Interview by Kris Peters
Adelaide rock outfit Audio Reign have, by virtue of geographical location, possibly had to work that bit harder than most to have their music heard and accepted on the national music scene.
Without the opportunities and weight of numbers afforded bands in the larger cities and areas of Australia, Audio Reign learnt early on in the piece that the best way to compensate for the lack of opportunities was to produce continually high-quality music that would hopefully resonate through the divide and into the hearts and ears of a national, then international audience.
Their debut self-titled album offered strong indications of the talent within the band, particularly frontman Jake Fleming, who has been blessed with the stereotypical rock chops that demand an audience. And while more often than not Audio Reign have had to fight tooth and nail to draw that audience in their hometown of Adelaide, opportunities have gradually presented themselves with the band's recent support slot to touring US outfit Skillet overdue reward for effort.
Today Audio Reign fire their strongest shot yet in their quest for rock immortality, with the release of their sophomore album The Perfect Sea, an album that has healthy doses of rock through to hard rock and metal tinges but also splatterings of emotion and sonic diversity that only a growing confidence and self-belief can muster.
HEAVY has keenly observed Audio Reign since first coming across them a number of years ago, and it gave us great pleasure to be able to sit down with Fleming for a deeper insight into the musical mechanisms of the new album.
"It's been a labour of love," he sighed when asked how it felt to finally have the new album in the public domain. "We're stoked to get it out. It's been a long time coming, and the fans have been waiting, so we're on cloud nine."
Bands throughout history have always been plagued by the second album syndrome, an affliction generally thought of as more of a cop-out to those outside of the industry, so we press Fleming to see if the band had any unexpected difficulties with the follow-up effort.
"It's always that way where they say your first album took you twenty years to write, but the next album is expected every couple of years," he measured. "It can be. This album was written during COVID times too, so there was a lot of emotion going through there and just life in general as well. That helped out, I suppose. I'm not the sort of person who just sits there and bangs out a song. I have to wait until it comes to me. But it came through pretty good. The next one… you will have to ask me then (laughs). But this one's been okay."
We ask Fleming to describe The Perfect Sea from a musical point of view.
"A lot of people have albums that have themes," he replied, "but this one doesn't really have one. There's definitely some songs on there that are part of the same thing, but the whole album itself, because it took so long through the pandemic and the fans have been waiting, I wanted to do something for them. The album itself, and the song The Perfect Sea, is basically dedicated to our fans for sticking around and waiting for us and for backing us."
In the full interview, Jake talks more about the diversity of music on The Perfect Sea, the steady procession of singles and how they reflect the album as a whole, which two singles best represent the direction of the album, his vocal range and how far he pushed himself this time, how this release differs from Audio Reign's self-titled debut, the musical growth within the band, singing with XMusic and what that means for the band, touring plans and more.