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 LUCAS STONE guitarist/vocalist for Gold Coast heavy metal outfit HELM catches up with TASH CHRISTIAN in the midst of touring for their debut release Vol 1…Keelhaul.
TASH CHRISTIAN: Firstly Lucas, the word Helm can mean a number of things, what does it mean to you?
LUCAS STONE: I’m actually a boat builder by trade and the helm is what drives the boat. I am really just a fan of the word. It has a sort of ghost-like feeling about it, which suits us.
TC: What have Helm been up to in the past year?
LS: We recorded an album and did our first CD launch on the Gold Coast. After that we just kept playing. The second leg of our tour will see us do NSW, VIC, SA and QLD, so that has been on the agenda. We have just finished writing all the songs for another album and go back to the studio to record in August, so that is priority number one at the moment.
TC: The idea of Keelhauling isn’t overly appealing – how did you come to name your album after this?
LS: The keelhaul is an old form of torture that the pirates would use where they would tie someone (sailors) to the keel of a boat and drag them underwater. I guess our songs require a bit of commitment from our listeners … most of our songs are pretty long, so they aren’t for everyone … some people can’t handle a bit of torture (laughs).
TC: What have you done differently in terms of your upcoming second album?
LS: It is still heavy and it’s still Helm 100%, but it’s a natural progression into something we need to do as a band to keep doing it for a living ... we all love heavy music, but at the same time we love good melodies and are aware that the general audience likes something they can latch onto. With the newer songs there is a lot more melodic singing than there was on the first album, but it’s still Helm.
TC: A blurb on your myspace claims Helm’s music will ‘piss off the genre pigs,’ what do you mean by this?
LS: (Laughs) It’s the people who need something familiar … because that’s what they’re used to. It’s very common for a person to hear a song and say ‘That sounds like such and such …’ They should just hear it for what it is … You’ve only got eight notes in the musical scale, so everyone is basically rewriting music over and over. We think we are an original band, but how original is an original band? You can play as progressively as possible and still have something in there that someone else has done before … it’s just one of those things.
TC: Wrapping up, I understand you’re a tradie – how difficult is it to juggle fronting a band and working a day job?
LS: All of us are tradies … it does get hard sometimes, but that’s the beauty about loving something. If we stopped loving our music, we wouldn’t do it.
HELM play the Miami Tavern Friday Jul 17 and Club Blink (299) Saturday Jul 18, supported by Five Star Prison Cell, Lynchmada and more. They also play Nightlife Southport (all ages) on Sunday Jul 19, supported by The War. KEELHAUL is available now through iTunes. www.myspace/ghostatthehelm
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