Frontman for Philadelphia pop punkers The Wonders Years, Dan ‘Soupy’ Campbell, has opened up regarding the band’s cancelled Australian tour and subsequent absorption into the Soundwave Festival lineup.
Speaking with AMH Network, the vocalist said he was “really fucking depressed” about the situation, but claims the band at first resisted the idea of pulling the plug on the tour, which was set down for September 2014.
The band were advised by Australian agents, managers, and labels to cancel the tour for weeks before the band finally agreed. “I don’t wanna throw anyone under the bus,” Campbell told AMH. “But stars just weren’t aligning, and it didn’t look like it was gonna run very smoothly.” In the end The Wonder Years were forced to shut down their Australian tour, not being in a position to run the risk of being stranded Down Under.
“We were fighting to just go along anyway, but it got to a point where we just realised that if we go to Australia, and something goes wrong, how to fuck are we gonna get home?” said Campbell. “We just didn’t have the capacity to gamble on that.”
He was so upset over the cancellation he lost sleep and “shut off for a couple of days” but had his spirits lifted by the continued support of The Wonders Years’ Australian fans. “One of my least favourite things to do is to let anyone down, and I just felt like people were gonna be really let down by this. I was really surprised and elated at how understanding our Australian fans were.”
Of course, Campbell’s disappointment was soon forgotten. Only three days after the cancellation announcement, The Wonder Years’ suddenly found themselves on the bill for Soundwave 2015.
Campbell confirmed that SW head honcho AJ Maddah came to the rescue and booked The Wonder Years after bumping into them at Reading Festival and hearing of their plight.
“AJ from Soundwave just happened to be at Reading and Leeds, and he caught our set and had heard about what happened and just went ‘fuck it! Come down for Soundwave’”, Campbell. “We literally walked onstage, and then walked off to our manager telling us ‘hey, by the way guys, you’re doing Soundwave next year’.”
All’s well that ends well. You can check out full Soundwave 2015 details here, and read the full interview with Soupy here.
