Royally Twisted

“Everybody is hanging out, drinking smoking, the barbecue is going on. It's insane man, we're on tour with some bands that I've looked up to my entire life and I became friends with them even, and it's a completely surreal experience – I never expected it.”

It's not just punters that get giddy and a little star struck when their favourite band stands before them. Crown The Empire screamer David Escamilla is backstage at Vans Warped Tour, Scranton, Pennsylvania, barely containing his excitement about bonding with some of his heroes and peers.

“I've met a few guys from Story Of The Year – they're a huge inspiration and I've loved those guys for as long as I can remember. I've known Miss May I for a while, I've just met the Sleeping With Sirens guys and they're all really cool and we get along really well – I hope we do stuff with those guys in the future. It's just bands like that, bands we look up to.”

It's been that sort of surreal year for Escamilla, whose been trying to learn extremely fast while still taking in all the experiences during his first 12 months out the front of the Texan metalcore outfit. The fact that Crown The Empire will soon be debuting on Australian stages offers just another 'holy shit' moment for the vocalist.

“It's pretty crazy,” he beams. “None of us have ever been to Australia so we're extremely excited to see it; I mean, we don't even see it as another [touring thing], it's kinda a vacation for us too and it's going to be incredible, we're very excited.

“We've been told we have some sort of demand over there, and we're really lucky we got confirmed for Australian Warped Tour, it's incredible. I get tweeted all the time from Australia and [the fans] seem really excited, so I hope we can meet them out there, sing them some songs and shit. [But] I don't know what to expect over there, it's really a new thing.”

What we can expect from Crown The Empire, according to Escamilla, is a show heavy with tracks from their 2012 debut, The Fallout, along with a smattering of songs from original EP, Limitless. It's a set that's currently being broken in on the US Warped Tour and one that the band are getting a great reaction from.

“These crowds, we've gotten a better response from them than we could've expected,” he gushes. “These kids come out singing every day and I didn't expect this many at all, it's just been super fucking crazy for us. We've got big choruses, catchy verses, sweet guitar riffs; we try to appeal to as many people as possible, young and old, and I think that's worked out so far, I think we've got a good balance throughout our music.”

So for punters that are still undecided about coming out to the first Aussie Warped dates in a decade, Escamilla lays on his personal sales pitch, while repping one of our finest, of course. “It's a huge deal [this] tour, I mean, it's just going to be a whole [new] experience, and the bands that are on it, it's an incredible line-up, so I would kill to see that, and I know Parkway Drive goes well over there – I'm sure kids want to fucking see that,” he laughs. “The vocalist [Winston McCall] is a huge inspiration of mine; I've listened to Parkway Drive for years now, they're a great band – love those guys.”