Avalon Drive

Wed 10th Sep, 2008 in Features

Today, Damion Page is one happy man. His band Avalon Drive is on tour for the first time in months and a release date has been confirmed for their long-awaited EP, The View From Afar. Avalon Drive in their current incarnation burst onto the Brisbane scene in 2005 (a few lineup changes notwithstanding) and have supported artists such as The Veronicas, Yellowcard, Fall Out Boy and INXS.

After releasing the digital single Make Your Move in mid-2007, the band decided to take some serious time off touring to knuckle down and write and record material for a debut album. However, their plans were interrupted in April this year when drummer Shane Holmes entered the band into the first Tooheys UncharTED competition without telling his fellow bandmates. They won the competition and therefore the major prize – a record deal with SonyBMG for the release of an EP.

“We were so nervous about UncharTED,” says Page on the phone from Melbourne. “We’re not a very competitive band and me and another guy in the band have been doing this for almost nine years now, but the support from our fans and the label has just been amazing. It’s been a great leg-up for us.”

Unsurprisingly, things haven’t become a walk in the park since signing with a major label. “We had it in our heads that it was going to be busy, but I don’t think any of us realised exactly how hectic it was going to get. We’re all still working day jobs and with the band our workload has tripled and everything has just become a hundred times more important. It’s been good having deadlines to whip us into shape though!”

Deadlines aside, the boys still manage to have some fun. Avalon Drive is currently in the middle of a residency tour with Adelaide’s The Sundance Kids. The tour sees both bands play venues in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne once a week for three weeks; with whoever turns up to the venue first getting to headline that night’s show. According to Page, playing three shows a week in three different states isn’t as much of a logistical nightmare as it sounds.

“We weren’t so much skeptical as interested to see how it would actually work, but it’s been really good fun so far. The first week was a bit quiet in terms of crowd sizes, but we did our second show in Adelaide last night and there was definitely an increase in crowd size. We haven’t toured for eight or nine months and the other bands are amazing, so it has been a great experience.”

As soon as the residency tour wraps up, Avalon Drive will play Brisbane all-ages event Valley Fiesta. “Our first show was an all-ages show and to be honest I think we probably only played all-ages shows for our first six months as a band. We realised pretty early on that we’d be lucky enough to get a really strong all-ages following. It was only from playing with more mature bands like INXS that our fan-base has shifted a little bit to an older crowd. We’re really excited about Valley Fiesta – it feels like we haven’t played a home show in ages, let alone an all-ages home show!”

Avalon Drive has one week left of its residency tour, before playing the Chinatown Mall Stage at 8:30pm on Friday 12 September for Valley Fiesta. The band’s EP The View from Afar will be released on October 4th through SonyBMG.