The recent departure of Black Stone Cherry from the upcoming Halestorm Australian tour caused more than a few ripples amongst fans.
Social media went into overdrive with many taking up the option to claim refunds.
Out of this carnage came an opportunity for New Zealand rock outfit Villainy, with Neill Fraser (vocals, guitar) and Thom Watts (lead guitar) sitting down with HEAVY to discuss their last-minute call-up.
“No, no, we were caught by surprise just as much as everyone else,” Fraser said. “It was pretty fast. We basically got a call and email saying do you want this tour and we were like shit yeah! We scurried around to get things together and book flights and stuff and off we go”.
“It’s a funny one,” Watts continued, “because when Halestorm were last over in New Zealand we hung out with them. We are on the same record label as them so we ended up doing an escape room game thing that got really weird. They wanted to put it on social media which should have been some warning to how we ended up doing things (laughs). Things got really, really, ultra-competitive. We were in two groups so it was me and our drummer going with their guitarist and bass player and we got overly competitive and things got pretty tense (laughs)”.
In the full interview the boys discuss how they deal with the negative backlash that is beyond their blame or control, tells us why we should keep the tickets and give them a chance, run through what to expect and how the show differs from their last visit a number of years ago, new album Raised In The Dark and the reaction from fans, their incredible success rate at the New Zealand Music Awards and how it affects their approach to new music and more.
