HARD NOISE: ONCE HUMAN // Demons Of Metal Unleashed On Tour

Boasting a singer with a voice you’d never expect, and a guitarist descended from heavy metal royalty, Once Human are the last band you’d expect to trudge across Australia on tour to some of our more remote cities.

MORE: Download Australia announce sideshows for Brisbane & Sydney.

In Sydney native Lauren Hart, Once Human have a frontwoman with an unexpected growl and a beast of an attitude, and of course Logan Mader leads the outfit with his dynamic shredding—shaking up the smaller cities is, as Mader explains, an important endeavour for Once Human, one that’ll shake ‘em up. “I think it’s appreciated by Australian fans that can’t always get to the five major cities that most American bands will visit,” he says.

“I think that’s important to us because we’re incentivized by the fact that we love Australia. All of us and Lauren, of course. She’s a citizen and spent half her life there. She really considered that home, so it has a bit of that going around as well, but I feel like … I don’t know, I feel like it’s gonna be fun. It’s gonna do something good for the fans in Australia.”

But as a slow build, I think we can turn this and evolve as a band, creatively as well, but I think we can turn it into something enough to sustain itself at the least. It’s already starting to do that.”
[ Logan Mader ]

The Evolution Tour, named for the band’s second album, out now, is set to be short, sharp and brutal, with Once Human playing some of the most intimate and famously metal venues in the country. With a plethora of gnarly tracks on Evolution and accompanying videos showing the band essentially in a live get up, Once Human don’t have much to do to transfer that brutality to the stage. “That’s who we are on stage,” says Mader of their aesthetic in their videos, “There’s a lot of energy being thrown around. Lauren is a really good commander. We also have a lot of fun at our shows. We don’t really take ourselves too seriously. Everybody likes to laugh a lot, you know? There’s kind of a light humorous feeling going on.

“I noticed that because all the guys in the band, and Lauren and I, we’re all really close and really good friends. I think it translates and people can see that we have a good connection between us.  I’ve had some people come up to me that I don’t know, say that after watching us play, that we look like we’re all really good friends—I’m happy that translates. There’s a good positive energy coming off the stage, and a lot of it.”

Compared to his previous projects, Machine Head and Soulfy, Mader is experiencing a relatively slow rate of success with Once Human. However, rapid success is not something he misses and he’s confident Once Human will evolve as a band in their own right—and rightly so. “I don’t expect it. I never did from the beginning. But as a slow build, I think we can turn this and evolve as a band, creatively as well, but I think we can turn it into something enough to sustain itself at the least. It’s already starting to do that.”

Catch Once Human in March 2018 thanks to Stag Music Touring. All shows 18+.

Wed February 28, Crowbar, Brisbane QLD
Thurs March 1, Shark Bar, Gold Coast QLD
Fri March 2, Newcastle Leagues Club, Newcastle NSW
Sat March 3, The Bald Faced Stag, Sydney NSW
Thurs March 8, The Basement, Canberra ACT
Fri March 9, The Evelyn Hotel, Melbourne VIC
Saturday March 10, The Tote, Melbourne VIC
Wed March 14, Brisbane Hotel, Hobat TAS
Thurs March 15, Club 54, Launceston TAS
Fri March 16, Miners Tavern, Ballarat VIC
Sat March 17, Enigma Bar, Adelaide SA
Sunday March 18, Badlands, Perth WA