In 2014, despite fearing a backlash, Ne Obliviscaris launched a crowdfunding campaign that enabled them to finance a world tour – something no other band had achieved at the time. In 2023 Tim Charles and then-bandmate Marc ‘Xenoyr’ Campbell told Prog how it happened.
“There are plenty of people we know where we’re the most extreme band they listen to – but they got hooked by a section of a song that wasn’t metal,” Tim Charles says of his band Ne Obliviscaris. “Plus, you know, not all bands have a violinist.
“It’s intense in many different directions. It’s not quickly digested. If you listen to it once, you’re only going to get part of it. You’ve got to listen to it multiple times to appreciate everything that’s going on.”
“It’s music with beautiful extremes,” adds bandmate Marc ‘Xenoyr’ Campbell, who’s responsible for their harsh vocals and lyrics. Both he and clean vocalist/violinist agree their output is extreme progressive metal featuring elements of classical and even jazz.
The part-Australian, part-European band’s first decade were spent trying to establish themselves and lock down a line-up. It wasn’t until they released debut album Portal Of I in 2012 that things began to change – but even then, the members didn’t expect to be anything other than an underground band.
“I remember wondering how many people could really get into this progressive, extreme violin metal stuff,” Charles says. “Literally one week after Portal Of I came out, we were contacted by Season Of Mist, saying, ‘We want to offer you a record deal.’ We’d spent nine years trying to get anywhere and now we had a deal for three albums.”
He gives credit to the label’s international stature their next stage of development. “We were getting offers to do overseas tours when Citadel came out in 2014.” But they had no money to fund such adventures. That’s when they decided to do what no band had successfully done to date – they launched a crowdfunding campaign to fund their road trip.
It was set up with the intention of raising $40,000AUD (around £23,000 at the time) – and the goal was met within 38 hours of launch, and eventually brought in a total of $86,000AUD, allowing them to visit Asia, Europe, the UK and North America.
Ne Obliviscaris built on the experience by launching a Patreon account in 2016. Back then, using the platform to offer fans early access to music, tickets and exclusive merch was unusual. Their success was another first.
“We were the first band in the world to use that as a way of making a living,” Charles says, confirming they do well enough to pay each member a full-time wage, allowing them to focus on their music.
“We were expecting a bit of backlash for that,” Campbell admits, making the point that at no time is it mandatory for fans to contribute. “But if you care too much what people think, you’re never going to get anywhere.”
“Weirdly enough, it was the industry more so than the fans where the backlash came from,” Charles says. “With our fans the response was enormously positive. It’s been really pleasing and exciting to watch; with each record, more opportunities get offered to us. It’s been really gratifying after that first decade where we didn’t really get anywhere.”
Campell adds: “A lot of people that are new listeners to us only think that we’ve been around for 10 years because of that. They don’t realise we’d done 10 years of hard work before the first album.”
