Soundwave boss AJ Maddah has again emphasised that only “professional” local bands have a chance of being included on the festival’s line-up in the years to come.
In an interview with Andrew Haug on his online radio station, Maddah addressed the ever-occurring issue of Soundwave being a festival filled almost entirely with international acts.
Haug drew Maddah’s attention to the inclusion of Australian acts The Amity Affliction and Confession on this year’s bill, and asked whether more heavy local acts will be featured at the festival in the future.
It prompted a strong outburst from the promoter as he explained the festival’s international focus and policy on including local acts.
“To be perfectly honest, fuck no,” he said.
“Soundwave is an international festival, and we book international bands, they can be from Australia or from New Zealand or fucking Papua New Guinea for all I care.
“The story is they need to be professional bands that are bands for a living and are doing it seriously.
“In the early days of Soundwave, we did put on a lot of Australian bands, and we ended up paying a price because a lot of those guys thought ‘here’s our chance to party’, rather than treating it professionally.”
Maddah then went on to explain the severity of various local bands’ un-professionalism, which culminated in a death threat to Deftones frontman Chino Moreno.
“It was a whole various bunch of shenanigans, down to one Australian band whose guitarist tried to kill Chino from the Deftones because his girlfriend was trying to blow him. It became really problematic.
“Bands like Parkway Drive, Confession, Amity… these guys tour internationally, have done a lot of supports with other international bands in overseas territories…they understand how to behave backstage and how to behave in front of the Metallicas of the world.”
“As more Australian bands step up to the professional level and their international price rises, obviously we’ll see what’s going on with Soundwave.”
Maddah said that bands need to be switched on and aware of their surroundings if they want the chance to be part of Soundwave.
“If it’s a hobby and you’re going to end up being a plumber then good luck, party on brother. But if you actually want to make it as a band, then you need to respect the environment you’re in.”
The promoter’s comments follow on from his famous remarks at last year’s Face The Music conference in Melbourne, where he said Soundwave “isn’t Australia’s Got Talent.”
Soundwave 2013 kicks off in Brisbane today, followed by Sydney tomorrow and Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth next weekend. All legs of the festival are sold out.
Listen to Andrew Haug’s full interview with AJ Maddah below:
