Groovin' prepares for a Karnivool atmosphere
Bunbury biggest music festival , Groovin’ the Moo, will host one of Australia’s best live acts, with Perth heavy-hitters Karnivool sure to draw a big crowd.
The progressive rock band has become a staple for many hard rock fans and this year they will grace Hay Park on May 10, playing the sunset slot.
The band began in high school around 1997, playing parties and covering songs by artists such as Nirvana and Carcass.
Lead singer Ian Kenny renamed the band Karnivool, cleaned the members out and started working on original material.
Through the years the band has gone through a few changes of personnel, with just Kenny and lead guitarist Andrew ‘Drew’ Goddard the only remaining founding members.
Kenny and Goddard are joined by long-serving members Jon Stockman (bass), rhythm guitarist Mark Hosking and drummer Steve Judd.
Hosking said the band was excited to play Groovin’ the Moo.
“We have heard a lot about the festival and have been to a few shows in the past. It is a well-run festival which is growing, ” he said.
“We are excited to get a chance to run around Australia and be mad men again.”
The announcement of Karnivool as one of the bands to perform at the festival did not go exactly to plan, with Goddard accidently letting it slip on Triple J prior to the official announcement.
Beyond Groovin’ the Moo, Karnivool will set off on a whirlwind tour of Europe.
“Europe to us feels like Australia was six years ago, ” Hosking said.
“Over there we are doing smaller shows in clubs and it feels like a growing market for us.
“It is a fun place to tour – I think we are doing some strange places on this run, which will be cool.
“The crowd is honest when we go there, we don’t do major record sales so it is more of an underground sort of thing.
“We get great, honest feedback from people, the type you can’t get from being plastered on magazines and stuff.”
One of the challenges the band faces is the dual commitments of lead singer Kenny, who has also shot to fame on the Australian music scene with his other band Birds of Tokyo.
Hosking said it was a challenge and did stop the band from being an all-year-round entity.
“Ian playing with Birds of Tokyo works for us because we do writing when he isn’t around, ” he said.
“We build stuff in the studio and send it to him and it comes back with his opinion on it. It hasn’t affected us as a band too much, which is great.
“I think it has made it a little bit hard with us being a prominent 12 months of the year act, as we can only be active six months of the year, but our managers take care of that.”
