Zeff Childress is not only the lead guitarist of North Carolina thrash metal band, Sanctity, he is also a very patient man indeed. See, of the millions of phone conversations that criss-cross our globe daily, he and I just happen to get the one where we can barely hear each other and decides to drop out on us at random. But to his credit Zeff doesn’t get moody, instead he chooses to keep talking like he is catching up with an old mate, he jokes that the bad phone line is probably because he is in the ‘middle of nowhere, somewhere in North Dakota’.

Zeff reveals that Sanctity is currently driving across the United States in the middle of a tour, ‘right from one side of the country to another.’ To many it may be a surprise that Sanctity are touring again, one could expect that they could put their feet up and bask in the glory that is there debut album, ‘Road To Bloodshed’. As far as debut albums go, Sanctity couldn’t ask for more, it’s had great sales and rave reviews right around the world. But for Sanctity the road has become part of their life, this is a band that has been known to play up to 190 shows in one year.

Zeff laughs when I suggest that Sanctity’s rise to fame would be the envy of any struggling band. They started out as a band in 2000 and as Zeff says, ‘The band started for something else to do outside of work, we were all friends, and by the time we decided to get serious we’d been together for a few years.’ But it’s what happened when they got serious that would turn most bands green with envy. As Zeff says ‘whenever a metal band came to our town we were the band that was thrown on before them. Then came the tour with Fear Factory and Trivium. We knew Trivium sounded a lot like this and we liked them, they were great. We spoke to them when they were loading.’

It turns out that Trivium also ‘liked’ Sanctity, because after the gig Trivium’s main man, Matt Heafy asked them for a demo, he then handed it to Roadrunner Records.

But Sanctity’s help from famous fans didn’t end there,

‘We were playing at Whiskey in LA with Dragonforce, and we heard a rumor that Dave Mustaine’s (from Megadeth) name was on the guest list. We didn’t see him while we played, but afterwards he was in Dragonforce’s dressing room and he asked to see us. He said he liked us and my jaw dropped… Dave Mustaine was a fan. He asked us to join Gigantour,’ says Zeff.

I put it to him that Sanctity must do a something special on stage to impress people of that caliber, but Zeff denies that they do ‘We just have a lot of energy on stage, always running around. We have fun and the crowd gets into it. We don’t act like rockstars, we just have fun.’

But young bands take heart; it hasn’t all been plain sailing for Sanctity. Not only did they endure the strain of having all their gear stolen while on tour, even having Matt Heafy and Dave Mustaine’s approval wasn’t enough to ensure a done deal with Roadrunner.

‘After we gave Matt the demo a couple of months went by and finally Monte (Connor from Roadrunner) called Jeremy our drummer, he said he liked some stuff on the demo but it wasn’t what he was looking for. Matt said it was good sign that he had even bothered to call so he suggested we record another demo for Roadrunner’.

So Zeff himself took out a loan and self-financed another demo and video clip. Talk of the video clip makes Zeff laugh again.

‘We were still at college at this time and our bassist’s girlfriend was at another college. She knew this film student who said he would film our clip for a budget. He ended up renting out this old prison that the state wanted to pull down for the clip… It was great.’

With the second demo and video clip in tow Sanctity returned to Roadrunner, and this time they were signed. I ask Zeff how he felt at that moment when Roadrunner said yes.

‘We were happy, but at the same time we knew there’d be a lot more work.’

But for Sanctity the hard work has certainly paid off. Their debut album ‘Road To Bloodshed’ is a brilliant album and Zeff is completely surprised when I tell him a lot of people are comparing it to one of the finest metal album of all time, Machine Head’s ‘Burn My Eyes’.

‘Man… I did not know that… I’m honored.’

The one thing Zeff doesn’t like is the reviews that are describing Sanctity as old-school metal.

‘We’re a band that is thrashy. We didn’t want to make an album that sounded like it was from the 80’s… but not every song is thrashy. We’re obviously influenced by the bands we listened to back then, but really the album is a whole bunch of metal rolled into a big ball.’

As we talk more about ‘Road To Bloodshed’ Zeff reveals that he’s proudest about the fact that they were even able to bring some European sounds to the album. When asked if the success of the album has changed the band he says quickly,

‘No we’re still one big family’.

Knowing that we’re almost out of time Zeff quickly adds that Sanctity are looking forward to coming Australia one day.

‘Matt from Trivium tells me there are some great beaches there… and he loved it. We are heading to Europe with Machine Head very soon, but I’m hoping in the next two years we can come to Australia.’

Well it may be a while before Sanctity can come to our shores but at least we can enjoy one of the best metal albums of the year, ‘Road To Bloodshed’, until then.

Dave Griffiths

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They say you should write what you know and that is a motto that award-winning Australian writer/director Serhat Caradee has taken to heart with his debut feature film ‘Cedar Boys’. A film which follows the story of a young Lebanese-Australian man, named Tarek, and his friends who dream of a better life but feel they are kept back by their lives in the outer western suburbs of Sydney.

I catch up with Serhat on a cold, wet Melbourne morning. He is just finishing his breakfast and explains ‘We caught the red eye flight down. We had a screening of Cedar Boys for the cast and crew last night… the main thing was they enjoyed it.’ Despite his tiredness Serhat is only too happy (and enthusiastic) to talk about his film.

He starts by telling me what his aim was with the film and why it was such a personal film. ‘I really do think that this is the story of an outsider. He feels like he doesn’t fit in. I was able to base all the personality traits of the characters on friends who grew up with the culture. I wanted to show the audience what it is like to be inside this world but at the same time make this an entertaining story that the audience would enjoy.

So where did such an interesting title come from? ‘Three or four years ago in Lebanon there was an uprising called the Cedar Revolution. It was a revolution of Lebanese activists standing up against the (Syrian) troops and the activists used a flag with a Cedar Tree on it as their symbol. The Cedar has become a symbol for the Lebanese people.’

Serhat has had an extremely successful career as a short film maker. A career that has seen his films shown at 45 local and international film festivals as well as win the Australian Screen Directors Association Directing Award. Did he find making a feature film very different to making his shorts? ‘Everyone says they do but I didn’t find it that different. Yeah you have a bigger crew and a longer shoot but ultimately it comes down to planning everything right. We learnt at Film School that if you need to shoot shots A, B and C you work out what order you need to shoot them according to importance in case it rains or something… that’s exactly what I did here as well.’

One of the most amazing things about ‘Cedar Boys’ is the weight of the cast in it. The star of the film Les Chantery has starred alongside Vin Diesel in ‘Pitch Black’ while international stars such as Martin Henderson (‘Torque’, ‘Smokin’ Aces’ and ‘Fly Boys’) and Rachael Taylor (‘Transformers’ and ‘Shutter’) are also major players. How did Serhat go attracting such big name stars to the film, did he play a major hand in the casting? ‘I played a huge hand,’ he explains. ‘Some of the parts I wrote with actors in mind. Waddah Sari plays Sam in the film and I certainly wrote the character of Sam with him in the mind…. Actually every line I wrote for Sam I wrote with him in mind. I worked with Waddah on my short film ‘Bound’, and I very much had him in mind. Martin Henderson came on board because I had a chance to speak to him while he was in Australia for Heath Ledger’s funeral. I spoke to him and he agreed to do it. Rachael I also had a contact with and she had a personal connection to the film and the Lebanese community because her best friend is Lebanese.’

So what gave the film it’s very natural feel, the writing, the directing or the acting? ‘I think it was a case of all three,’ explains Serhat. ‘The script is natural because I grew up in that world, I hung out where the characters hung out, so I guess because of my upbringing it was natural. The directing worked because I made it gritty and it comes across almost docco style with the handheld camera at all, but a lot also come down to the acting. I don’t like my actors to really push…. I just get them to act. With the acting and the script the key to all is good conversation.’

I finish the interview by asking Serhat what he wanted to say to people before they buy their ticket for ‘Cedar Boys’. ‘The main message is that crime doesn’t pay, but the film is also an insight into a marginised part of our community, it is an entertaining but strong message. But I want people to look with these boys… not at them.’

Dave Griffiths

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It’s been no secret that over the last few years Australian filmmakers and actors have felt that they are fighting a losing battle. The quality of Australian films have got better but the box office receipts have been going down. They might be losing the battle but now a new warrior stands at the front of this army, sword raised ready to take on all those all attack.

While award-winning director Kriv Stenders and actor, Aden Young talk to me about the release of their new feature ‘Lucky Country’, Young can’t help but go into bat for the Australian film industry. ‘When I’m a video shop and I hear some c—khead say, ‘No don’t get that, it’s Australian’, my blood boils. I want to go up to them and say ‘then what do you think you are? You’re Australian, you idiot.’ The passion in Young’s voice is clear. ‘I can’t believe Australians don’t want to see their own stories. I was born in Canada and the Canadian Film Industry is now non-existent. They have no way to show their stories anymore. We can’t let that happen in Australia… we can’t lose our cultures… out stories.’

‘Lucky Country’ is certainly an Australian story. Young plays Nat a frustrated land-owner who arrived in Australia shortly before Federation with his young family. But when his wife dies everything starts to go bad and Nat finally feels like a failure. The arrival of three strangers stresses Nat out even more. Young admits that filming for ‘Lucky Country’ has been one of the toughest tasks he has ever faced. ‘This really was a tough film to do… physically it is tiring. It was so tough to do, it exhausted me. You don’t realise it but it is rough to be tied up for hours at a time. I was amazed how tense it was and how constricted I felt. Then there was the whole lockjaw thing and having to watch the actors playing my children getting put through what they went through, that was rough,’ he explains. ‘Sometimes it was almost too much to bear. By the end of the shoot I was drained… I was sick for a week afterwards. I just had to get away.’

But it’s obvious that filming ‘Lucky Country’ wasn’t a negative experience for Young who admits he was attracted to the film because he wanted to work with Kriv Stenders, a director who has shown his class by directing films such as ‘The Illustrated Family Doctor’, ‘Blacktown’ and ‘Boxing Day’. ‘I have been a fan of Kriv’s for a long time… since ‘Motherland’ (a docco Stenders directed early on in his career). I wanted to work with him then. But then he went off and made three features… and he didn’t cast me, which left me really depressed,’ says Young only half-joking. ‘But when I was sent the script for ‘Lucky Country’ I loved it, it was a genre I like (a thriller), and I was so impressed and how the story kept moving. This boy (the character of Tom) goes through hell… and that was my only concern that they wouldn’t be able to find a kid good enough for the role.’

Young wasn’t the only one impressed when he first read Andy Cox’s script. ‘It absolutely blew me away,’ admits Stenders. ‘It was this great script full of these rich dynamic characters. And I’d been wanting to work on a broader canvas and have always wanted to do a genre film so it was a perfect fit. It is dark, but it’s entertaining… even though it centres around tragedy.’

Of course doing a film sent around Federation meant there was some extra preparation for both Young and Stenders. ‘I used a lot of photos to get a feel for the period,’ admits Stenders. ‘I also used the Internet to search as well. I was just so determined that I didn’t want it to look look a cheap ABC ‘costume drama’… I just had to get the right look.’ Young went about getting into the role of Nat in a completely different way. ‘I went on a search for things back in that period. I found some old sermons which gave me a wonderful insight, but what helped me the most was listening to music from that time. I actually forked out a lot of cash for a record called ‘Songs Of Federation’… I found reading and listening to things like that give you some great clues about people of that time.

So what about the complex character of Nat appealed to Young so much? ‘I thought he was struggling and with the pioneer side it was period of history that I really wanted to explore. He simply didn’t have the mental to get through what he wanted to do… and he failed. I found that interesting.’

It is easy to see that both Stenders and Young are passionate about ‘Lucky Country’ so I end the interview by asking Stenders what he thinks the public should know about it before they go to see it. ‘People shouldn’t be expecting ‘Australia 2’’, he says. ‘But they should expect a thrill ride that will entertain them.’

Dave Griffiths

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