AIRBOURNE
Airbourne are an Australian rock band, with from man Joel O’Keeffe on vocals and lead guitar, Matt Harrison on rhythm guitar, Justin Street on bass and Ryan O'Keeffe on drums. They draw their inspiration from bands such as Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest and AC/DC among many others. Their stage presence brings a real feeling of rock to the stage and their beer smashing on the stage gets the crowd roaring. When Joel was asked why he was always cracking beers open on is head he responded with “I use to do it with my wrist and one day I split the vain and blood was coming out. I thought to myself, I can't do this again. So I thought I would use my head, because let’s be honest there’s not much up here anyway so it’s not really doing damage.”
Airbourne were formed in 2003 in Warrnambool Victoria by brothers Joel O’Keeffe and Ryan O’Keeffe. In 2004 Airbourne released their album ‘Ready To Rock’, this album was a self-funded release and the music was influenced by bands such as AC/DC and Rose Tattoo. When Airbourne were asked what was the thing that scared them the most in their earlier years they replied with “No one turning up to the gigs, it's always a bit shit if that happens.” They pushed on through and made a huge name for themselves.
In 2006 Airbourne went to the States to work on their album ‘Runnin Wild’ with producer Bob Marlette, Airbourne released this album in 2007. This album won the ‘Metal hammer Gods Award’ and the ‘Best Debut Album’ Award. In 2009 Airbourne worked with producer ‘Johnny K’ to produce their album ‘No Guts No Glory’. Airbourne released the album in 2010 in the UK, Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia, US and New Zealand. Airbourne had major success with this album and reached number 31 on the billboard charts. More recently Airbourne released the album ‘Black Dog Barking’ in 2013 and had global success. The album appeared at number 17 on the Aria Albums charts. The album art was created by ‘the Sharp brothers’ and the idea behind the albums ‘Black Dog Barking’ was a metaphor for the bands ability to break all the rules.
In 2015 Airbourne signed an international deal with ‘Spinefarm’ records. In 2016 they quickly followed by releasing their album ‘Breakin Outta Hell’. When Airbourne were asked what their new album ‘Breakin Outta Hell’ artwork was about they responded with “Well it’s pretty literal, the single from the album was ‘Breaking Outta Hell’ and Joel was drawn on the album cover, except we drew him in a more skeletal way. It is supposed to be a version of ‘Breaking Outta Hell, and all Joel’s skin is burnt off, or something like that.”
Airbourne are currently touring on a global scale, they have just festivals such as Hellfest and Download Festival in Europe and they are shortly returning to Europe to play another stint of shows. We also found out that Airbourne “Have a documentary about the band that's about to come out soon, it's a small one not a big one.” So stay tuned for that one.
AIRBOURNE PHOTOGRAPHY
AIRBOURNE INTERVIEW
