Project Description

Toxicon.

Interview with
THOMAS NUNAN
(Drummer)
from
TOXICON

(14th September 2022)

Interview with Dave Bruce

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Toxicon

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How did the band come together? Is there someone who is a “driving force”, or do you all make decisions together?
The band came together way back in 2012. Adam and our then guitarist Paul started things up and Jacob and I joined being friends of both of those guys and we found our singer Wayne on the musicians website “Melband”.
As far as a driving force goes we’ve all been that central figure at one point in time or another. Usually when 1 member is losing motivation another will pop up and carry the load to help keep us moving along. At the moment that person is me. Decision wise we all make the choices together which I think it makes for a much better musical product and it keeps us all happy.

How would you describe your sound? Why do you think people resonate with your music?
The band likes to describe our sound as “Hybrid Metal”, not just cause it sounds cool but because it best encompasses how we sound. It’s a great mix of old school thrash, groove metal, alt rock, and just heavy metal in general. It’s also much better than saying we are “Alternative, post trash, pre rock, groove metal.  Because we have such a widespread sound there is something there for everybody and there are a lot of genre crossovers in our music that appeal to multiple fanbases at once when we play. It’s has elements that fans of any genre could love. Want a break down? We got it. Want a head banging riff? We got it. Want beautiful ballads? We got em. We’re for everybody. 

Which artist’s music and/or performance, past or present, inspires you today? 
We’ve got so many bands that love so our inspirations are all over the place. For “Be The Fire” our main influences were Megadeth, Machine Head, Mastodon, Alter Bridge, Trivium, and Gojira. We also listen to heaps of rock and rap and other genres and there is always something to be learned from how other artists put their songs together.
Moving forwards though we’re really getting into are Symphony X, Unleash The Archers, Opeth and Nevermore so expect to hear elements of that in the future.

Your new album, ‘Be The Fire & Wish For The Wind’ has just been released! Describe its origin and evolution. 
After we finished our last album “Purge” in 2016 we went straight into writing for the next release. One of the first songs we had was “Circling:” which we ended up making into a standalone single with its own tour and that was a big deal for us. By the time we finished writing we had almost 40 songs which we whittled down too 11. We spent a lot of time writing and re writing to make sure that all 5 of us were happy with each song even after we’d picked them to be on the album which I think is the reason the quality of the music is so high. None of us were ever satisfied with just “alright”  We picked the studio, recorded the drums, got it all sorted THEN right at the end of the recording process the pandemic hit and we had to sit on it all for 3 years.

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What are the signature pieces, and do you have a favorite track?
I don’t think there is any one signature piece on the album. All the members help write the music and we all have different styles that come forth on the album. I think “The Lost” is an outstanding metal track that anybody, no matter what genre they like, could appreciate. My favourite song today is the ballad Husk but ask me any other day and it could be something different.

Any tours or events coming up soon? What are you looking forward to, and what can the fans expect?
I’m in the middle of looking into a tour. Our singer Wayne has just moved to Cairns, QLD which makes it difficult to organise spur of the moment shows, but there is no way we won’t get out and play some shows in support of the album. We have just welcomed our new guitarist Bart to the band and I want him to get out and enjoy the good parts of being in a band. We’ve been working hard on building our YouTube so in the future you will be able to see most stuff from us on there. We make content for every song we put out so you can learn more about the songs you love.

How has COVID affected you to date? What have you introduced to balance the losses from missed events?
Covid didn’t really have huge effects on me as a person. I’m generally very reserved and most of my hobbies can be done from home so I was stoked to get paid to sit at home and do things I liked.
It’s because of the pandemic that we chose to throw ourselves into the online game. We do videos for almost anything a fan would ask about on our YouTube down to full taught guitar lessons from Adam our guitarist. We put in loads of effort to make sure that even if we can’t get out to see people that they can still interact with us and learn more about us as people and musicians.

If you could perform with any music artist, Alive or Dead, who would you choose? And why? 
Snoop Dogg. It’s been a long running joke in the band that we would love to work with Snoop but honestly, I think its developed into a legit thing. Wayne and I are both big fans of rap and occasionally Wayne uses rap type flows for his lyrics. I think we’d be able to write an absolute banger song with Snoop.

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Do you have any long-term aspirations as a music artist?
Long term it would be great to have our music heard by the masses and its always been the long-term goal to tour the world with the music. As the years have passed that goal has become less and less achievable thanks to changes in the music business but nonetheless, I think we all still wish we could play our music to swarms of people like it was the late 90s. And if that doesn’t work out then I’m gonna start an 80s cover band so I can actually get paid for playing music 😜

What is the best thing about performing to a live audience? What’s been the career highlight so far?
The best thing about performing live is always the crowd. We are always going to pick apart our performances after the shows but the crowd always make us feel welcome both on stage and when we get to talk back at the merch booth.
Highlight so far was opening for Twelve Foot Ninja in Sydney. The show we were supposed to play turned from a front bar gig with no people to playing in front of a few hundred. They weren’t our crowd but we won them over by the end. That was a great show.

Finally, a few questions for some quick answers –
FAVOURITE:
Album –   Coheed & Cambria – Good Apollo I’m Burning Star IV : From Fear Through The Eyes of Madness  (Yep that’s actually the title. Listen to it, you won’t be disappointed)
Artist –  Coheed & Cambria.
Movie –  Lord of the Rings – Return Of The King
Place to visit –  Ireland.
Venue to play –  The Basement – Canberra
Food –  Meat Loaf
Drink – Bundaberg Burgendee Creaming Soda
Person in History –  Arnold Shwarzenegger
Tattoo – (If you don’t have one, what would you get?) Coheed and Cambria album logos down my spine.

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Toxicon

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Follow TOXICON
Website – Facebook – Instagram
Bandcamp – YouTube

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Toxicon.

Press Release 6th September 2022 (below) HERE

TOXICON
release new album
BE THE FIRE
& WISH FOR THE WIND

Listen HERE

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Toxicon

Thomas Nunan: Drums, Adam Esposti: Guitar, Wayne Clarris: Vocals, Bart Walters: Guitar, Jacob Maloney: Bass

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AMNPLIFY – DB