Soundwave kicks off today on what promises to be a scorching weekend of blazing sun and some hot rock acts.

Once such band that will be burning up the stage is Confession, fronted by Michael Crafter, who has also been the lead singer of metalcore bands I Killed the Prom Queen, Carpathian and Bury Your Dead.

Confession have released one EP and three albums, the most recent being Life and Death which they released last year.

Made up of Crafter (vocals), Russ (guitar), Lyndsay (guitar), Dyl (bass), Jake (aka Wingas – drums), the group are spread across Melbourne and Perth.

Having just come off a recent tour, Confession are keen to get on the Soundwave circuit with Crafter mostly looking forward to the festival food, and maybe also seeing the other bands.

“I’m excited about the catering,” he says. “There’s always good food. There’s lots of salad and snacks. I’m such a food person. But also I want to see the other bands. Fall Out Boy’s going to be cool and I want to see Tonight Alive play; so there’s lots of good shit going on. It should be a good day every day of the tour.”

With two of the band living in Perth and the others in Melbourne, this can prove challenging with writing, rehearsing and recording, but Crafter reckons this isn’t a problem for this show.

“I fly to Soundwave on Thursday, practise Friday and be ready for Saturday. We’ve just come off tour so we only have to add a few songs. It’s not much of a stretch, this one because we’ve done stuff recently and we’re a pretty well oiled machine right now,” he says.

Unlike their hardcore image may suggest, Crafter is straight-edge and wouldn’t have it any other way.

He’s committed to the lifestyle and says if kids want to go the same way, they should stay strong and ignore what anyone else says about it.

“I haven’t drunk or taken drugs since I was 16/17. I’m thirty three now and I’ve never really thought about it, to be honest. I’ve got friends who are stopping straight-edge and have started smoking and I’m like, are you the dumbest person on the planet? You’re thirty years old and you’re going to start smoking now? I understand if you’re young and you start smoking but when you’re old and you start smoking, you’re just wasting money to hurt yourself. I’m the same about drinking too. Why would I waste money to make myself not feel good? So I don’t drink. Lots of my friends don’t drink. Lots of guys in bands don’t drink as much as people think they do,” he says.

“If you want to go straight-edge, don’t listen to bullshit about why you need to drink. Just do what makes you happy. As far as peer pressure goes, when I was a kid at 12 or 13, kids would say let’s go smoke some weed and get stoned. Nowadays, kids of 12 or 13 are smoking ice. It’s a horrible reality what’s out there and by the time they’re 15/16, they’re cooked on the stuff and they’re addicted. These drugs have lifelong effects. If people want to be sober then stick to a sober life. It’s good.”

Having just released Life or Death, Confession are receiving a lot of positive feedback, which Crafter is thrilled about.

“The response has been good. It’s been positive and everyone has good things to say about the songs in general, the song writing, everything we’ve got to say on the album and how real the song lyrics are,” he says.

“ So as far as that goes, everyone’s been really positive about it and Soundwave is just another ladder to get people to like the album. We’ll see lots of new faces everyday and more people will hear our music and they may not buy the album but they might have a listen to it which is a cool thing.”

Life and Death has some strong, honest lyrics which make some comment about our country’s current political climate.

“Australia is the worst I’ve ever seen it and that is because a lot of human rights have been taken away by the current government. A lot of the laws in Queensland are bullshit. I understand trying to eradicate crime but being able to jail someone because of their association and who their friends are is mind blowing,” Crafter says.

“It trips me out that the government wastes so much money on certain things when there’s so much worse shit going on in this country. They’re concentrating so much on bikies and not even making a dent in the amount of drugs being sold. Maybe they should be putting more money into rehabilitation and trying to help people. The drug problem is really bad and there’s not enough being done about it.”

Confession will transfer their disgruntled feelings about the state of the country to the stage this weekend through their signature heavy riffs and melodic hardcore.

“We’ll just be really heavy and really angry. We all look really angry. And hopefully I’m not too bloated from eating too much food. But hopefully people will come check us out; they’ll see some heavy shit,” Crafter says.

Tickets to Soundwave are still available to grab your sun smart gear and head to the hottest gig in town today.

By Libby Parker

Photo courtesy of Confession