Fresh off a reformation in 2011 and the release of their third studio album, Beloved, Aussie metalcore group I Killed The Prom Queen are on the road for the Rise Of Brotality Tour. Guitarist, Kevin Cameron, speaks with AARON BRYANS, ahead of their shows this Saturday, September 27, at Leederville HQ (all-ages) and Sunday, September 28, at Capitol.
With two studio albums to their name, I Killed the Prom Queen were on the rise as one of Australia’s most-loved metalcore bands.
However in 2007, vocalist Ed Butcher departed due to homesickness with the band disbanding shortly after. After four years away the band reformed and haven’t looked back with long-time friend Jamie Hope taking the microphone for the Adelaide-quintet.
“There was idle talk between me and Jona (Weinhofen, guitar) for a couple of years,” Cameron reveals. “We were seeing a lot of bands emerge while we were on the hiatus and it sort of got into Jona’s head that we hadn’t reached the potential I know he wanted to get to with the band at that point. Initially we wanted to do two or three tours per year while people had other bands going on. When everyone freed up form those it turned into a full-time thing again and we’ve spent basically the whole year on the road at this point.”
“Jamie’s been a friend of ours since 2004 and almost joined the band when Ed departed in 2007. We’ve been around him for a good 70 per cent of the band’s entirety so he slotted in quite well.”
The band returned to form this year with the release of their third studio album, Beloved, which has receive widespread positive acclaim.
“We wrote really quickly for the new record,” says Cameron. “We had a couple years of formulating a couple of ideas, but the main writing thing didn’t hit its stride until the last month or so before we got into the studio. I think next time that happens we’re going to better prepare ourselves. We work really well under pressure but in terms of preparation, we’ve got a month off now where we’re going to start piecing together some ideas. We’re not going to need to write for another year, but just having those ideas around to show the others guys and rearrange a bit more will be good.
“We’ve only done the Soundwave dates with that material so we spent most of the year out of the country fine tuning all of that material in preparation for this tour. Now that we’re at the top of our game playing-wise hopefully crowds are enjoying it and there’s definitely a lot of standout moments in the set every night during songs. It’s getting better and better.”
The Rise Of Brotality tour has seen I Killed The Prom Queen return to Australian soil alongside with The Ghost Inside and In Hearts Wake, kicking things off in Canberra with the band performing in Perth this weekend.
“We’ve got 22 shows in succession but it’s all been smooth sailing. We’ve got the days running to a good routine now, all the shows have been successful and all he bands get along great.
“We’re playing predominantly new material off the album. The main focus of this one is pushing that new material rather then sticking to the decade-old material that we’d been pushing the last tour. It’s real good seeing the crowd react to all the new material, it makes it worthwhile.”
