It has been a monumental rise for Queensland groove metal four-piece AWAKEN THE HATE. After dropping highly acclaimed debut single ‘Monster in the Mirror’ in January 2024, we have had to wait for over a year until the release of new music but boy, was it worth the wait! The band didn’t give fans much time to sit still between the release of three banging new singles; ‘Reign of Fire’, ‘Contradiction of War’ and latest track ‘Planet Death’, released last Friday, 2 May.
The band celebrate these brand new releases with an Australian Tour which kicks off this week. The Death War Fire Tour takes in four major cities in four nights, starting in Perth on Thursday 8 May, before heading to Adelaide, Melbourne & Sydney. We caught up with frontman Ben ‘Benno’ Rogers to find out a little bit more about the band, the tour and try to glean some information about their full length debut album, set to drop later this year.
Sean: Hey Benno, great to talk to you. How are you?
Ben: Good mate, yourself?
Sean: Pretty good for a Sunday. Thanks for you time this morning. Really appreciate it.
Ben: No problem at all Sean.
Sean: You guys have been pretty busy of late. We had a bit of a wait between the first single ‘Monsters in the Mirror’, dropped way back in January 2024 and the next new release but just like buses three new singles turned up over the course of six weeks and all ahead of your first national tour which kicks off this week. You must all be pretty excited to finally get out on the road.
Ben: Yeah, we’re pretty chuffed to get on the road so we fly out on Wednesday. We started planning this late last year but with the way the world is now we didn’t let everyone know what we were doing until late. We thought, you know, let’s just bombard everybody for like six weeks and get out there and actually make it all the way up as well, which we’re pretty excited about.
Sean: It all starts right here in Perth at the 459 at Rosemount Hotel, which is a great room but for metal music fans who don’t know much about Awaken The Hate, what can you tell us?
Ben: Well, the band was created by a guy named Steve Connolly. He’s now left us, but it’s been his baby for about 9 or 10 years. And then he finally managed to get some musicians together, and then he got myself involved. Basically took me out of retirement from performing. I hadn’t really performed in many years. I’ve just been a sound engineer and production manager and stuff, and then actually got me from back of stage, from being a roadie and back in front of the stage, and I was just like, well, if I’m doing this, I’m not doing it by halves this time around. We’re all in our 40s, so it’s like we’re doing it for us now. We’re doing it for fun. There’s no false pretences. We’re just a bunch of 40-year-old dudes that like heavy music and want to have a shit ton of fun. [laughs] So why waste time? Why muck around? Just get out there and get it done.
Sean: Well you sure are doing that because you’ve locked in shows in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney which is no mean feat at the best of times, but I’m also hearing rumours that you may have your debut album out later this year.
Ben: Yeah, so with Steve no longer in the band, these last three songs were the last of his, it is a whole new writing team, which is exciting. And we’re actually taking two new ones on the road with us to test to see what the flavour is, to see what people are liking. We’re also working with a team in Europe as well. So we’ll hopefully be able to give everyone some more information about that in the coming months but yeah it’s a real exciting time for the band and I’m really looking forward to actually getting a full length out, which again is something that’s rare these days as well because everyone seems more interested in releasing a crap ton of singles and never actually do a full length album.
Sean: So with the new writing team, I’m guessing there is a widespread collection of influences coming into the melting pot. Does everyone bringing something different to the table?
Ben: What we’ve been doing is just jam sessions. So our drummer Ryan has a shed at his property, which we’ve halfway through soundproofing at the moment, but we all head in there, a few beers, good laughs, a couple of guitars, and just we see what comes out. It’s actually been really collaborative. I think that’s making it a lot more fun, and it means everybody’s flavour’s are in there, rather than someone going away writing it all on a computer, putting a drum track behind it, sending that off to everybody. I think it’s actually quite cool to be back jamming and just see what happens. And then if we all start bouncing our heads at the same time, I’m like, cool, that riff can stack.
Sean: So, have you got a kind of a number you’ve got in your head for the amount of tracks on the album, or is it just whatever comes together and feels right?
Ben: I think we don’t have a solid plan on numbers or length or whatever. It’s definitely going to be on feel. It’s what we feel comfortable with, I think. One of the big things is we don’t want any fillers. If a song’s not worthy, then it won’t be there. We’re not in a position to have fillers, you know what i mean? We don’t have a label or have to reach any quotas or targets set by others so basically if it’s not good enough then it just won’t go out.
Sean: How’s the metal scene looking right now up in Queensland?
Ben: I think it’s going pretty well. Necrosonic is having its second year this year and if you have a look at the line-up on that it’s phenomenal. Crowbar being back is obviously massive for the local scene. We were losing a lot of the heavier venues and they were getting taken over by the DJs or indie sort of influences. And then with the closing of The Zoo, I think everyone was a little bit worried that we’d lost a mainstay, but the fact that Crowbar’s come back to Brisbane and taken over The Zoo, it means we have a 550 – 600 cap venue that is focused on heavy and alternative music rather than just DJs and the poppy indie sort of scene. So I’m happy with it. The scene itself, there’s a lot of solid good young bands, which are exciting. And we’ve got a pretty good relationship, we think, with a lot of them. I’m good friends with a lot of the guys in the scene, generally because I’ve mixed most of them but everyone seems to get on well and those that get on get on so its pretty strong here right now.
Sean: So the ‘Death War Fire’ Tour kicks off here in Perth on Thursday and then you’ve got that whirlwind four days in a row where it’s city to city to city and when everything becomes a blur but when you sit down and get home you’ll sort of realize what an amazing four nights it’s been.
Ben: A lot of people thought we were crazy doing it all in one weekend but the fact of the matter is, like I said we’re all in 40s, we’ve got lives, we’ve got families, we’ve got jobs so you’ve got to do it all in one weekend and I also think you see a lot of people that go
“oh we’re on tour” and you have a look at the dates and it’s like one in May, one in June, one in July, one in August, one in September and I’m like, that’s not a tour. That’s five individual shows. For me, I wanted to do a tour. I wanted a tour shirt. I wanted the singles out. I wanted to do it all. And I wanted us to travel as a band as well. One of the things that was important for us is that we all travel together. So on the Monday, we’re on the first flight out of Sydney on Monday morning so that a couple of boys can get home from work. But instead of just those guys going and not all of us, I was like, no, if two of us are in pain, all of us are in pain. So we’re all flying together.
Sean: Well, it’s good to hear you’ve got tour merch on board as well. I’ll be coming down to grab a T-shirt just to have that in the collection.
Ben: Mate that’s excellent. Look forward to catching up.
Sean: We wish you all a safe journey and we’ll get the dates up again and we’ll give them a plug on our socials. Best of luck with the Death War Fire tour and congratulations of the new singles.
Ben: Thanks Sean, it’s been an absolute pleasure mate. See ya Thursday!
The Rockpit would like to extend a special thank you to Kris Peters from Heavy Mag for arranging this interview.
