New South Wales metal merchants Carbon Black return to Queensland after a prolonged absence this weekend for a smash and grab run of shows taking in Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Brisbane.
Following the release earlier this year of the critically acclaimed album We Remain, Carbon Black have set about building on that response by hitting the road with a vengeance in order to take their new music to as wide of an audience as possible.
Bass player Rob Giles sat down with HEAVY on the eve of Carbon Black's first show at Vinnie on november 17 to talk us through life inside the band.
"We're playing a lot of stuff from the new album," he admitted. "That's our focus at the moment. The new album was released in may and is called We Remain. We're really proud of the material on that. It's pretty angry stuff, angry as in we got a lot of emotions out. It was written during the pandemic and we had a lot of issues to touch on. It's a very focussed album for us and we're proud of the songs and we can't wait to play them live to some audiences and catch up with some friends up in Queensland."
Aside from the new songs, we quiz Giles on what else new fans can expect from Carbon Black since they last visited the Sunshine State some three years ago.
"We're always refining our live set," Giles explained. "It's something that we put a lot of thought into, particularly rehearsing, but with the live set it is a lot more refined now and a lot more focused. Particularly for this set, we're really playing the heavy stuff, the fast stuff. We're all fit and playing well so we've really got a focus on stuff that is going to get audiences moving and going."
In the full interview, Rob talks about what to expect from the shows, the range of genres played by the support bands and the importance of being able to fit into an eclectic line-up, Saturday's Unite The Fight Charity show for mental health at Thirsty Chiefs in Brisbane, the importance of playing shows like that, the reception to We Remain, current single Red Flag and why they have released it in time for this tour working with legendary producer Kevin 'Caveman' Shirley and more.