Battling The Seas With JAKE FLEMING From AUDIO REIGN

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.


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