Rockezine.com interview with Waik on Jun 10, 2004

with Simon Schroeder on Jun 10, 2004

One of the `smack in your face` surprises so far this year must be Contrast by Waik, a four-piece from down under. The band`s melancholic nu-rock as they call it themselves shows enormous potential. Time for a chat with guitar player Simon.
		First, introduce yourselves. Who is Waik and who might be interested in your music? Well Waik is Simon Schroeder – Guitars, Andrew Shepherd – Bass, Nathan Vickery – Vocals and Grant Colquhoun – Drums. I think that anybody that is into the new style of metal rock will dig us, you know Linkin Park, Tool, Evanescence – stuff like that. We don’t sound like these bands but if you had to compare that is what I would say.
		How would you describe your music? Progressive, melodic NU-rock would be how we would describe our tunes.
		Who or what are your main sources of inspiration? Well we all have different roots when it comes to our influences which has helped to define our sound. Bands from Metallica,Pantera to Tool, Pearl Jam, and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, have been our main influences.
		How does song writing work for Waik. Is it a band effort or an individual effort? We try different things all the time just to stay fresh, sometimes I will have a guitar riff that just leads the way, other times we look at structuring a song first, and define how we want it to sound, then jam on it. But basically it’s a team effort for the most part.
		You have a professional approach, distribution on several continents, plenty gigs in Australia. What are your future goals? Well, the immediate goal is to be able to do this full time, we all have full time jobs, and still manage to crank out the tunes, working on our music full time is only going to make us that much better. Apart from that, building a solid following down under, is the next step for us – we are a live band and we crave a good audience to play too.
		Contrast is released a while back. Is it what you hoped for or in other words is it good enough to take you further? We all are confident that ‘Contrast’ will give us a few keys to a few doors, but we more see it as an indicator, pointing to where we are going musically. The first three songs were recorded one year after the last three songs. There is a lot of growth and a definite ‘Contrast’ in sound between them, with this in mind people will be able to see where we have come from, where we are, and also offer a glimpse into what we will become.
		How have the reactions been so far? Reactions have been positive, we have had some great reviews, our film clip has been show nationally on RAGE and Channel [V], and we are now receiving airplay from some of our biggest national radio stations – so all in all the reception has been good, now it’s just a matter of capitalizing!
		Has there ever been a moment when you thought, we have to move to Europe or the US because that’s what our career needs? Perhaps it would make it easier to get a decent record deal? Well that’s the million dollar question that I think all serious artists outside of Europe and the US ask them selves, and it’s something that crosses our minds frequently. But these days there are other methods of making it, look at Britany Spears, she has never played a show in Australia before but she is huge through out the world. Now obviously her promotional budget is huge, but arm yourself with some knowledge of promotion and marketing, and plug your computer into the internet, and you have the potential to reach millions of people, granted you need a lot of patience and some radical idea’s but here I am talking to you from Australia!!! So I say stay where you are, and let the chips fall where they may!!
		Plans to play in Europe? We will go wherever there is demand for us, So Europe is part of the big picture for sure.
		Any bands from Australia we have to check out? Check out The Butterfly Effect – I rate them as one of Australia’s best!!
		Last words are yours…. Firstly, thanks Marc for the interview and review – and to everybody else, I hope that you get a chance to listen to the music that we love to make and enjoy it as much as we do. Cheers. Check out www.waik.net and www.undertow-recordings.com for more info.
(Marc Lochs)