voyager after eurovision

“We were just a progressive metal band going about our business… the next minute we’re on the world’s stage!” But playing to 160 million people hasn’t changed Voyager

Eurovision Song Contest was deep in the Australian heavy synth-prog quintet’s DNA from the start

Many artists would follow a mainstream moment with the most accessible music of their career. However, weeks after finishing in the Top 10 at the Eurovision Song Contest, Voyager have doubled down on their heavy synth-prog with new album Fearless In Love . Ahead of the last-minute cancellation of their 2023 European tour , Singer Danny Estrin, guitarist Simone Dow and bassist Alex Canion tell Prog about life after playing to more than 160 million people.

It’s early June when Prog video-calls Voyager frontman Danny Estrin, guitarist Simone Dow and bassist/singer Alex Canion, and the trio are midway through being smashed back into reality. This time last month, the Perth-based band (rounded out by drummer Ashley Doodkorte and Dow’s co-guitarist Scott Kay) were jet-setting in luxury. They were traipsing across Europe and getting interviewed by countless glossy magazines, all part of the run-up to them representing Australia to more than 160 million TV viewers live at the Eurovision Song Contest. Now they’re back home – and getting hammered by a storm so violent that it routinely wipes out their internet connection and freaks out Canion’s dog, Seamus.

“We played the WA Day festival [in Perth] yesterday,” Dow tells us, camera off to put less stress on the struggling WiFi, “and our booking agent sent us a video of the backstage area after we left. You should have seen the flooding! It was insane!”

Although Mother Nature is trying to quite literally rain on their parade, there’s no denying that Voyager became progressive music’s newest superstars this spring. Eurovision is touted worldwide as an international celebration of top-shelf songwriting (despite it frequently showcasing the most OTT pop possible) – and the synth-prog quintet had been chasing that rainbow from the moment Australia joined, in 2015.

They came tantalisingly close with their pop-prog anthem Dreamer in 2022, finishing second in Eurovision: Australia Decides , the nationally televised competition to select the country’s representative. This year, they finally got sent to the semi-finals when they were held in Liverpool, thanks to the electro- rock singalong of Promise .

Voyager advanced to the grand final and – after an 80s-throwback performance, replete with sequinned jackets, keytar solos and larking about on a Toyota MR2 sports car – finished a massively respectable ninth out of the 20 finalists.

The band couldn’t overcome the litany of public votes for Finnish rapper Käärijä, nor the jury’s collective passion for Sweden’s now-two-time winner Loreen. However, for five people playing prog in the isolation of Western Australia, it marked an underdog triumph.

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“It’s pretty incredible!” Estrin exclaims. “We were just a progressive metal band from Perth going about our business and, the next minute, we’re on the world’s stage! The comedown’s been real, but it’s been dampened by the insane amount of publicity we’ve done. It’s kept that spark of Eurovision alive: we’re selling out shows, particularly in the UK. Eurovision has given us the platform to continue doing what we were doing on a much bigger level.”

The numbers certainly agree. At time of writing, Promise is Voyager’s biggest song, with more than eight million Spotify streams. The music video’s been watched two million times on YouTube, with the footage of that grand final performance firmly in the seven-digit mark.

Estrin’s vow of his band sticking with what they’ve always done going forward isn’t hollow, either. A week before Voyager played Eurovision, they released another single called Prince Of Fire . It was every bit as proggy and high-energy as longtime fans would expect. Plus, with its leaps from synthy verses to sturdy rock choruses, it was powerfully dynamic. No kowtowing to the masses with simpler songwriting or a saccharine ballad here, thank you very much!

“It showed that we hadn’t vastly changed,” Canion says. “I did see some comments when we released Dreamer: people were worried that we were gonna change our sound. But Prince Of Fire is an indication that we’re still the same band. We still have the same melancholy and dark heaviness about us.”

The single, alongside Eurovision entries Dreamer and Promise , appears on Voyager’s eighth album, Fearless In Love . And said album doesn’t just mark Voyager continuing to be Voyager despite the newfound mainstream intrigue: it contains the most out-there and genre-agnostic music of the band’s career.

The Best Intentions opens Fearless In Love with a pulsing dance beat, joined by Estrin’s graceful vocals before the band dive into some heavy, off-kilter rocking. Submarine smacks you into a wall of guitar hefty enough to belong in a TesseracT or Devin Townsend tune, before Twisted ’s synths and irresistible hook feel comparable to Signals -era Rush . That’s all before semi-title track Gren (Fearless In Love) wraps these 45 minutes up with an atmospheric and guitar-powered symphony. It’s arguably the most nuanced, evocative song Voyager have ever put their name to.

“ Fearless In Love is one of our synthiest and most melodic albums, but it’s also the heaviest,” Estrin summarises. “It was during the Eurovision process that we wrote it, so I guess we had a bit more focus on song structures and making sure there’s no extra fluff. We’ve got playful guitar solos and more prog than was on the last album [2019’s Colours In The Sun ].”

Dow adds: “We started writing around the time of Australia Decides and [the release of] Dreamer , and the writing process was very different. We did it all at Scott’s little studio in his house. That way we could edit and change things as we went along, rather than doing it all in the rehearsal studio. Then, when we recorded the album, everything was all done. It’s been a huge process, but it was one of the most rewarding and creative processes we’ve gone through with an album.”

It comes as no surprise that Eurovision hasn’t changed Voyager since Estrin, who formed the band in 1999, says that the contest was one of his very first musical inspirations. He was born in the North German town of Buchholz In Der Nordheide before his family relocated to Perth, and while growing up in Germany, Eurovision and classical music were his two greatest musical loves. “That knack for melody and a really catchy chorus came very early on and stayed with me from the very beginning,” he says. “It’s why I’m the catchy chorus guy in Voyager!”

Estrin started the band at just 18 years old – by which point, he says, “I was living and breathing metal.” As a result, their 2003 debut, Element V , packed more high-speed power metal drumming than later albums. However, it also flaunted a love of operatic melody, prog and keytar playing that still defines their sound to this day.

“The goal was to make music sustainable: to write and record music and tour around the world,” Estrin remembers of the early days. “Living in one of the most isolated cities in the world has made that very, very difficult because, wherever you go, it’s very, very expensive. It’s even more difficult when you play a niche form of music.”

Making things even harder was an Australian underground that seemed more smitten with extreme metal than anything else, as well as Voyager’s revolving-door line-up. Dow (friends with then-guitarist Mark De Vattimo) joined in 2005, six years after the band formed, and is today the second-longest serving member. Canion, who played with Dow in a thrash act called Psychonaut, joined in 2007.

“I immediately recognised that Voyager were one of the top bands in the scene,” the bassist says. “Danny had this X-factor that no other band had. He was driving forward a sound that was almost too daring for the metal scene to adopt.”

By 2012, Kay and Doodkorte had completed the line-up, which hasn’t shifted since. Three years later, with the announcement that Australia would become an honorary competitor in Eurovision, the band began campaigning to represent their country. They started the Twitter hashtag #VoyagerForEurovision and submitted songs every year, to no avail. Even after being the runner-up to singer-songwriter Sheldon Riley on Australia Decides in 2022, though, they were never disheartened. “It was never like, ‘We have to do Eurovision or we’re a failure!’” Estrin says. “It was more like, ‘However far we can get, that’s awesome!’”

Australia Decides was canned in 2023. Instead, Voyager were simply told over the phone by broadcaster SBS that they’d be going to Liverpool. When there, they had the same outlook: a win would be nice, but simply representing prog and band-made music to millions of people is already brilliant enough. “If you’re a Eurovision fan, you know the juries don’t like heavy music, or bands in general,” says Estrin. “So the fact that we came sixth in the jury vote is incredible.”

That casual attitude made its way on screen. When Voyager won the second round of Eurovision’s semi-finals, they sprayed people around them with water that they’d put in a champagne bottle. During the final, almost as talked-about as Promise was the fact that, when the band were given top marks by the Portuguese jury, a camera caught them snacking on some ham sandwiches. Cue memes aplenty across social media.

“It was Marks & Spencer’s, so it was a quality sandwich,” Estrin chuckles. “We were told off after the semi-final for the splash incident, so we thought, ‘If we can’t drink, we’re going to eat something.’ These are gruelling nights and days, so there’s nothing like having a little sandwich in your pocket.”

Voyager were far from the first heavy rock band to play Eurovision. Rock’n’roller Freddy Quinn represented the genre (and Germany) at the inaugural Contest in 1956. Then Finnish masked monster mash Lordi and Italian glam bunch Måneskin won the whole thing in 2006 and 2021, respectively. Even this year, Voyager were contending with German gothic metal quintet Lord Of The Lost, who sadly finished in last place.

However, competing in a mainstream programme mostly reserved for pop singers/songwriters has led to purists sometimes denouncing bands as ‘Eurovision groups’, like it’s a derogatory term. Dow claims Voyager haven’t weathered any such pushback, though.

“The feedback we had during the whole process was super-supportive,” the guitarist says. “People were stoked that we were putting progressive metal on the map. Now, we’ve got sold-out shows across Europe and Australia. You could not ask for anything more than that.”

Currently, Voyager are only weeks removed from Eurovision, but they already have a full touring cycle directly ahead of them. Eager to see their litany of new fans in the flesh, Estrin, Dow and Canion are all impatient to get onto the road. “I hope Eurovision will allow us to keep upgrading with each subsequent tour,” the bassist says. “I hope it’ll let us craft the kind of show that I’ve wanted to put on with Voyager since I joined.”

Looking beyond this year, they want to have a legacy as the band that brought both fearlessness and consistent quality to not just Eurovision, but the broader rock and prog scenes. “I want us to go down as a band that doesn’t sound like anyone else, regardless of at what point you pick up a Voyager album and listen to it,” Estrin states.

“We’ve always done things differently, but we’ve always sounded quintessentially Voyager,” Canion adds. “I think that, now we’re eight albums in, that’s never going to change.”

Louder’s resident Gojira obsessive was still at uni when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt’s become a regular in Prog and Metal Hammer, at his happiest when interviewing the most forward-thinking artists heavy music can muster. He’s got bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, NME, Guitar and many others, too. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him skydiving, scuba diving or coasteering.

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Australia’s Voyager Reflect on “Surreal” Eurovision Experience After Placing Ninth in 2023 Contest

By Alex Gallagher

Perth progressive pop-metal band Voyager have reflected their “surreal” journey to the Eurovision 2023 grand final after placing ninth in this year’s edition of the annual song contest. The band’s performance of their song ‘Promise’ – an over-the-top synth rocker that comes replete with a keytar solo – saw them win their semi-finals last week , facing off against 25 other countries in the grand final over the weekend.

Finishing up in the top ten, Voyager beat out the likes of Czech Republic, Lithuania, Cyprus, Croatia, Armenia and Austria’s entries. The winner of the contest – held in Liverpool in the UK due to 2022 winners Ukraine being unable to host this year’s edition – was Sweden, with singer Loreen coming in first with the song ‘Tattoo’.

Watch Voyager Perform ‘Promise’ for the Eurovision 2023 Grand Final

“EUROVISION – that was absolutely surreal! There aren’t enough words to describe how we’re feeling,” Voyager wrote on Instagram following the grand final.

“Who would have thought that an independent, progressive metal band from Perth, WA, would take a top 10 position at the world’s biggest song contest?!! We are incredibly grateful for this absolutely WILD journey – we wouldn’t have done this without you!”

Loreen is the first woman to win Eurovision twice, having previously won in 2012 with her song ‘Euphoria’. As the winning country, Sweden will host next year’s edition of Eurovision, which just so happens to coincide with the 50th anniversary of ABBA ‘s 1974 Eurovision win with ‘Waterloo’.

Other countries who placed highly included runners-up Finland, third place Israel, fourth place Italy and fifth place Norway. Last year’s winners Ukraine came in sixth with Ukrainian act Tvorchi. In a post on Instagram, the group said their hometown of Ternopil was bombed by Russian forces while they were performing. “Europe, unite against evil for the sake of peace!” they wrote.

Next month, Voyager will embark on an Australian tour to celebrate their homecoming, with shows in Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Sydney and Canberra. Find dates, venues and tickets here .

Further Reading

Australian Act Voyager Have Made the Eurovision Final

Perth Prog-Pop Band Voyager Will Represent Australia at Eurovision 2023

Perth Metal Band Voyager Unveil Their Eurovision Song, ‘Dreamer’

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Voyager's lead singer Danny Estrin reveals cancer diagnosis and cancels European tour

Australian progressive metal band Voyager's frontman, Danny Estrin, has revealed a "life-altering" cancer diagnosis, as the band cancels its upcoming European tour. 

Key points:

• Estrin, who is the Perth band's lead singer, shared his "life-altering" cancer diagnosis 
• The band has cancelled an upcoming European tour with hopes to reschedule in October 2024
• Its last performance will be at the America's Cup Event in Fremantle on Sunday

Estrin, who is the Perth band's lead singer, shared the announcement on the band's official Instagram account on Friday. 

"Last week I was dealt some life-altering news: I've been diagnosed with cancer that requires immediate treatment," he wrote.

"I am absolutely devastated that we cannot perform on our forthcoming European tour, especially after this incredible Eurovision year we've had.

"I am on strict doctors' orders to not take this lightly, put my health first and get this sorted so we can be on stage again as soon as possible." 

Estrin said it had been an "extremely hard decision to make" and the band's upcoming European tour would be rescheduled to October 2024. 

"Voyager will perform our last show for a while at the America's Cup Event in Fremantle, Western Australia this Sunday 24 September 2023, so come and party with us before I start treatment," he added.

"I'm surrounded by my incredible bandmates and team who are navigating all things Voyager whilst I am out of action."

The band was  Australia's lead contender at the 2023 Eurovision , making the grand final and eventually finishing ninth. 

The band has had its fair amount of changes throughout its lifetime. 

Voyager parted ways with bass player Jennah Greaig in 2004 and his replacement, Melissa Fiocco, was later replaced with Alex Canion after the release of the album uniVers.

In June 2008, guitarist Mark De Vattimo quit Voyager due to personal and professional differences.

Guitarists Chris Hanssen and Scott Kay and drummer Mark Boeijen soon followed.

A June Australian tour saw sold-out shows nationwide, with the Perth performance needing to move to a larger venue to accommodate demand.

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EUROVISION NEWS WITH ATTITUDE

“We needed a vehicle” — Australia’s Voyager on Eurovision 2023 staging and first rehearsal, including THAT car

• Posted on May 5, 2023 May 5, 2023
• by Renske ten Veen

Australia’s Voyager landed in the LUSH Liverpool Lounge to speak about their experiences performing across Europe, their Eurovision 2023 staging and the first rehearsal of “Promise”.

The five musicians from Perth sat down to discuss their voyage so far. On the biggest difference between performing for an Australian audience compared to a European one, they said:

“Probably the heat!”

“It’s probably a thirty to forty degree difference. Some of the hottest shows we’ve ever done have been in Australia, being like fifty degrees.”

“We have not sufficiently thawed yet!”

Australia’s Voyager “Promise” — Interview after Eurovision 2023 first rehearsal

In the footage that has been released of Voyager’s first rehearsal on the Eurovision 2023 stage, we can see some synchronised head banging as well as a notable prop: a real car on the stage. Voyager’s drummer Ashley Doodkorte said to us:

“We’ll promise you will have a fantastic time.”

Lead singer Danny Estrin added as an explanation:

“People are confused. Like: why is there a car? The story of the car is: we needed a vehicle to show that you are getting away from the kind of chaos into the nature. You know, escaping it all. What better vehicle than something quintessentially eighties? That I actually owned myself. I had one of those. It’s the first car I bought. It’s been featured in Voyager videos. That shape is so quintessentially eighties. It’s poor man’s Ferrari. A Toyota MR2.” 

“It’s an iconic eighties thing with pop-up headlights. And we thought: what better vehicle to use than that car to show the message?”

Australia at Eurovision 2023: Voyager “Promise” first rehearsal

Australia’s Voyager have had one rehearsal so far at Eurovision 2023, which took place on Tuesday. This rehearsal included some things that we had expected from the band, but also some surprises. The biggest surprise for many was the band shipping a real vintage Toyota to Liverpool.

They were not the first act to bring out a car this year, as Malta’s The Busker are also bringing their own vehicle to Liverpool.

Voyager are delivering a real eighties moment, including a keytar among the many guitars on the stage. The act includes lots of pyro and flashing lights. In short: we won’t be bored!

Do you think that car will drive Voyager to success during the second semi final of Eurovision 2023? Do you love “Promise”? Let us know in the comments down below!

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Renske ten Veen

Our Renske is a graduated Slavicist from the Netherlands. As a daughter of a Eurovision fan, she grew up watching and listening to Eurovision songs. wiwibloggs introduced her to a community of loving people from all over the world, including to her significant other.

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Delayed at the gas station. Picking up champagne.

Reminds me of a classic Australian movie from the 1980s, “Dead End Drive-In”, where outcasts from society are lured to a drive-in cinema, only to be locked in, kept away from the normies.

The drive-in cinema sounds like the Plato’s proverbial cave, only the film sounds back to front as to who’s in the cave and who’s not.

I just read up on the film, it sounds good!

I like it, it’s fun. Plato for Dummies.

Lead character is well-named too.

Or they could be entertainment for the Thunderdome?

That just reminds me of Tina Turner, and I don’t think anyone would like to be compared to her.

I should have phrased it “nobody can look good” if compared to her, she will always win, they will always lose.

Oh, well she is a wonder indeed 🙂

I wasn’t sure what your wording meant, I thought perhaps you meant no one wants to be compared to Aunty Entity…

I’m sure there are some politicians out there who wouldn’t mind.

and wiwibloggs commenters too, perhaps.

Have you ever been to ESC in person?

Just once. I love attending live events usually, but for this it has always been an “at home” tradition. On television, with people I love. Probably a childhood thing.

You, Jimmy?

I’m attending this year’s in Liverpool. It’s my first time 🙂

Like you say, there are so many different ways to enjoy Eurovision, it’s an event that I sometimes wish I could split into multiple realities – being there in person, having the at-home traditions with your nearest and dearest, and then spending it with all sorts of other people you’d love to share it with too.

Enjoy! Make some happy memories.

Of course, you too! 🙂

That sounds lovely. Which one was your once?

If you say 2016, I’ll be slightly jealous 😛

Please keep your hands off Marco when you’re in Liverpool. I saw him first.

2013, great year. Loreen’s entrance with the choir singing Euphoria, very memorable! Hope she bring the contest back to Malmö for you.

I wish them well, whoever you might be referring to.

Fusa Nocta is annoyed haha

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The West Australian

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Perth band Voyager to represent Australia at Eurovision

From watching Eurovision on the couch to being on the main stage, Perth synth metal band Voyager says it’s a dream come true to represent Australia at this year’s singing contest.

During an early morning announcement on YouTube on Wednesday, organisers revealed the genre-bending band will go to Liverpool to sing their song Promise in May.

The band addressed the media at a press conference at Kings Park just hours after the announcement.

Lead singer Danny Estrin said that as a German migrant the opportunity has been “phenomenal”.

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“We’ve been Eurovision fans for a long time, we started this campaign in 2016 with a simple hashtag Voyage for Eurovision... And then when you hear those words ‘you’re going to be representing Australia at Eurovision 2023’, you just literally fall off your chair,” he said.

The biggest audience the band has ever performed in front of was roughly 8000 people. The audience for Eurovision is in the hundreds of millions.

Mr Erstrin said the Eurovision viewers were guaranteed an “extravaganza” of a show.

“Eurovision is a three-minute sprint. It’s like the full-on cardio workout where you’ve got to channel everything that you have into three minutes.”

The music video for the band’s Eurovision song was shot in Kalbarri and features the pink Hutt Lagoon, and the gorges of Kalbarri National Park and Nature’s Window.

Tourism minister Roger Cook threw his support behind the band and said he couldn’t be prouder to have Western Australia on the global stage.

“Western Australia is on a rock and roll around the world. Every week we are sending a new message around the globe that it’s all happening in WA,” he said in a statement.

“And what a way to show Western Australia to the world, with our very own homegrown heroes Voyager representing Australia and showcasing our dreamlike state as part of Eurovision.”

The State Government is supporting Voyager’s Eurovision entry through the Contemporary Music Fund and Tourism WA.

Mr Estrin described the music video as a “postcard” for Western Australia.

“We all love living here. It’s the greatest place in the greatest place in the world. And we want people to come here and that’s a genuine feeling that we all have. So why not use it to bring more people here?”

The band also teased that their costumes could be designed by a Western Australian designer as another layer of WA being represented on the world stage.

The band’s progressive pop metal track Promise blends New Romantic, ‘80s infused vocals with a technical, melodic framework and features what has become the band’s signature instrument, the keytar.

Instead of having a national song contest to decide Australia’s representative, this year SBS handpicked Voyager after they went very close to winning Australia Decides last year with the pumping Dreamer.

The band’s selection is a marked departure from Australia’s previous contestants who have all been soloists.

The band, who has released seven albums, has been putting its hand up for Eurovision since 2015.

Australia has competed in Eurovision eight times. Last year Sheldon Riley placed 15th with his ballad Not the Same.

Dami Im came closest to winning, her ballad Sound of Silence in 2016 scored her a close second place. Jessica Mauboy would have been disappointed with 20th place in 2018 with We Got Love but Montaigne has the dubious honour of being our least successful performer, failing to qualify for the grand final with Technicolour in 2021.

The 67th Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Liverpool, United Kingdom from 9 to 13 May 2023.

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Voyager: Eurovision’s Aussie Battler

For voyager, life has changed irrevocably. no one, certainly not the five hard-working musicians that make up the band, saw this coming. .

“I’m just trying to have a nice lunch in the city by myself without being mobbed for selfies. I was two bites into my burrito and someone was like, ‘Oh, my god, I need a selfie’. This is a new level. Let’s roll with it!”

For Voyager, life has changed irrevocably. The band has just returned home from representing Australia at Eurovision , where they finished in a highly respectable ninth place. No one, certainly not the five hard-working musicians that make up the band, saw this coming. 

Danny Estrin formed Voyager at the University of Western Australia in 1999, almost twenty-five years before he’d be swamped by fans while trying to enjoy a meal in public. 

The progressive metal band spent the next few decades plugging away on the Australian live music circuit, paying their dues, and going through several lineup changes before eventually settling as the five-piece that took Eurovision by storm: Danny leading from the front, supported by guitarists Simone Dow and Scott Kay, bassist Alex Canion, and drummer Ash Doodkorte.  

Previous Australian entrants had already been well-known before participating in Eurovision — particularly Guy Sebastian and Jessica Mauboy — but Voyager was a relative nonentity. After losing out to Sheldon Riley in the SBS competition Eurovision: Australia Decides in 2022 (despite winning the public vote), they were selected by the broadcaster to enter Eurovision this year, becoming the first-ever band to represent the country in the contest. 

The long journey to the top made the moment all the sweeter for the five members. “It felt like a really good pay-off for twenty-five years or so of plugging away as a drummer in rock and metal bands,” Ash says. “This is the kind of stage I’d been asking for.” For Danny, there from the very beginning, it was the ultimate payoff. “Someone described it as the ‘twenty-year overnight success story,’” he laughs. 

In early May, Voyager finally headed to the contest they’d dreamed of taking part in ever since Australia made its debut in 2015. Their destination was Liverpool and not Ukraine, who were unable to host due to the Russian conflict. 

Entering the stage in a car, they motored their way through round two to earn their place in the grand final.  “We’ve all been touring and playing shows for so long, the stage is the most comfortable spot for us,” Scott explains. “We can definitely handle the thing we really need to do, which is rock out,” Ash adds with confidence. 

The reward for their towering performance was an eventual Top Ten finish. “We just wanted to qualify for the grand final and everything else from there was just gravy for us,” Scott says. “What really surprised us this year was that the jury vote for us was so high. We smashed it, I was honestly expecting zero from the jury,” Danny claims. 

The irony that the jury supported Voyager wasn’t lost on Alex. “It felt like karmic justice to do so well with the jury in the grand final, as it was the lower jury vote that meant we didn’t win Eurovision: Australia Decides last year.”

“Have you ever done anything like this before?” is Danny’s belted refrain throughout their Eurovision song, “Promise”. “If you haven’t done anything like this before, then you haven’t been alive,” he sings. When performing that last line at the grand final, he added a knowing glance to the camera; “If you haven’t done Eurovision, you haven’t really lived,” he seemed to be saying. 

Why did “Promise” connect so well with fans? “I don’t think this is a year for negativity or introspection,” Scott says of their positive anthem. “I think it’s time we get back to just enjoying life a bit more.” Simone wholeheartedly agrees. “I think people just want to celebrate and come together and have a good time. When you have a song that’s a bit more uplifting, you really feel it in your bones.”

“I don’t think this is a year for negativity or introspection.” – Simone Dow

Back home, Voyager was backed by legions of well-wishers. “I think what sticks out to me the most is just the overwhelming support we received from our fans and everyone back home in Australia,” Alex says. “We were constantly told that we deserved the opportunity and that we’ve made people proud to be Australian. That to me is wild. Not every act at Eurovision had the support that we did and it made the whole experience much easier to embrace.” And as Ash notes, this country really does love Eurovision. “We actually have the most dedicated [Eurovision[ fans because they get up at like 3am to watch it!”

Voyager wasn’t just representing their country — they were ambassadors for an entire movement of music. They were one of the first bands to take metal to the dance-pop Eurovision machine, and they feel that they brought a much-needed injection of heaviness to the competition. “I think audiences enjoy having that diversity,” Scott insists. “After about twenty ballads, you get a bit tired,” Ash scoffs. 

But metal is often an insular world, treated as sacred by its passionate fans. A metal band performing at the campest singing competition in the world? That’s a scenario ripe for mockery. After some initial gripings from naysayers, though, all five were overwhelmed at the support they received from the community. “I can’t think of any negative feedback on the whole thing,” Ash says. “We had some real love from the metal community. This is a great platform for heavy music. The love was universal,” Danny adds. “We got so many messages of support from the metal scene, which was kind of surprising,” Simone reveals.

And really, there’s often an inherent campiness to metal. “What’s more theatrical and awesome than metal?!” Ash exclaims. “It’s dramatic, and it needs a big stage to amplify the ferocity of the whole thing.” “Metal has always been theatrical,” Scott agrees. “It doesn’t get more ridiculous than five dudes with big mullets, screaming at the top of their lungs. You take the music seriously, but not yourself.”

“One day you’re playing an original song to 162 million people, the next someone is harassing you to play ‘Wonderwall’ at a pub.”

– Alex Canion

Before Eurovision, Voyager had released seven studio albums, which is a lot of material for newfound fans to devour. “I think we’re in a position to capitalise because we’ve got a back catalogue, we’ve got a legacy as a band. And in my humble opinion, the legacy is quite strong. We’ve earned a lot of diehard fans over the years,” says Scott. Ash agrees. “I was thinking how hard it would be if this was the start of your music career — you’d have so much work to do, just to follow up, but we’ve already got that catalogue.”

Danny adds that the band’s new fans are “almost apologetic” when they discover just how long they’ve been working towards this moment. There’s also a new album on the way that Alex thinks might be their “darkest and heaviest yet”. For the first time, the band recorded live in the room together. “I think it makes for an especially cohesive and organic record,” he adds. 

Watch Voyager at Eurovision 2023:

As well as their new album, they also have a homecoming tour of Australia, before the band heads back to Europe. Ash can’t wait to perform in Germany (“We have that increased exposure there now”), but it’s two other countries he really feels deserves a Voyager visit. “I think we really need to get to Iceland and Portugal to say thanks for twelve points!” Danny, meanwhile, has his sights set even further afield. “Hopefully we’ll do North America next year, and then I’d love to go deeper into Latin America. I’m excited about exploring new territories, that’s a wonderful thing.”

Life has changed forever for Voyager, but they’re never going to forget the hard road to this point. “I got home and then two days later, I played a cover gig at a pub to about thirty people,” Alex says. “One day you’re playing an original song to 162 million people, the next someone is harassing you to play ‘Wonderwall’ at a pub. I love the dichotomy of it all.”

This Voyager interview features in the September-November 2023 issue of Rolling Stone AU/NZ . If you’re eager to get your hands on it, then now is the time to sign up for a subscription.

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NASA Figured Out Why Its Voyager 1 Probe Has Been Glitching for Months

An artist’s concept of the Voyager 1 spacecraft in interstellar space.

After months of sending unusable data to mission control, there’s finally hope for the Voyager 1 spacecraft. NASA engineers pinpointed the cause behind the mission’s odd anomaly, and think they can help the interstellar probe make sense again.

Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory believe the Voyager 1 spacecraft has been sending nonsensical data due to corrupted memory hardware in the spacecraft’s flight data system (FDS). “The team suspects that a single chip responsible for storing part of the affected portion of the FDS memory isn’t working,” NASA wrote in an update.

FDS collects data from Voyager’s science instruments, as well as engineering data about the health of the spacecraft, and combines them into a single package that’s transmitted to Earth through one of the probe’s subsystems, the telemetry modulation unit (TMU), in binary code.

FDS and TMU have been having trouble communicating with one another. As a result, TMU has been sending data to mission control in a repeating pattern of ones and zeroes. NASA’s engineers aren’t quite sure what corrupted the FDS memory hardware; they think that either the chip was hit by an energetic particle from space or that it’s just worn out after operating for 46 years.

Voyager 1 launched in 1977, less than a month after its twin probe, Voyager 2, began its own journey to space. The probe ventured into interstellar space in August 2012, becoming the first spacecraft to leave the heliosphere.

The problem first began in May 2022, when the probe suddenly started sending nonsensical attitude articulation and control (AACS) data . Engineers resolved the issue by sending the telemetry data through one of the spacecraft’s other computers. In December 2023, Voyager 1 started speaking gibberish again .

On March 1, the team sent a “poke” to the spacecraft’s data system, a command that gently prompts FDS to try different sequences in its software package in an effort to pinpoint the corrupted section. Two days later, Voyager 1 sent a signal that contained a readout of the entire FDS memory , which helped the team pinpoint the source of the glitch by comparing this memory readout with a previous one to look for discrepancies in the code.

“Using the readout, the team has confirmed that about 3% of the FDS memory has been corrupted, preventing the computer from carrying out normal operations,” NASA wrote in its update.

The engineers are hoping to resolve the issue by finding a way for FDS to operate normally without the corrupted memory hardware, enabling Voyager 1 to begin transmitting data about the cosmos and continue its journey through deep space.

For more spaceflight in your life, follow us on X and bookmark Gizmodo’s dedicated Spaceflight page .

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ABBA fans celebrate 'Waterloo' Eurovision victory, 50 years on

Chloe Veltman

Members of the Mark de Lisser Singers perform the iconic ABBA song 'Waterloo' at Waterloo Station in London on Saturday, April 6, 2024. Alastair Grant/AP hide caption

Members of the Mark de Lisser Singers perform the iconic ABBA song 'Waterloo' at Waterloo Station in London on Saturday, April 6, 2024.

Fans of the Swedish supergroup ABBA gathered Saturday in England, Sweden and elsewhere to celebrate the hit song "Waterloo" on the 50th anniversary of its victory at the annual Eurovision Song Contest.

Swedish Television hosted En Fest För ABBA (A Party For ABBA), a tribute concert in honor of the band, in Stockholm on Saturday evening. The king and queen of Sweden were in attendance, though none of the band members were there.

Earlier in the day, singers and a pianist regaled commuters with a tribute to the song at Waterloo train station in London.

Piano Moments Waterloo Station London #waterloo50th #ABBA #Eurovision #Abbawaterloo @ABBA @pjd1978 pic.twitter.com/mW3UYJv7RD — Jeff Day (@jeffd1963) April 6, 2024

Fans also gathered for a flash mob dance in Brighton to mark the occasion. The English coastal city hosted the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest.

ABBA performed "Waterloo" that day with glitter and gusto. One member (conductor Sven-Olof Walldoff) was even dressed as Napoleon.

The group's win was the first for Sweden in the history of the Eurovision Song Contest. The competition was first staged in 1956 in Lugano, Switzerland.

Telling the story of someone who "surrenders" to a lover, the song references Napoleon's surrender at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

"My, my / At Waterloo, Napoleon did surrender / Oh, yeah / And I have met my destiny in quite a similar way / The history book on the shelf/ Is always repeating itself / Waterloo / I was defeated, you won the war / Waterloo / Promise to love you forevermore..."

"Waterloo" went on to sell millions of copies, and topped the charts in several countries, including the U.S. Top 10.

It also propelled the band to global success. ABBA has by far outstripped every other Eurovision winner in this regard, with platinum-selling albums, tribute shows like the immersive ABBA Voyage experience in London, and movies like Mamma Mia! starring Meryl Streep.

Mamma Mia! ABBA Is Back After Nearly 40 Years

This year's Eurovision contest will take place in May — fittingly — in Malmö, Sweden. But the choice of host country has nothing to do with ABBA's victory five decades ago. With rare exceptions, Eurovision is always hosted by the country that won the previous year's contest. Swedish singer Loreen won the 2023 competition with "Tattoo."

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From the Horror to the Envy of Africa: Rwanda’s Leader Holds Tight Grip

Thirty years after a devastating genocide, Rwanda has made impressive gains. But ethnic divisions persist under an iron-fisted president who has ruled for just as long.

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda in 2021. The architect of the country’s stunning transformation, he achieved it with harsh methods that would normally attract international condemnation. Credit... Simon Wohlfahrt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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By Declan Walsh

• Published April 6, 2024 Updated April 7, 2024

Blood coursed through the streets of Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, in April 1994 as machete-wielding militiamen began a campaign of genocide that killed as many as 800,000 people, one of the great horrors of the late 20th century.

Thirty years later, Kigali is the envy of Africa. Smooth streets curl past gleaming towers that hold banks, luxury hotels and tech startups. There is a Volkswagen car plant and an mRNA vaccine facility . A 10,000-seat arena hosts Africa’s biggest basketball league and concerts by stars like Kendrick Lamar, the American rapper, who performed there in December.

Tourists fly in to visit Rwanda’s famed gorillas. Government officials from other African countries arrive for lessons in good governance. The electricity is reliable. Traffic cops do not solicit bribes. Violence is rare.

The architect of this stunning transformation, President Paul Kagame, achieved it with harsh methods that would normally attract international condemnation. Opponents are jailed, free speech is curtailed and critics often die in murky circumstances, even those living in the West. Mr. Kagame’s soldiers have been accused of massacre and plunder in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.

For decades, Western leaders have looked past Mr. Kagame’s abuses. Some have expressed guilt for their failure to halt the genocide, when Hutu extremists massacred people mostly from Mr. Kagame’s Tutsi ethnic group. Rwanda’s tragic history makes it an “ immensely special case ,” Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, once said.

Mr. Kagame will commemorate the 30th anniversary of the genocide on Sunday, when he is expected to lay wreaths at mass graves, light a flame of remembrance and deliver a solemn speech that may well reinforce his message of exceptionalism. “Never again,” he often says.

But the anniversary is also a sharp reminder that Mr. Kagame, 66, has been in power for just as long. He won the last presidential election with 99 percent of votes. The outcome of the next one, scheduled for July, is in little doubt. Under Rwanda’s Constitution, he could lead for another decade.

The milepost has given new ammunition to critics who say that Mr. Kagame’s repressive tactics, previously seen as necessary — even by critics — to stabilize Rwanda after the genocide, increasingly appear to be a way for him to entrench his iron rule.

Questions are also growing about where he is leading his country. Although he claims to have effectively banished ethnicity from Rwanda, critics — including diplomats, former government officials and many other Rwandans — say he presides over a system that is shaped by unspoken ethnic cleavages that make the prospect of genuine reconciliation seem as distant as ever.

A spokeswoman for Rwanda’s government did not respond to questions for this article. The authorities declined accreditation to me to enter the country. A second Times reporter has been allowed in.

Ethnic Tutsis dominate the top echelons of Mr. Kagame’s government, while the Hutus who make up 85 percent of the population remain excluded from true power, critics say. It is a sign that ethnic division, despite surface appearances, is still very much a factor in the way Rwanda is governed.

“The Kagame regime is creating the very conditions that cause political violence in our country,” Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, his most prominent political opponent, said by phone from Kigali. “Lack of democracy, absence of rule of law, social and political exclusion — it’s the same problems we had before.”

Ms. Ingabire, a Hutu, returned to Rwanda from exile in 2010 to run against Mr. Kagame for president. She was arrested, barred from taking part in the election and later imprisoned on charges of conspiracy and terrorism. Released in 2018, when Mr. Kagame pardoned her, Ms. Ingabire cannot travel abroad and is barred from standing in the election in July.

“I agree with those who say Rwanda needed a strongman ruler after the genocide, to bring order in our country, ” she said. “But today, after 30 years, we need strong institutions more than we need strong men.”

Mr. Kagame burst into power in July 1994, sweeping into Kigali at the head of a Tutsi-dominated rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, which ousted the Hutu extremists who orchestrated the genocide. Randy Strash, a worker with the aid agency World Vision, arrived a few weeks later to find a “ghost town.”

“No gas stations, no stores, no communications,” he recalled. “Abandoned vehicles by the side of the road, riddled with bullets. At night, the sound of gunshots and hand grenades. It was something else.”

Mr. Strash set up his tent across the street from a camp where Mr. Kagame was quartered. Hutu fighters attacked the camp several times, trying to kill Mr. Kagame, Mr. Strash said. But it was not until a decade later, at an event at the University of Washington, that he met the Rwandan leader in person.

“Very polite and reasonable in his responses,” Mr. Strash recalled. “Clear, thoughtful and thought-provoking.”

Historical documents released by Human Rights Watch this past week show how much U.S. leaders knew about the slaughter as it unfolded. Writing to President Bill Clinton on May 16, 1994, the researcher Alison Des Forges urged him “to protect these defenseless civilians from murderous militia.”

Since coming to power, Mr. Kagame has had a reputation for spending aid wisely and promoting forward-looking economic policies. Although former aides have accused him of manipulating official statistics to exaggerate progress, Rwanda’s trajectory is impressive: Average life expectancy rose to 66 years from 40 years between 1994 and 2021, the United Nations says.

One of Mr. Kagame’s first acts was to publicly erase the dangerous divisions that had fueled the genocide. He banned the terms Hutu and Tutsi from identity cards and effectively criminalized public discussion of ethnicity . “We are all Rwandan” became the national motto.

But in reality, ethnicity continued to suffuse nearly every aspect of life, reinforced by Mr. Kagame’s policies. “Everyone knows who is who,” said Joseph Sebarenzi, a Tutsi who served as the president of Rwanda’s Parliament until 2000, when he fled into exile.

A survey published last year by Filip Reyntjens, a Belgian professor and outspoken Kagame critic, found that 82 percent of 199 top government positions were held by ethnic Tutsi — and nearly 100 percent in Mr. Kagame’s office. American diplomats reached a similar conclusion in 2008, after conducting their own survey of Rwanda’s power structure.

Mr. Kagame “must begin to share authority with Hutus to a much greater degree” if his country were to surmount the divides of the genocide, the U.S. Embassy wrote in a cable that was later published by WikiLeaks.

Critics accuse Mr. Kagame of using the memory of the events of 1994 to suppress the Hutu majority.

Official commemorations mention “the genocide of the Tutsi” but play down or ignore the tens of thousands of moderate Hutus who were also killed, often trying to save their Tutsi neighbors.

A perception of selective justice rubs salt into those wounds. Mr. Kagame’s troops killed 25,000 to 45,000 people, mostly Hutu civilians, from April to August 1994, according to disputed U.N. findings . Yet fewer than 40 of his officers have been tried for those crimes, according to Human Rights Watch.

The Hutu killings are incomparable in scale or nature to the genocide. But Mr. Kagame’s lopsided approach to dealing with those events is hampering Rwandans’ ability to reconcile and move on, critics say.

“Anyone not familiar with Rwanda might think that everything is fine,” Mr. Sebarenzi said. “People work together, they go to church together, they do business together. That is good. But under the carpet, those ethnic divisions are still there.”

Although Mr. Kagame has appointed Hutus to senior positions in government since 1994, including prime minister and defense minister, those appointees have little real power, said Omar Khalfan, a former official with Rwanda’s national intelligence service who fled into exile in the United States in 2015.

Tutsi loyalists are planted in the offices of senior Hutus to keep an eye on them, said Mr. Khalfan, a Tutsi. “The regime doesn’t want to speak about ethnicity because it raises the issue of power-sharing,” he said. “And they don’t want that.”

In the West, Mr. Kagame is a firm favorite at gatherings of the global elite such as the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he met with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in January. But at home, those who publicly challenge him risk arrest, torture or death.

A decade ago, Kizito Mihigo, a charismatic gospel singer, was among Rwanda’s most popular artists. A Tutsi who lost his parents in the genocide, Mr. Mihigo often sang at genocide commemorations and was said to be close to Mr. Kagame’s wife, Jeannette.

But on the 20th anniversary, Mr. Mihigo released a song that in coded lyrics called on Rwandans to show empathy for both Tutsi and Hutu victims — effectively, a call for greater reconciliation.

Mr. Kagame was furious. A presidential aide said he “didn’t like my song, and that I should ask him for forgiveness,” Mr. Mihigo recalled in 2016 . If the singer refused to comply, he added, “they said I’d be dead.”

Mr. Mihigo apologized but was convicted on treason charges and imprisoned. Released four years later, he found he was blacklisted as a singer. In 2020, he was arrested again as he tried to slip across the border to Burundi and, four days later, found dead in a police station.

The government said Mr. Mihigo had taken his life, but few believed it. “He was a very strong Christian who believed in God,” said Ms. Ingabire, the opposition politician, who came to know Mr. Mihigo in prison. “I can’t believe this is true.”

Mr. Kagame’s reach extends across the globe. Rights groups have documented dozens of cases of Rwandan exiles being intimidated, attacked or assassinated by presumed agents of the state in at least a dozen countries, including Canada , Australia and South Africa .

Mr. Khalfan, the former intelligence officer, said he was approached at home in Ohio in 2019 by a man he identified as an undercover Rwandan agent. The man tried to lure him to Dubai — a similar ruse to the one that caused Paul Rusesabagina , a Hutu hotelier whose story featured in the movie “Hotel Rwanda,” to be tricked into returning to the country in 2020.

Mr. Rusesabagina was released from prison last year , after years of U.S. pressure. The episode only underscored how little real resistance Mr. Kagame faces at home. But a more immediate worry lies across the border , in eastern Congo.

There, the United States and the United Nations have publicly accused Rwanda of sending troops and missiles in support of M23, a notorious rebel group that swept across the territory in recent months, causing widespread displacement and suffering. The M23 has long been seen as a Rwandan proxy force in Congo, where Mr. Kagame’s troops have been accused of plundering rare minerals and massacring civilians. Rwanda denies the charges.

The crisis has cooled Mr. Kagame’s relations with the United States, his largest foreign donor, American officials say. Senior Biden administration officials traveled to Rwanda , Congo and, more discreetly, Tanzania in recent months in an effort to prevent the crisis from spiraling into a regional war. In August, the United States imposed sanctions on a senior Rwandan military commander for his role in backing the M23 .

U.S. officials described tense, sometimes confrontational meetings between Mr. Kagame and senior American officials, including the U.S.A.I.D. administrator, Samantha Power, over Rwanda’s role in eastern Congo.

Mr. Kagame has often denied that Rwandan troops are in Congo, but he appeared to admit the opposite tacitly in a recent interview with Jeune Afrique magazine .

In justifying their presence, he fell back on familiar logic: that he was acting to prevent a second genocide, this time against the ethnic Tutsi population in eastern Congo.

Arafat Mugabo contributed reporting.

An earlier version of this article misstated the circumstances surrounding Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza’s presidential bid and her arrest. She was arrested before the election, not after. She did not lose the election; she was barred from taking part in it because of the arrest.

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Declan Walsh covers Africa for The Times from a base in Nairobi, Kenya. He previously reported from Cairo and Islamabad, Pakistan. More about Declan Walsh

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When a Eurovision song started a coup

Chris Keil on the significance of the Portuguese entry for the 1974 competition. Plus John Lovelock on Abba’s appeal

Alexis Petridis’s article ( Abba, cabaret and smug marionettes: the 1974 Eurovision song contest reviewed!, 5 April ) didn’t mention the only interesting aspect of the 1974 Eurovision song contest: the Portuguese entry. Paulo de Carvalho’s E Depois do Adeus was played on Lisbon radio on the night of 24 April 1974, and was the signal for the start of the revolution that ended 50 years of fascist dictatorship . Chris Keil Marloes, Pembrokeshire

Clive James’s TV review for the Observer on 14 April 1974 provides some balance to gushing tributes to Abba at Eurovision: “Representing Sweden were Abba, a two-girl and two-man outfit with a song called Waterloo. This was built on a T. Rex riff and delivered in a Pickettywitch style that pointed up the cretinous lyric with ruthless precision.” John Lovelock Bristol

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