What they’ll leave behind: Inside Void of Vision’s legacy and farewell to fans

As Void of Vision embark on their farewell journey with the What I’ll Leave Behind tour, our Australian heavy music scene and the world prepare to say goodbye to one of its most innovative and incendiary acts. After over a decade of relentless devotion, Melbourne’s Void of Vision has left an indelible mark on stages across the globe, blending blistering energy with profound introspection. Frontman Jack Bergin has led the charge with unyielding passion, crafting a legacy that spans four studio albums, countless unforgettable shows, and a reputation as one of the most forward-thinking forces in modern heavy music. With the band’s final Perth show at Magnet House on Saturday, February 22, marking the closing chapter of their storied career, it’s a poignant moment not just for the band, but for the fans who’ve supported them every step of the way. ANDY “ANDO” JONES sat down with Jack to reflect on Void of Vision’s incredible journey, the emotions behind their farewell tour, and what he hopes to leave behind as the band takes their final bow.

Jack, thank you so much for chatting with X-Press Magazine. It really is bittersweet to be sharing this moment with you, man. First up, congratulations to Void of Vision on a stellar career spanning well over a decade. When you look back at your journey, what moments stand out as the most defining and transformative for the band?

That’s a good question. But first of all, thank you. I appreciate you having me.

It’s honestly been a very, very hard time trying to prioritise my favourite moments. Looking back now, I’ve never realised quite how many moments there really were. I think a lot of the most important ones were definitely here on our own shores. There are a lot of watershed moments.

I think the first Unify Festivals, or the first Unify Festival experiences that we had, there was something special about that because our community back home is such a strength. It was such an exciting concept when Unify first came about, and the privilege to play them the first time round and having the privilege to play a couple of the first Unify Festivals was just so special. It was such a ride to be a part of, the whole experience of fostering that audience here and seeing it grow.

As recently as 2023, we had never been selling out shows like that. We’d been so close, like, tickets away from doing it, but we never wanted to be that band to just slap the sticker on for the sake of it. So to finally do it in 2023 on the most recent Angel of Darkness (2023) tour was such a special moment. It was one of the most memorable shows in my career, and having the band at its strongest and best at that point was just so incredible.

It’s been difficult to recall the best moments because there have been so many. I know for the rest of this year I’m going to be absolutely chewing everyone’s ears off as all these moments crawl back into my brain. I think I needed to stop and smell the roses a bit more than I have in my career. But yeah, everything that does sneak back in. It’s always so joyous and nice to remember.

Fantastic, Jack! You’ve described this tour as celebrating the end of an era. What does What I’ll Leave Behind symbolise for you personally and creatively?

I think it’s a legacy. I know that’s such a massive word to throw around and pop into a sentence, but it is our legacy, like our own little personal one that we have left behind for everyone. The culmination of all that dedication and hard work for all the years that we have been building up to.

I think we’ve created the best Void of Vision album that we’ve ever made, and we have that to share with everyone one last time. We’ve also put together the biggest tour that we’ve ever done, and we’re going to be having the biggest headline shows we’ve ever performed in February.

To leave it all behind at the top of our game is just a really, really special thing to do. A lot of what we’ve seen, especially in the past with Australian acts, is that it hasn’t ended on terms of their own, or it’s in a bit of a sour format. For a band to call it on their own terms is a very rare occasion. We can go out and celebrate everything that we’ve achieved. We can go out and do everything the biggest and the best we’ve ever done.

I think it’s a very important thing to be able to do that because we want to be remembered, and we want to leave our mark on the scene that has helped us and welcomed us in so much. It’s going to be a crazy experience to do that. What I’ll Leave Behind (2024) is basically our legacy and how we would love to be remembered.

I think we’ve done it perfectly in how we want to set it all up and deliver it to everyone.

The Perth show marks the final chapter of Void of Vision’s live performances. I have personally seen you guys numerous times. The first being at Amplifier back in 2016, you were all wearing matching baseball shirts and put on an incredibly energetic and blistering performance. Then most recently with Parkway Drive for their 20th anniversary. How are you preparing yourself emotionally for this last ever performance, Jack?

It’s tricky, I’m not going to lie. I honestly don’t think I’ll know what I’m getting into until I step foot on stage every night. It is a crazy feeling to know that this might be the last time I’m doing a lot of these stages and a lot of these places. It’s nuts to think about.

Like I said earlier on, I just want to make sure that I am smelling the roses a bit more often. Going in with that prior knowledge and remembering to do so every night is going to be so important, because I really want to be able to do that this time. This is it. This is the final shebang, and if I don’t soak it all in, I’m going to be kicking myself.

Too true, man. What can Perth fans expect from this final ever show on this last ever tour? Are there any surprises or special elements planned to make it unforgettable?

For sure, dude. On all past tours, because of the flight, unfortunately, Perth cops the brunt of us not bringing across our full production and what we took to the rest of the states, but this time we’ve made sure that’s happening. So, it’s exciting to actually do that for the first time.

I’m so sorry, and I feel bad, man. It is tough for you guys being over on that side of the country. You cop that a lot from a lot of bands. It’s tricky financially in this day and age to do all that. But it’s the last time we get to do all that, so we’ve got to make sure it counts. It’s very special that we do get to share it with you.

I do want Perth to remember Void of Vision as a whole. I want to make sure it’s a special experience for Perth, just as it is for everyone else. So, I’m glad that you guys are getting it in the end, and we all get to share it one last time.

My man! Thank you so much. That sounds great! Having toured globally, how does performing in your homeland, and specifically Perth, compare to other parts of the world?

Nothing beats home. I think the closest thing is the UK because they’re like our weird cousins (laughs).

It just translates the same, weirdly. We found a lot of success in the UK over the years; just because of how close it is to Melbourne, it is a really weird thing. I think it’s the same for the United States in a way. The States are just like Australia, but it’s like a glitch in the matrix every half an hour, where something crazy happens, and then you just have no fucken idea what’s going on.

But yeah, no place beats home. We’ve been lucky to share our whole journey, including the highs and the lows, with Australia. We only started touring America off the back of Chronicles (2023), and that was a massive spike in our career where we started growing again, and we had this new image, looking all clean and sharp. That’s all America saw over there. They didn’t really know much of the story.

Doing that here, people recognise how big of a moment Chronicles was, and everything we’ve done post-Chronicles has been for us, because we fully realised our craft and ourselves and became the best we’ve ever been. I think that was just a very special moment to share with Australia because they’ve been there through the whole journey. Fans of new and old came back and celebrated with us. It’s really special to have that connection with people in music, in work-life, and in relationships. Being able to grow together and share everything is such a special thing. I just appreciate everyone here so much more because of that.

Awesome, that’s music to my ears, man! To continue with the Perth bias to this interview, you’ve teamed up with many artists, including Sean Harmanis from Make Them Suffer. Who are some other Perth artists you wish you’d gotten the chance to collaborate with?

Karnivool! Obviously that would have been incredible. Honestly, Make Them Suffer I just fucken love that band so, so, so much. We’ve had the pleasure of touring with them around the world for the past few years. We somehow landed in every continent with them, and by the end of everything, they’ve ended up being some of our closest friends. It’s been really awesome to share that with them throughout their journey and witness their growth as well, because they have recently gone through everything as well and come back stronger than ever—it’s been so sick to see!

But other Perth artists, I don’t know. I guess we can count Pendulum, right?

100 percent! Absolutely!

Absolutely, I think that would have been an awesome moment! I know they’ve been kind of adopted by those weird cousins I was talking about earlier over in the UK (laughs). Pendulum are a big one for me! Absolutely.

They actually played at my eighteenth birthday as a band called Xygen back in the day.

Dude! Fucking crazy!

I recently went down the rabbit hole and discovered their whole thing was starting out in metal, and then the competition of metal in Perth at the time was so fucking crazy because of Karnivool and everyone else around at the time. Then they were just like, “Fuck it,” and decided to go down that EDM route and just destroy it!

I think having that choice and being so good at both things and being able to choose to go down one route or the other is a very rare talent, and I’ve always admired that about Pendulum: still keeping those rock roots and everything else involved with their sound. It’s so fucking sick!

Totally, man. You’ve mentioned learning to love the process over success. How does that mindset influence the way you’re approaching this farewell tour?

That’s a great question, actually. I was saying with all the other press today, we’ve just been signing off on everything at the start of this week, with the final setlist and everything, knowing that all this is going to be the last time doing that, it was such an open experience with each other.

Going through this whole catalogue of Void of Vision to decide what goes in the setlist, how we want to portray it, and what we want to share with everyone for the last time. It’s been so fucking awesome to put all that together and just remember, like I said, that we’re doing it all for the last time together, and we need to make every moment count and everything so memorable.

Learning to just be there and be present for all that was super important to me, because I don’t want to come out of this on the other side and not remember any of it and wish I had done something differently. It’s been so awesome.

I feel like time is almost slowing down in a sense as well, for once. It’s not going as fast as usual. I can breathe, and I can process everything a lot more freely than I usually have. To have that this time is especially important, on such a significant tour is such a crazy feeling. It’s going to make it all the more special.

Awesome! As this chapter closes, what lessons and inspirations are you taking forward into future creative endeavours?

Like I said, stopping to smell the roses and just being a lot more present. There is just so much more to life, and I did treat Void of Vision as the priority for so long, and I let a lot go by the wayside. The very second I brought all of that back into my collective life, and healthy creative life, I saw benefits; I really did.

I’m in a very happy and creative space right now. I’m taking a break from music, band-wise, for however long it needs, until I fall back in love with music again in a healthy and responsive way. I love that I’m still going to be sticking around in the music industry for the foreseeable future, but just in different formats, because I want to see what else there is. I want to experience it in different formats, and I want to see it from the outside in and pour my love and creative energy into it that way and give that a shot.

I think that’s just as important—to put everyone else up on the map, as well as yourself. We are in a very important time in Australian music history right now, where heavy music is fucken massive! The fact that it can do what it’s doing right now is so nuts. If I can help build that platform up, then that’s a job I am looking forward to.

That takes me into my next question. We talked about the Parkway Drive tour earlier, and I had the pleasure of talking to Winston in the lead-up. He spoke very glowingly about Void of Vision. My next question is, what advice or support from your peers has really stuck with you over the years?

Man, this takes me all the way back to 2014. We did a final tour with Hand of Mercy, which also wrapped up in Perth.

It’s going to be actually quite special now that I think about it all. A lot of these last moments, the tours end in Perth, and you do get the final moments. I’m just thinking how fucken awesome that is (laughs).

But, yeah. The moment that stuck in my head was with Adam, the guitarist of Hand of Mercy. After a long motivational speech about what we do next, as they were wrapping up and he was conveying what he had learned, he just said, “No one in the world gives more of a fuck about your band than you do.”

That has stuck with me during the whole process of Void of Vision. Any decision factoring process, knowing what we want and that we are the end game of our choices and decisions. You can have as many external forces as you want, but at the end of the day, keep in mind that you are always going to give more of a fuck than anyone else does. It was a very important lesson that I’ve brought into every creative endeavour that I’ve ever pursued, and I’ll hold onto that one for the rest of my life.

Fantastic, Jack! Circling back to the final tour, how did you choose the line-up, and what excites you most about sharing the stage with the acts? Can you tell us about them?

We organised it all before we knew anything about finishing the band. But the main idea stuck, and it’s more relevant than ever. We wanted to bring all these acts over for the first time, or bands we want to see receive their flowers for the first time on our shores.

Gideon have been here before and played with Polaris. They came over on their own for a headline tour years back. I think we played with them in 2014, and we loved the band back then and love them just as much now. To have them at this stage in front of a crowd that’s been with Void of Vision for the entirety of our careers and a crowd that’s well representative of the Australian scene celebrating something, to witness Gideon at the peak of their career and to just have them pop off here, it would be a job well done.

I would fucking love to see that and to have them come back again very soon on a festival run or with another big Australian act to keep stamping their presence here because they deserve that shit so much. They are such a powerhouse of a band that has gone through the whole system for years, and I would love to see that happen here.

Likewise for the guys who are coming here for the first time in UnityTX and Knosis. If we could do anything to help them succeed here, plant their feet, and begin a successful and beautiful career here, then that’s definitely what I want to do on this tour. To make sure the bands can come over here and continue being artists and continue feeding that into the system, because that’s what we need right now. We need to keep feeding it back into the heavy music world because we’re doing it so fucken well, and the more we can open up our eyes to, the better we can see.

Jack, thank you so much, man! What message would you like to leave with the fans who have supported Void of Vision over the years?

A final and very, very sincere thank you. I know a lot of the fans have been potentially in and out, going through our many different phases of creating music and just where we’ve been on the spectrum of heavy music as a whole. I know that no matter what, you’re all together and with us for one last time, which is so fucken awesome.

The support we’ve seen and the memories you’ve shared with us have been incredible. Especially on the socials—sharing videos, photos, and stories—none of it’s been missed. We’ve seen every single post, and it absolutely means the world to us. We’re so excited to share it all, one last time around the country.

Fantastic, Jack. Last of all, as Void of Vision bids farewell, what would you say to your younger self just starting out in the Aussie heavy music scene?

Oh mate, it would be crazy! I would say, just keep going. If you have that dream, if you want to be in a band, do it. Make sure you keep those dreams in your head. Keep the dreams in your head like a fucken pinboard in your room, and you will make it happen. If you are dedicated to your art and craft, and if you push yourself beyond means that you knew possible, then you’ll get there. That’s literally it. It’s all out there; you’ve just got to grab it and take it. It’s amazing what you can achieve when you set your mind to it. I think this has been no exception.

Yeah, I’d love to leave that behind.

Awesome! Jack, thank you so much, mate! We will see you at Magnet House on February 22nd, and we can’t wait to have you guys here! We’ll bring all the love we possibly can and show you all the support that you deserve for such a decorated career.

Thank you so fucking much, man. I appreciate all your time and all your hard work. We’ll see you there!

Void of Vision play Amplifier Bar on Saturday, February 22, 2025. Tickets are on sale now from tickets.393murray.com.au