The Western Trend Festival (WTF) happens on Saturday, March 14, at Canefire Gardens in the Swan Valley. As will Dan Peters & The Volatyles.
The Western Trend Festival is a new start up event for Perth live original music. Given the recent discussions re venues, how important do you think this event could be?
There are too many factors that have led to the closure of well too many venues – the rising costs of operating a venue, the movement towards ‘plastic pop’ music on critical radio stations, transport, cost of living in Perth, etc. Hopefully the mining slowdown will reverse some of this in the long term.
But ultimately, events like WTF are important for the Perth music scene and the development of a new wave of talent on the West Coast. It provides a platform for the scene to showcase its depth to punters and fans of other bands on the bill. A bit of cross-contamination of fans! In the long term, hopefully these events get the average punter – beyond the dedicated local Perth music lovers – interested in live music again meaning a greater and more frequent demand for live music and making it more economically viable for live venues to exist. So yeah, anything that promotes the local music scene is a good thing.
Have you as a band had much in the way of outdoor/festival experiences?
Not really – this will be our first festival since getting the band together ‘full-time’. Hopefully this is only the start of things to come.
Describe the evolution of your band, how it was at the start and what it is and is becoming…
It started as a solo project with a little help from my drummer mate Mike C and engineer/producer mate Kieren Kenderessey. We ended up recording an album but with Mike working away for the most of the year, we couldn’t fully commit to the project to develop further and get it out there. Now that we’re all back in town, and have Matt Harley and Cam Flint in on guitar and bass, we’re full steam ahead. We seem to have two styles developing – one punk rock style influenced by the likes of Pixies, Antemasque, QOTSA, Muse and the other style is guitar loop music influenced by EDM, Radiohead, Lorde and QOTSA, in a left of field kind of way. So yeah, should be interesting going forward.
What’s your gameplan for the rest of the year?
Recording, releasing, playing a heap and supporting local music!
