These forces of nature on the Melbourne metal scene use a hard-hitting sound to express a very diverse range of influences—anything from Slipknot and Meshuggah to the Chili Peppers and Pink Floyd. Awaiting The Hail are getting geared up to put on a raging performance this Friday night, June 20th at The Espy for round one of the Emergenza Festival Australia. Be sure to check them out then, and in the meantime, read what the band had to said in their own words…

HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE NAME AWAITING THE HAIL?
Well, we were always keen on having one of those cool, ambiguous, one word band names, but then one day we were talking about how we were feeling the band was coming along, and one of our members said it felt like something big was coming—in terms of our sound and material really starting to come together—and he said it was like “Awaiting The Hail”, partly just as a joke. Well as time went on and we kept using it, the more it just sounded right, so we've ended up sticking with it and now we couldn't picture anything else.

HOW DID YOU FIRST GET INTO METAL AND WHAT SETS YOU APART FROM OTHER BANDS IN THE GENRE?
We all naturally gravitated towards metal around our early teens, and now it's just our favourite kind of music to create. What sets us apart from other bands in the genre is that, aside from great dynamics in our songs—ranging from dark, atmospheric clean right up to crushing heaviness (with equally dynamic vocals to match)—we all come from fairly different backgrounds musically, and are all very passionate about creating great, original music that truly feels personal and natural. You can definitely hear our different personalities coming through in our music.
We all set very high standards for ourselves, and feel very proud of the sound we've achieved so far. It's a great blend of old & new, with a lot of focus on great riff and song writing, paired together with the perfect rhythm section and vocals that people should be very excited to hear.

IF YOU COULD DESCRIBE YOUR SOUND IN THREE WORDS, WHAT WOULD THEY BE?
Deep, epic, visceral.

WHO ARE SOME OF YOUR MAJOR MUSICAL INFLUENCES?
There are some influences that may come out in our music in one way or another, including heavier bands like Korn / Meshuggah / Slipknot / Parkway Drive right through to other styles like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tool, Pink Floyd (too many to name really), but also we are big influences on each other as bandmates. Whilst we all love metal, we all have our own styles and all our favourite bands are fairly different, so one guitarist would inspire or influence another to write a certain way, same with the drums and vocals.

WHAT'S THE CRAZIEST THING YOU'VE DONE TOGETHER AS A BAND?
Nothing we could repeat here, haha. Na, we're afraid it's early days for us so no crazy stories yet. We're all fairly crazy though (some definitely more than others), so it's only a matter of time.

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO MOST ABOUT YOUR SHOW AT THE ESPY?
It's always great to play in a well-known venue, especially somewhere like The Espy. We're looking forward to seeing what kind of action we can get happening in that pit area too.

WITH OTHER BATTLE OF THE BANDS COMPETITIONS AROUND, WHAT MADE YOU CHOOSE EMERGENZA?
Well, being “The World's Biggest Festival For Unsigned Bands” makes the choice very easy. We like how they really help promote new bands, to give them that start, and exposure they need. And the opportunity to travel to places all around the world is definitely no small thing. We've been working hard this last year, and now we've got a great sound we're proud of, we really just want to get it out to as many people as possible. So Emergenza seems like the perfect fit for us. We're really looking forward to watching our audiences grow, and are very excited about what the future has in store.

For more details on the show at The Espy, June 20th, click here.