The average music fan might associate Byron Bay with blues and folk.
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But for a core group of fans it is the home of metalcore band In Hearts Wake.
In Hearts Wake is excited to join the Groovin the Moo tour after hearing things from 2015 performer Northlane.
“We're very lucky to be playing Groovin the Moo. I've always seen it in my newsfeed and we are very aware of it,” vocalist Jake Taylor said.
“It is a regional tour that does really well. Northlane and told us how cool it was being a part of a festival with so many different acts, so it will be cool for us to wave that flag.”
The five-piece band has played regular gigs in Bendigo over the past five years and is very familiar with central Victoria’s stages.
“Bendigo is a beautiful place – it’s a city but it feels small but it’s growing quickly,” Taylor said.
“We have been playing Bendigo the last five or six years, so we have seen it through a lot of stages.
“The last time we played there was in about 2013 at the MusicMan. Back in the day I remember playing other places to 25 or 30 people.”
When In Hearts Wake return to Bendigo it will be to play in front of 15,000.
Taylor said the band’s set will feature a collection of songs from their last two albums – Earthwalker (2014) and Skydancer (2015).
The two albums were recorded at the same time with plenty of themes linking the two together.
“They are 100 per cent related. We liked that concept of duality,” Taylor said.
“The themes we wrote about were masculine and feminine. It was quite a challenge getting those themes across in a big, hard-hitting way.”
What was also challenging for In Hearts Wake was putting two albums together at once and then sitting on one for 12 months.
“There were a lot of word documents and things being layed out in columns,” Taylor said.
“At the same time we couldn’t let ourselves get pigeon-holed. We knew what we were looking for and had to do some creating on the fly.
“(Holding an album for 12 months) was very hard. We want to share it with friends, families and fans because we were so proud.”
After initially recording Skydancer, the band put the raw recordings aside for six months.
“We didn’t want to look at the second one until we did the first one,” Taylor said.
“Six or seven months later we heard the mix and remember thinking how good it was and happy we were with it.
“We brought it back to life but it never felt old.”
