Wagga band reaches finals of Wacken metal competition

Winning would give Artifact a once in a lifetime opportunity to play at the world-renowned Wacken Open Air in Germany, a pilgrimage for head bangers around the world.

Bassist Nathan French said it would be a life changing experience to play the esteemed stage.

"If you're one of the biggest bands in the world, you play Wacken. I've always looked at it as sort of the place you made it," he said.

"I haven't really processed the reality of playing there yet - I'm kind of just taking every show we've got between now and then in steps."

After playing shows up and down Australia's East coast, and supporting Australian legends Northlane, Artifact have one final gig to determine whether they'll be headed for Wacken themselves.

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While metal fans are often mocked for over categorising music into subgenres, Artifact like to keep things loose, drawing indiscriminately from any music that interests them, be it metalcore, orchestral, or pop-inspired violinist Lindsay Stirling.

Vocalist Rebecca Horseman said the key to their sound is open experimentation, "without attachment to outcome or genre".

Mr French agreed, adding song hooks can act as scaffolding to build an arrangement around.

"It often starts off with a riff, then we get an idea of what it could sound like and build around that," Mr French said.

While heavy metal was one of the catalysts for the so-called satanic panic in the 1980s and 90s, as metalheads have aged concern about the genre's impact on children has faded.

"It literally is a bunch of nerds channelling their energy into something healthy," Ms Horseman said.

"You could take a country song, and emo song and a metal song, and put the lyrics down and swap the genres so much of the time - the same messages."

Members of Artifact view metal as more of a place for community building, and sharing passions with like minded people.

"Every show we've played we've met, we keep meeting new people that just want to say nice things, have friendly chats ... everyone's way too friendly to assume it's an aggressive crowd," drummer Harvey Saxton said.

At the competition final next month, Artifact will go head to head with six other bands from around the country.

They are feeling good about their odds, which Mr Saxton joked was "at least a one in seven chance", and his bandmates are confident.

"I haven't looked at the other bands yet, but I think objectively, we're pretty good," Ms Horseman said.

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