Australia Decides 2022: Interview with Danny from Voyager

We speak to one of the 11 artists revealed for ‘Eurovision – Australia Decides 2022’. Hailing from Perth, Western Australia, this band will bring their unique 80's infused progressive rock sound to the Australia Decides stage on the Gold Coast. It’s Danny from Voyager.

Thank you for joining us.

Thank you. Thank you very much for having me. It's, it's a pleasure. And I'm really excited to be speaking to you.

Congratulations on being selected for Australia Decides 2022, what was your reaction when you found out you had been selected?

Disbelief, denial, grief, no grief wasn't one of those stages... I think it took a while for me to digest. What's actually going to happen because you go "Oh cool" and then you're "Oh wow", this is going to happen. You start imagining yourself on the stage. Then gradually that excitement builds up, and we were just like oh my god. So that's kind of where I got to in this space, probably about 10 minutes after getting the call from my manager that we're in.

What can you tell us about your entry 'Dreamer'?

The song 'Dreamer' is very much a mixture of all the things that I think Voyager does best. It was a challenge to condense it all into three minutes...You know, metal and prog, they're generally good to go, for four minutes, five minutes, some of them are more extreme prog bands are like 10 minutes, nobody wants to hear that, that's too long. So really putting all the best elements in there. It's got the electronica, it's got the 80s pop synth, it's got a catchy chorus. Of course, it's got big, heavy metal guitars, because who doesn't love that? They're all the kinds of things that we wanted to put in there. But to be honest, the song wasn't really written for Eurovision at all. It was produced to fit within Eurovision, when we found out it has to be three minutes, but it was written very much as an organic sort of Voyager song to sound like a lot of them do start, like an electronic type number, and then heavy guitars get put into it... So I'm really excited about it. I think it's really catchy. I think it's really cool. It's got ups and downs and lows and left turns and right turns. So it's, I think with the right light show, it's gonna be to epic.

Now with the 'Dreamer' music video there are moving lights and beautiful electronica style aesthetics. Can you tell us a bit about the direction for the music video and the lighting?

We wanted with the video to very much capture what a Voyager performance would be, and complement that with with the lighting. There's a wonderful venue here in Perth called Magnet House Night Club, and they've got this amazing moving roof with like billions of LEDs in there. So that worked really well, because the song has that sort of electronica "dancy" type vibes to it. If you listen to the song itself, in the beginning, it doesn't sound like a rock song or a metal song, you think, oh, this is a dance song. Then the guitars come in, you can see what they're doing. So the video could be really wanting to capture a live performance in its essence.

At the end of the day, we're a band, and when we get to Eurovision, I want to make sure that we are not just a perfectly choreographed number from Azerbaijan. We are a band. And that's what we do best. That's what we've done. Why change that?

Did you submit the song [into the portal] or were you approached [for Australia Decides]?

It was a bit of both. So we obviously tried to get in [Australia Decides] 2020 with 'Runaway'. That almost made it and so believe it or not, we submitted a couple of songs and I actually wrote a song specifically for Eurovision using the very much the Eurovision kind of formula by grabbing things that I'd seen over the last few decades. And they were like "yeah, not bad, what about this one?". Okay, well, fine. Didn't think this one was going to be the the one but I always knew, a dream I had, that it had something quite special about it because it is quite different. So now I can see why that was selected.

Let’s touch on Eurovision, in the SBS announcement video you mention that the growing up as a young boy in Germany the Contest has always been in your life blood. You are a long time fan of the contest. What does Eurovision mean to you?

It's the greatest show... you can even forget the World Cup and all that sort of stuff, because this combines so much of what people love. Everyone likes music, if you don't you have something wrong with you. If you like music, you like entertainment, you like a show, it's all there. You can get behind it from a competitive point of view. You get into artists lives, you become their friend for a few weeks, and you wonder what they're doing. It's all just it's all there. Everything you want in terms of entertainment it is all there.

Well, this probably a hard question to ask, what's your most favourite entry from Eurovision?

Well, I've been doing a couple interviews and saying stuff like, Loreen and 'Euphoria' and Verka Serduchka. They are my favourites in terms of the all round performance.

I did make a little list before of things that I thought were obscure but interesting. I thought Hungary 2014 with a song called 'Running'. It's like a drum and bass. I thought that was really cool. The other one was Bulgaria Poli Genova which is probably a little bit less obscure in I think 2016, 'If Love Was A Crime'. But my I think one of my all time favourites, this is going back a while, it's Silvia Night, 'Congratulations'. That's an epic performance.

Lastly if you got the opportunity to go to Turin for Eurovision 2022 but could only take three items with you, what would you take?

Um, one, *points at a keytar* two, *points at another keytar* and three *plays the melodica*....

No, I'm kidding. I probably just need one piano type instrument. I don't know what I take. A punnet of raspberries, and a bottle of rum.

Sounds good. Great combination. We cannot wait for your song release and to see what you have planned, for Australia Decides 2022 in the Gold Coast. All the best and thank you very much for speaking to Aussievision today!

The written interview has been shortened for the purposes of the article. Check out all the questions and full answers here in our YouTube video of the interview.

Also get the latest Voyager merch, including the new limited 'Dreamer' t-shirt here. Find the appropriate store based on your region.

Check out out 'Getting to know Voyager' article here.

You can catch Voyager performing at ‘Eurovision - Australia Decides 2022’ on the Gold Coast on February 25 and 26 with other amazing Australian artists all vying for the coveted spot to represent Australia at Eurovision 2022 in Turn, Italy. Tickets are available here, also you can watch the Australian Eurovision national final on SBS on February 26.