Interview by Ali Williams
There are busy years, and then there is whatever FALLUJAH have decided to do with 2026.
When Kyle Schaefer joins HEAVY’s Ali Williams from Nashville, the band are in the middle of an international schedule that has already taken them through Europe and Latin America, with Japan, the United States, Canada and Australia still sitting on the itinerary. For Schaefer, who has spent roughly five years with FALLUJAH, it is comfortably the most geographically ambitious year he has experienced with the band.
Australia gets its turn in September when FALLUJAH return for ShredFest alongside OBSCURA and the rest of a lineup built squarely for people who consider excessive fretwork a perfectly reasonable form of entertainment. More importantly, this will be FALLUJAH’s first Australian visit since the release of Xenotaph, giving local audiences their first chance to hear the album where it was intended to live: at substantial volume, in a room full of people.
It will be the band’s third trip to Australia and Schaefer’s second. The distance involved means international goodwill alone does not get a band here. Flights, equipment, personnel and the routine expense of moving a touring operation across a country this large require an audience at the other end, and Schaefer is well aware that FALLUJAH have one.
He speaks with genuine appreciation for the Australian following, particularly because the mathematics of touring this far from home can become ugly very quickly. “It’s hard to justify paying to get somewhere that far away if there’s not going to be people to go to the shows,” he explains, adding that the band are grateful to know those crowds exist here. That support arrives at a useful point in FALLUJAH’s current cycle. Xenotaph was released in June 2025, but the album has spent much of its life waiting for the band’s touring map to catch up with it. Australia is one of the remaining pieces, and Schaefer confirms the new material will form a significant part of the coming shows.
Before that happens, FALLUJAH will make their first visit to Japan, again sharing stages with OBSCURA. From there comes essentially one day off before a US tour, followed by a Canadian festival and finally the Australian run. It sounds impressive until Schaefer starts explaining what touring actually involves when nobody is currently standing under stage lights.
Much of the band’s limited time at home disappears into merch orders, flights, rehearsals, equipment preparation and the dozens of smaller jobs required to make the next run function. FALLUJAH have management and booking support, while Australian promoters handle much of the domestic movement between cities, but plenty of the work remains inside the band.
Schaefer handles much of the merchandise. Another member takes care of flights, travel and rehearsal planning. Someone else prepares the backing tracks and computer sessions needed for the live show. Everybody has a job because somebody has to do it, and apparently “international touring metal band” contains rather more administration than the brochure suggested.
Australia adds its own particular logistical contribution. A tour can involve enough internal flying to make staying on the ground feel briefly unusual, something Schaefer is quite content leaving in the hands of people who know the country. Europe comes with buses and the bill attached to them. The US has traditionally meant vans or RVs and, in earlier years, band members doing the driving themselves. South America means more flights. Australia means more flights again.
For Schaefer, those practical differences have become part of how he remembers touring each territory. The venue and crowd matter, obviously, but so does the machinery required to get five people, equipment and a functioning show from one city to another without losing anything expensive at an airport. What Australia lacks in convenient geography, however, it has been returning in audience enthusiasm.
For a band whose year has moved from continent to continent, that variation has helped keep the touring cycle interesting. The schedule is relentless, but Schaefer does not sound tired of performing. What FALLUJAH are beginning to crave is the chance to create again. The first genuine gaps in the calendar are expected to provide exactly that.
Schaefer says the band are eager to begin working on new material once there is enough room between tours to concentrate properly. After a year spent taking Xenotaph to audiences around the world, 2027 is currently being left deliberately open, with writing likely to take greater priority than immediately booking another major headline run. Naturally, Schaefer leaves himself an escape clause: if an irresistible tour offer arrives, plans may change. Bands remain extremely good at discovering that “time off” is a theoretical concept.
For now, Australia has something considerably more immediate to worry about.
FALLUJAH will arrive in September for ShredFest with OBSCURA and company, carrying Xenotaph into Australian venues for the first time. Schaefer’s message to local fans is uncomplicated: they are looking forward to coming back and they want to see people at the shows.
For tickets and more info head to https://yourmatebookings.com/tours/shred-fest-2026-australia/
