex: Because we had visa troubles. We didn’t get the visas until the very last minute. We drove from LA to the first show in Philly in 2.5 days. So, you know… we are dedicated to it! It makes the trip that much special because we are really putting the pedal to metal.

Danny: You got to consider that just the flights from Australia to anywhere that is not Australia or Southeast Asia, for 5 or 6 people, is 10 – 12K dollars, you know? We’ve done Europe twice and this is our second time in the States and it’s been worthwhile every time.

I’ve heard the visas are pretty expensive also…
Danny: Ohh my god… very!

Alex: We get hosed every time. This time around was a nightmare. It was taking too long so we applied for express processing…

Danny: Thousands of dollars on that.

You guys have released an album in 2011: The Meaning of I. The album was well received by the media but how was the album received by your fans?
Danny: Really good. It’s been overwhelmingly good. Even in Europe… I think that before people were not sure. Like in Germany, the first couple of albums people were like “Oh, I’m not really sure about what these guys are doing”, [and now] we got great reviews. I think we got

7th place on Metal Hammer sound check and stuff like that. So, it’s been really amazing. I just hope that the CD sales figures will show that.

Alex: The first album was completely power metal, the second album was a lot darker and a bit more serious, the third album was a lot more “progy” and the last album, The Meaning of I, it’s a lot heavier. I think Voyager is a band that is really starting to find our particular sound. There has been a lot of experimentation over the years about how far we want to push on certain styles: Do we want to make it really progy or not that progy, or more poppy, or more electronic sounding? But this album [The Meaning of I], I think it is one of the most solid albums that we’ve done… definitely.

Danny: I think we’ve definitely found our sound, as well, in this one.

Alex: Because we’ve done that, the new songs that we are writing … it is all just happening. We all share the same ideas about how we want the songs to go. It kind of feels right now that we are at the point where we all have a clear vision of what we want to do, artistically, but at the same time, not blocking anything off. We are still completely open minded… that’s the best thing.

Voyager has always been known as a band that makes a “diverse” type of music. It has also been stated in the media that if a person is not open minded they probably will not like Voyager. Do you agree with this statement?
Danny: I think that if you are a fan who likes old school power metal (Helloween, Gamma Ray and stuff like that), you might not find the connection with us. But, I think that most fans nowadays listen to a broad range of music. If you are one of those people then, I think you will find at least something to like about Voyager. For most people, when it comes to our concerts I think they connect with us and enjoy the music that way… because we have a lot of fun on stage, we are really entertaining.

So, who are your main listeners?
Danny: It’s a really good question…

Alex: We’ve got a pretty eclectic mix of listeners, you know? Kids are into Voyager and middle-age people…. We’ve got a broad spectrum of listeners and that’s what we are really after. I don’t think that we are particularly after one niche or one target market of people. We want to appeal to everyone. And that’s why we have so much fun on stage, because, everyone can relate to that.

When we take the music seriously and particularly the last album… if you look into it under the magnifying glass it is quite of a depressive, introspective album in its theme. When you’ve got the people listening to the music at home they can appreciate that side of Voyager. When we bring it to the live arena it is a completely different thing. We want to make it fun and enjoyable. I think that the people respond to that well because they are not expecting to have that in a metal show. It throws a bit of a curveball. They can see that we are making fun of ourselves and being silly.

How is progressive metal, in your opinion, placed in the metal scene nowadays? Some people

say it is a “dying” style. Do you agree with this?
Danny: I don’t think it is dying. I think it is emerging on a different form. Look at bands like Periphery. The thing is… if you look at us, sometimes we are classed as progressive because our music, you don’t listen to one song and know how the album is going to sound like. It is progressive in that: each song has its own character.

Alex: Its own identity.

Danny: It doesn’t mean that we are doing crazy time signatures.

Alex: Or sound like Dream Theater or something like that.

Danny: Sometimes the term “progressive metal” might put people off but, I just call it heavy melodic music to be honest.

How is the metal scene in Australia?
Alex: It’s pretty good actually.

Danny: It’s thriving.

Alex: It’s one of the best of the world from what I’ve seen. The caliber of bands it’s quite high, on a local level and on an underground level.

Danny: It’s good. We’ve got great crowd in the concerts, we have some great bands. We’ve got some great progressive rock and metal bands. When we tour around Australia we’ve got a pretty good response. The only problem is the distance between the cities. To get from where we are to get to the next city we have to fly for 3.5 hours.

Talking now about your “day to day” life, outside the band. What do you guys do in your free time?
Danny: I’m a lawyer.

Alex: I work in insurance. We basically just sit at home and try to push Voyager (laughs).

Danny: When we are at our day-to-day jobs we are all very much looking forward to the next time we can do this [tour / play].

Going back to Voyager: what are the plans for the next few months?
Danny: Ohhh… we’ll go home and cry for about 2 months.

Alex: Follow in deep depression and write more songs about it (laughs). We’ve got a show on June 30th and we’ve got a couple of new video clips coming out about that time. And then we have an Australian tour. So, we will be taking care of business back home for a while. And we will be looking for more touring opportunities.

Danny: I think next year is going to be a good year for touring… maybe Europe, maybe the US again.

Can you tell us a little bit about these video clips that will be coming out soon?
Danny: Yeah, there is a new one coming up in…it should be at the end of July for “The Meaning of I”. It’s a very dark video… pretty intense. The second is for “Seize the Day”. Basically, at a couple of shows, we filmed the crowd and crowd filmed us on their iphones and they sent us all their footage and we are going to make a collage with that.

Any messages for the SOM readers?
Danny: Thank you for reading, thank you for supporting. Remember that the best way to support us is to buy the record directly from our website as an online download or as a CD. The money goes straight to us and we can come back and tour!

Alex: Thank you very much!

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Interview done by Deesse_de_la_nuit

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