My Gear: Progressive Pop Metal Force with Voyager

Voyager are the high-energy progressive pop metal force from Perth that are spreading their unique genre-transfiguring blend of new-romantic and 80’s infused vocals, keytar solos, technical yet melodic fretwork, groovy bass, and bombastic drums all over the globe! Voyager embraces pop; employ a keytar on stage, and bring forward a positive, uplifting feeling to their riff-laden music, running head-first into the endless parade of heavy bands who see the world in a darker light.

Voyager secured a top 10 position representing Australia at the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 with their song Promise, an epic progressive pop metal masterpiece that takes listeners on an emotive journey of adventure and redemption.

As much as you can rely on the Earth’s elliptical orbit, you can depend on Voyager to consistently evolve. The band’s interplanetary balance of virtuosic pyrotechnics and skyscraping radio-ready hooks morphs at the speed of sound from one era to the next. In bursts of bright light, luminous keys, neon guitar wizardry, and stratosphere-shaking rhythms, they elevate hard rock to another realm. The group blast off on a signature hybrid of prog, rock, and metal possibly best described as the musical equivalent of Guardians of the Galaxy.

After piling up millions of streams, earning acclaim from the likes of The Guardian, and wowing the globe on the Eurovision Song Contest, the Perth, Australia quintet—Danny Estrin [vocals], Simone Dow [guitar], Scott Kay [guitar], Alex Canion [bass], and Ashley Doodkorte [drums]—take flight like never before on their forthcoming eighth full-length LP, Fearless In Love [Season of Mist]. We were lucky enough to have Scott Kay, give us a few moments away from their blistering tour schedule to chat “My Gear“and describe his sound:

Honestly, my setup is so simple, and I will gravitate to anything that sounds good with little tweaking required. The only thing that is essential to me is a nice punchy and bright distorted guitar sound, and a good reverb and delay effect chain for clean and leads.

How does your live set-up differ from what you use in the studio?

I use my Helix Stomp for live, as it sounds great and is extremely portable, and when in the studio, our engineer Matthew Templeman, has opted for Neural plugins mostly. We do everything in-box for the studio these days as it gives us greater control over sounds in post-production. There’s nothing worse than dialling up what you thought was the optimal tone for a song, only to find that it doesn’t work and you have to spend hours re-amping for a second time. Digital plugins have reached the point now where the tiny percentage difference of tone isn’t worth the extra worry or time.

Are you a gear hoarder, is there an emotional connection to some instruments?

I only hoard gear because it’s nearly impossible to sell on! I have an emotional connection to the instruments I still play and use, but if I have an instrument that isn’t being used for anything, I find I lose my sentimentality for it. Instruments are meant to be played, so it feels bad when you have a guitar that goes unused. I’d rather it be

in the hands of someone else than have it collect dust on my guitar rack. The instruments I’ll never sell are my Maton JB-4 fretless bass, my PRS Custom 24, and my Mayones Duvell Elite 7 that I use for Voyager.

Mayones Guitars Duvell Elite 7 String Fire Dragon Eye Poplar

If you could create your ultimate instrument or piece of music gear, what would it be?

I feel like the instrument situation is already sorted with Mayones; I’m very happy with their guitars and our working relationship! I guess it would be an amp modeller that is portable like the Stomp, has a great UI with a touch screen like the Quad Cortex, good cab impulses built into the unit, and a delay and reverb pedal with a tonne of detail and options built into it, all in the one place. Something that is basic on the front, complex but not convoluted under the hood.

Who would be one artist/producer you haven’t worked with (dead or alive) that you’d love to work with?

I’d love to write music with Casey from The Dear Hunter; record and post-produce with Jens Bogren. Casey is an impeccable songwriter, who has a genuine vision in everything that he does, and it would be cool to contribute to that vision. Jens is just a hero in progressive circles, having mixed and worked on some of the best sounding metal records around. It would be cool to do the whole process with him at some point, as he’s only ever mixed an album of ours (The Meaning of I).

Photo Credit: Sarah Louise Bennett