'Axl works his arse off': Airbourne ready to soar with Guns N' Roses
by Josh Leeson · Newcastle HeraldAirbourne frontman Joel O'Keeffe has been privileged enough to share grandiose stages with some of his rock'n'roll heroes.
We're talking bands like Motley Crue, Iron Maiden, AC/DC and Guns N' Roses.
Each opportunity is viewed as a learning experience. A school of rock, if you will. A chance at close quarters to analyse what makes a rock'n'roll show a quasi-religious experience to its millions of devotees.
"You learn that your little band is a little band, but what you can learn in those opportunities," O'Keeffe tells Weekender on speakerphone while navigating Melbourne peak-hour traffic.
"You're the apprentice and these are the masters. If you show up to learn, you show up to bring your all."
The Warrnambool hard rockers are preparing for a summer school for the ages when they support Los Angeles rock icons Guns N' Roses on their Australian tour.
The tour includes a Newcastle concert at McDonald Jones Stadium on December 8.
Airbourne's previous experience supporting the Gunners was at the French heavy metal festival Hellfest in 2022; it's a memory that's stuck with O'Keeffe.
"Axl works his arse off," he says. "He works so hard. I mean, they all do.
"He's up there three hours every night singing. I know he warms up quite intensely, and he warms down quite intensely.
"What they bring is they give you everything they've got and that was what was really evident in the crowd as the show just kept going and going and going.
"It was just a big rock'n'roll celebration from them. It's going to be really something to play with them out here in Australia."
Being a support band to a stadium-level act and playing before disinterested punters can be a poisoned chalice. Some acts struggle under the pressure.
Anybody who's witnessed Airbourne's balls-to-the-floor brand of hard rock - which leans heavily on the likes of AC/DC and Motorhead - knows the four-piece deliver a punch that's impossible to ignore.
Airbourne's 2022 performance supporting American glam rock band Steel Panther at the Newcastle Entertainment Centre threatened to blow the headliner off the stage.
"Airbourne take their rock'n'roll riffage seriously and executed it with enough honesty and showmanship to silence any doubters," the Newcastle Herald wrote of the show.
O'Keeffe says, "You're there to lay it all on the stage and give that crowd everything you've got.
"The fact is they're not really there to see you, you know. If you're going to put on a show, you're going to need to drag them away from the bar to come and watch the support band, so you've got to give everything you've got."
When you get to go to a big rock'n'roll show that is of this size and this magnitude and this spectacle, it is the greatest good time you can have.- Airbourne's Joel O'Keeffe
Plenty has been written about the over-reliance of established rock bands to sell tickets and the demise of interest in modern guitar bands in comparison to the genres of pop, country and hip-hop.
The biggest rock shows in Australia in recent years have been from '70s, '80s and '90s stars like Oasis, Metallica, AC/DC and the Foo Fighters.
But O'Keeffe remains a true rock'n'roll believer.
"When you get to go to a big rock'n'roll show that is of this size and this magnitude and this spectacle, it is the greatest good time you can have," O'Keeffe says.
"I don't really get into too much pop music. It's not for me, you know. It's not my flavour. But rock'n'roll is my flavour.
"When I get to see it and the grand spectacle that it is, it's so bright that you could see it and even hear it from an international space station. When it is that big, there's nothing better in the world."
The support tour with Guns N' Roses will also be an opportunity for Airbourne to showcase tracks off their forthcoming self-titled album.
In a surprise for some fans, the record features collaborations with Canadian power ballad artist Bryan Adams.
"When he got involved it changed the game massively," O'Keeffe says. "Everything levelled up, and this is our sixth record.
"He's a really good coach, along with a great writer and a rocker. That's the other thing about him. People might not associate him too much with that, but he is really a rocker at heart.
"That's what we found getting to know him and he's a master at just music, really. Like he understands the song."