By Andrew Bansal
Hailing from Melbourne, Australia, Elm Street have been bringing their brand of high-octane thrash metal to the American masses over the past four weeks. The quartet just concluded a US tour with Skull Fist and Night Demon, a tour I had the pleasure of being part of. On the last night of the tour, before they took the stage at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz, California, I caught up with vocalist/rhythm guitarist Ben Batres to talk about all things Elm Street and more. Enjoy the conversation below.
It’s been really good touring with you guys. How would you summarize your first US tour?
Oh, it’s been great, man. We never thought we would be all across the world over here, so it’s been amazing. We went to Europe twice but the States was really an opportunity for us and it has opened a lot of doors already. To tour with two other bands of similar style, bands that are friendly with each other and help each other out, it’s been great.
You didn’t really have any expectations because you’d never been here before and lot of people didn’t know you. So you’ve just been enjoying every show, isn’t it?
Yeah, exactly. We’ve just been enjoying the experience, going from city to city, meeting new people and we know that people would be taken by surprise because no one has ever heard us. We haven’t had much distribution here in the States, so this is our only outlet to spread our music. To see people buying our merchandise and coming up to us after our set to tell us that we put on a good show has been encouring for us to keep going.
It was a big commitment, man. You left the Australian summer for the brutal winter here in the States. Well, not here in California but otherwise.
Yeah, this is two out of two, man. Last year we left it for a tour in Europe and this time we left it for the States, but luckily we’re ending it off here in California where it’s a bit more warmer and closer to home. We went to the beach today as well, just to get used to the climate so that it’ll be easier when we go back home. When we started this tour in New York it was freezing and we just couldn’t handle it. So, thank god we’re here now but we’ve still got a couple of months of the Australian summer to go, so we’ll catch the end of it.
Your album ‘Barbed Wire Metal’ came out more than three years ago. What has taken you this long to tour the US? Is it mainly the lack of distribution?
Yeah, it’s been due to the lack of distribution. No Australian band has really come into the US market because it’s so expensive for us to come here. We have to deal with van rentals, gas money and all the other things on top of that. We had the opportunity to go to Europe twice which again was a lot of money and it sort of put a halt on our plans for the US. Plus we’ve been working on our second album. We’re a 100 per cent funded by ourselves. Nobody funds us and people don’t upfront us money in any way. So everything is by ourselves, we work hard at full-time jobs at home and put all the money into the band. Luckily, now that we got the opportunity it will be a lot easier to come back.
For people that are seeing you at these shows, it’s still like a new album and they’re buying it after they aee your set. So it’s not a bad thing.
Yeah, that’s why we wanted to do this tour now. We could have waited till the next album was released but we couldn’t say no to a package like this. No one really knows our album, so why not just bring it out and give it one more tour?
You’ve been playing five songs in your half-hour set every night, and the two songs that are not on the first album, ‘Heart Racer’ and ‘Face The Reaper’, I think I like them more than the older songs, to be honest with you. When are you planning to put out the next album?
We basically nearly finished recording it before we left for this tour, so we go home and finish that off pretty quickly. Then it’s going to come out in May and we’ll follow that up with a European tour and we’re going to South and Central America in September, amd linking that up with the States again. So it’s going to be a busy year. We feel that it’s a more mature album. ‘Barbed Wire Metal’ was written when we were 13-14 years old, in high school. It took a while, but music takes a while to progress and mature. We think this one will really be a kick up the arse for everyone, man.
You guys are young, but I think you’ve been around for a lot longer than people would guess when they first see you, right?
Yeah, it’s 2015 now and we began in 2003 when we were 13 years old. None of us knew how to play instruments, so we all told each other to learn different instruments and we made a band. From then we’ve just been progressing on, doing what we do still. Me, Tom the drummer and Aaron the guitarist are the original members, and been friends since high school years. Aaron’s dad was my guitar teacher and when Aaron saw me learning, he started learning too and it just progressed from there. Now we’re here in the States doing what we love, so it’s cool, man.
I’m sure you’ve worked a lot on your sound, because your guitar tones sound great on stage.
Yeah, and again the good thing is we’ve got Aaron’s knowledge as his dad is a teacher. He’s got a lot of that inside knowledge about gear and old-school sort of sounds. He was a guitarist back in the 70s when Hendrix and Santana were ripping it up. So he’s got those classic tones. We work hard every week, it’s our craft and we want to do it 100 per cent.
Talking of gear, on this tour you’ve been using Night Demon’s drum kit and Skull Fist’s backline. I know it’s easier for you to do that because you’re traveling from so far and don’t have to carry gear all the way, but do you miss playing your own gear?
Yeah, definitely. The shit thing is, our gear back home is part of our stage show. So we’ve got the big stacks and the massive drum kit that Tom has, that we bring to every show. We miss that part because it motivates us more and like Night Demon, more of a visual show as opposed to just playing our songs. But then again, not having the visual aspect helps us to go into differnt scenarios and matures us as a band. We don’t have to rely on it and it’s time to rely on just the performance. It helps us become better performers and we can combine the two when we can finally start shipping gear over. It will be a better show all around.
Exactly, man. Talking of Night Demon and Skull Fist, as you said, they are two bands of similar style and approach in terms of old-school metal, but they’re different from you and from each other. You must have got to learn some things watching these bands as well.
Absolutely. You talk about Night Demon, some of the members have been around the industy for years and years, so we’ve learnt from them on how to be more professional in terms of just tour-managing in general, showing up and loading gear on and off on time and things like that. So, that helped us a lot and both Night Demon and Skull Fist’s sound has been really inspiring for us. We were fans of both bands before we even came on this tour, so we would have never thought that it would be a package like this. It’s always good to be on par with bands like that, with different styles but win each other’s crowds over. That’s what’s good about it.
It’s friendly competition.
That’s it, it’s a bit of friendly competition. If one band gives it their all then we do it too. We all have a similar show, it’s highly energetic, and people have loved the combo. It’s been something you wouldn’t expect, and it’s cool to have three such energetic bands going all guns blazing.
Right. So, on this tour I’ve noticed that you guys have been taking the opportunity to stop at tourist destinations. You’ve had fun and it’s almost been like a vacation while you’re still working towards the betterment of the band. How’s that been going?
Our tour manager is from Belgium and we’re from Australia, so we’ve all come from a long way away to be here and we thought that we might as well make the most of it. We’re spending all this money, so let’s have some fun as well. Let’s get down to business when we have to and have fun when we can. We hit Las Vegas the other night and I think that explained it all. We had a big wild night and all our money is in Nevada right now (laughs), but we had to do it.
You brought some of it back through your drummer though, right? That never happens!
Yeah, he won a couple of thousand, man! The other losses are still there, but so are the memories. You have to make the most of it being from so far away. You may as well make it a little vacation.
What would you pick out as your favorite spots around the country on this tour?
I definitely love the warmer places like California and Arizona, but I also loved it when we were up near Chicago and New York. Those were some of my favorite places and the whole experience in general was awesome, but I don’t think you can beat ending the tour on such a high in California. All the shows have been good, we had Fullerton last night and Los Angeles the night before, and we’re ending it in a place wher there’s nice beaches, great weather and nice scenery. California is definitely where my heart lies.
I have one last question for you. The guys in Night Demon are big KISS fans, and Jarvis specially loves the song ‘Shandi’. He was telling us that the song was number 1 in Australia, and your country loves that song more than anybody. Is there any truth to that?
Yeah, man. As a fan I grew up with KISS, and I remember every time they toured Australia they played three songs that were big in Australia, ‘Shandi’, ‘I Was Made For Loving You’ and ‘Sure Know Something’. Basically all the disco hits (laughs).
I would trade that set list for what they play here, man.
Yeah yeah, every time they would say that they were doing that song because in Australia it went number 1. It’s weird though, because shandy is not a very popular drink in Australia. The song just made it onto the radio market over there. I’ve seen KISS a couple of times and seen those songs each and every time. They did it even with a symphony and also did acoustic versions. Hopefully Night Demon get to Australia one day and play ‘Shandi’ and win the crowd over.
That’ll be sweet! On that note I’ll end this interview. Thanks for your time and all the best with everything.
Thanks, dude. It’s been a pleasure. Let’s end it with a bang!
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