STU MCGILL of SILENT KNIGHT Ahead of STORMRIDER HEAVY METAL FESTIVAL
Marco had a chat with Stu McGill, founder of STORMRIDER TOURING and guitarist of Perth’s premier power metal band, SILENT KNIGHT, ahead of the 10th edition of STORMRIDER HEAVY METAL FESTIVAL.
Digital Scream: Hey Stu, thanks for taking the time to meet with me. How are you doing?
Stu McGill: Doing good man. Thanks for having me man. It's always lovely to talk to you.
DS: No worries at all, always lovely to talk to you. Stormrider is now in its 10th year. Congratulations. What do you think has made the festival so successful all these years?
S: A couple of things. One of them is the people in Perth have always really supported it and came out for it, like always asking when it is and what's going to happen next year and so the fact they keep coming out shows there's a demand to keep it going. If it dies in the arse and people don't buy tickets, that's when you know that it's expired. This is the 10th one now and we’ve always had top quality acts and bring a lot of interstate bands, which is, I think, the main thing; it’s always been more of an event than a gig so it's always in the calendar for most of Perth.
DS: Hell yeah, I can't wait for it. It's a two day event this year. What made you decide to up the chaos?
S: So we used to use a venue called Badlands which closed down at the end of last year and they had a different licensing arrangement where they could open earlier in the day. The next best venue, location wise, is Amplifier Bar which is right in the middle of the CBD. And they have a different rule that you can't start before 6pm and they really needed their arm twisted to kind of do that as well. But their licensing wouldn’t allow like a four o'clock start or whatever, but also they kind of don't want to run too late into the night either because they run multiple sort of night club venues as well. So yeah, it's like either going to be a really short sweet show, push it further out of the city, or I thought, hey, well it's been 10 years, let's try to do a big celebration style and we'll just go for a two day-er. That way, you know, it's a long day if you start at three or four o'clock in the afternoon, it's kind of exhausting by the time the headliners are on, so I thought two shorter days; Yeah, this should be fun.
DS: Yeah, definitely. It's going to be sick. Can you give us a rundown on the lineup and who you're excited to see this year?
S: Yep, so on night one, we've got headliners Chaos Divine from Perth, which these guys have been around 15 plus years and they're doing a run of Eastern State shows at the same time, so they're in great form, they're always great. They played with us a couple of years ago for, I think, 2021, we had them. We have Hybrid Nightmares for the first time out of Melbourne. They're a black metal band and yeah, they're a pretty tough sort of band, like really heavy, they'll be exciting to see. Black Majesty playing on the Friday as well. They're celebrating over 20 years of power metal, that's their tagline for this show and they headlined the first festival back in 2014 and they've just been great mates and so supportive.
DS: Very fitting!
S: Yeah, it's really great to have them back. Hanny, their lead guitarist became a really good friend after all that and we kept in touch regularly and he's promised me six, seven months ago, “I really want to come back” and I said, “well, let's do it, you know.” So, really keen to catch up with him. We also got Wrath of Fenrir who have not played much lately in Perth. They’ve got a new lineup, first show with a new lineup in Perth, I think. And brand new band called Undeniable debuting on the Friday as well. They're going to open the show, they're a triple league guitar attack, very Iron Maiden-y sort of style.
Then Saturday night we got Silent Knight, which is my band, can't be Stormrider without Silent Knight, of course. We just played over in Germany and the UK, so we're in pretty good form at the moment. Pretty keen to do one more show in Perth. Actually, we got Amaranthe a couple of days later, but still. Orpheus Omega from Melbourne are back, and I know you know those guys well. They just put a new album out a couple of weeks ago, so it's going to be awesome to have those guys here. That’s like your melodeath bands covered. We've also got Elm Street, which are a power/thrash metal band from Melbourne and they just put a new album out as well. So we're really ticking the boxes with all the new content covered there. We had those guys out maybe four or five years ago, they came, which they're just a killer band and a lot of experience in Europe. Then we've got local bands, Buried Shallow, who are probably one of the standout bands in the last few years of just drawing a crowd. They’re just really popular. And we've also got Woewarden and Vanta, who are up and comers who are really heavy, really good young dudes, really passionate. Can't wait to give those guys a shot as well. So yeah, I think Black Majesty is probably the standout for a lot of people from what it sounds like. We’ve tried to make it so both nights are really well balanced. We haven’t stacked one side of power metal and one side of black metal, we’ve sort of got a good mix both nights. So you want to come to both and yeah, there's no weak night or nothing like that.
DS: Definitely. It's going to be a great two nights in Perth. Silent Knight have just returned from a little run in Europe, as you mentioned. How did those shows go?
S: Oh, they were awesome and so the main one we did was the Headbangers Open Air Festival in Germany, which we played back in 2017 and they invited us back when the new album came out. So that was really cool to go back to those guys because they just look after you so well and it's such a true metal festival. Like it's just all old school heavy metal. Like there's no sort of like commercially, you know, like a lot of the bigger festivals now, to be viable, I guess, have the more mainstream metal sort of acts in there as well. They just refuse to put any of those bands on and they still manage to have a three day camping festival with a warm up night. We played on the Saturday and there was other bands like Armoured Saint played, Sodom played, Evil Invaders, just awesome heavy metal lineup, just really great vibes. So that was great and we played a couple of shows to warm up in London and Southampton as well. And then just had a bit of a holiday while I was there too, it was kind of nice. But yeah, really, really good time.
DS: That sounds wicked and the photos and all the video looked awesome. We're now two years into the Full Force album cycle, can we expect some new material anytime soon?
S: Yeah. So we're kind of done now, so no more shows after this one for Silent Knight in Perth anyway, this year. We may have something next year, like a little tour or something like that, but it's time to work on some new stuff because yeah it came out September 2022. So coming up on two years now and we were playing some of those songs live before that as well. So we kind of did more than we should have. We don't like to play live too much, in Perth especially, because you sort of dilute it a bit too much. But we had a lot of shows this year, like they just kept on coming, all these international acts. Like we brought Unleash the Archers over ourselves, so of course we had to play that one and we did Blind Guardian and Paul Di’Anno, and then we just got offered the Amaranthe one as well. And we can’t really say no to all those, but then it's kind of like, okay, that's enough now we've done probably six, seven shows in Perth this year and that's, that's more than enough. So time to go work on some new stuff and yeah, it's good timing. I think we've ticked enough boxes now to feel good about moving to the next thing.
DS: Wicked. As mentioned, with Full Force being out for two years now, do you have a favourite track off the album to play live?
S: Full Force is always a really good song live. It's just really satisfying when that was written because it sort of ticks all the-when I wrote it, it was like, I want to make the most power metal of all power metal songs really. And we kind of like trying to deliberately put every element into it, like vocally or guitar wise or drum wise and like all those epic things that you love. Well I love anyway. So, we play it towards the end of the set and it's got that big build up at the very end of the song where you think it's over, but it just keeps on building, as we've just got that big hit at the end of it and everyone always reacts so well to it, so that was really satisfying that everyone felt the same way that we do when it first got tracked. Into oblivion is also another really, really cool one. We usually play that one as well. That's a good speed metal song and big up lifting chorus and just a good heavy metal song. So I really like playing those two.
DS: Definitely. Both of those tracks are sick and I love hearing them live as well!
S: Thanks, man.
DS: Alright and finally, anything else you’d like to say to everyone listening?
S: If you're living in Perth, I really hope you get down to support this Stormrider Heavy Metal Festival. It's the 10th year. It would have been the 11th year if it weren’t for COVID, but this is the 10th year. You never know when it's going to be the last so get in and support it, make sure you get your tickets. We have a discounted two day ticket available at merchraven.com. So if you go there, there's a small amount so you can save probably 15, 20 bucks, something like that. Maybe buy the two day pass in advance, that gives you guys a discount and gives me a bit of assurance that people are coming. Or you can buy single night tickets from Oztix as well. So if you just visit Stormridertouring.com, all the links are there. But yeah, please support the show, support the bands. If you've got an extra couple of bucks, grab a CD when you come down, especially for the touring bands, cause yeah, this is not cheap post-COVID, especially bringing in four interstate bands. It's a lot, but the bands are awesome. Everyone's primed up to play and it's going to be an awesome two nights of heavy metal. So yeah, get on it.
DS: Hell yeah. Thanks so much Stu, really appreciate it and keen for Stormrider.
S: I'll see you there, man. Cheers.
Stormrider Heavy Metal Festival 10 Year Anniversary
2 huge nights of Heavy Metal
Friday August 23 & Saturday August 24
Amplifier - 393 Murray Street Perth
Get your tickets now - https://stormridertouring.com/events
A limited number of discounted Weekend Tickets are on sale now while they last!
Night 1 - August 23 from 7pm
Chaos Divine
Hybrid Nightmares (VIC) - Woeful Inertia album launch
Black Majesty (VIC) - Celebrating over 20 years of Power Metal
Wrath of Fenrir
Undeniable - Debut Performance
Night 2 - August 24 from 6pm
Silent Knight
Orpheus Omega (VIC) - Emberglow album launch
Elm Street (VIC) - The Great Tribulation album launch
Buried Shallow
Woewarden
VANTA