There are album titles that simply sound good, and then there are album titles that carry considerably more weight once you understand the person standing behind them.
For Melbourne hard rock outfit Ion Sky, Before We Die falls firmly into the latter category. The band’s forthcoming debut full-length is currently set to arrive in 2027, with the bruising new single “The Dirt Will Humble You” offering the first real glimpse into its world.
On the surface, it is a massive hard rock track driven by a relentless riff, huge hooks and enough weight to leave a mark. Dig underneath it, though, and there is considerably more going on: greed, ego, power, mortality, exploitation and the simple reality that no matter how much money, influence or perceived importance somebody collects during their life, eventually the dirt does exactly what the title promises.
For vocalist and songwriter Mike Joseph, that idea is far from abstract.
Long before Ion Sky emerged in 2022, Mike had already experienced just how suddenly life can change.
When I caught up with him for Crannk, we started where I love starting these conversations: right back at the beginning.
MUSIC BEFORE EVERYTHING ELSE
Mike’s earliest memories aren’t of discovering some obscure metal record hidden away in an older sibling’s collection. They’re of his mum playing everything from The Eagles and Rod Stewart to Michael Jackson, and of family dinner dances where somebody would inevitably wonder where the young Mike had disappeared to, only to find him planted directly in front of whatever band happened to be playing.
Music was pulling him towards the stage before he really understood why.
It was later, with the arrival of Nirvana’s Nevermind, that rock properly punched its way through.
“That Nevermind album was probably the start of my rock into heavy kind of genre loving,” Mike explains.
By then, drums had already become part of his identity. He started young, moved into garage bands through his teens and found himself swept up in the alternative and grunge explosion that defined so much of the 1990s.
Then, at 21 years old, everything changed.
THE CRASH THAT RESET EVERYTHING
Mike was involved in a major car accident that left him on life support for two weeks. He was placed in a coma, the right side of his body was badly injured, and when he eventually woke, rehabilitation became both physical and mental.
Suddenly, the young drummer who had spent years building his life around music was sitting in a wheelchair trying to figure out who he was and where he went next.
Music became part of the answer.
While undergoing rehabilitation, Mike had drumsticks brought in from home. He couldn’t properly use his legs and his right arm was badly damaged, but his left arm still worked, so he started playing.
“Drumming was like a catalyst for me, but it was also my saving grace,” he tells me.
That statement isn’t rock-and-roll romanticism. Mike credits music with becoming a genuine part of his rehabilitation after an accident that forced him to rebuild sections of his life from scratch.
One moment in particular became a target. While still in rehabilitation and using a wheelchair, Mike was taken out to see Velvet Revolver live. Watching Slash and company from that chair planted something firmly in his mind.
“I’m getting out of this wheelchair and I am going to get on that fucking stage.”
The years that followed involved rebuilding his physical health, dealing with the mental aftermath and learning what kind of musician he could now become. Even his drumming changed. Where Mike describes his pre-accident playing as more flamboyant and technical, afterwards he developed into a more direct player: solid, hard-hitting and focused on locking everything down.
He also had another weapon.
He could sing.
FROM THE BACK OF THE STAGE TO THE FRONT
Mike had undergone vocal training earlier in life, something that made him especially useful in the bands he joined after his recovery. A drummer who can hold down the rhythm section and deliver strong backing vocals is always going to find work, and Mike did exactly that.
Cover bands became original projects. Original projects turned into touring and session work. He kept writing behind the scenes while continuing to drum and sing, but eventually sitting behind the kit wasn’t enough.
During one particular band, Mike found himself repeatedly covering vocal parts that the frontman was struggling to hit. That internal voice started getting louder.
Why wasn’t he up there singing them?
“I was just like, ‘I want to be out there,’” he remembers.
The transition didn’t happen overnight. One particularly interesting chapter came around 2015–16 when Mike was writing and drumming with G Flip, long before their career exploded internationally.
When that working relationship ended, Mike found himself back at another crossroads. Rather than stopping him, it pushed him further towards becoming the artist at the front of the stage.
He began releasing solo material and put together session musicians to test those songs live. It worked, but something was still missing.
Mike didn’t simply want musicians playing his material.
He wanted a band.
Enter guitarist Mark Savoia.
Mark reached out about writing together and initially came into Mike’s solo project. It didn’t take long before Mike realised they should build something new instead.
That something became Ion Sky.
THE MUSIC THAT BUILT MIKE JOSEPH
Ask Mike about his musical influences and you don’t immediately get the predictable list of hard rock and metal heavyweights.
The first name out is John Farnham.
For an Australian vocalist of Mike’s generation, perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising. Farnham’s combination of technical control and sheer vocal power became a benchmark during Mike’s own training.
“He just had this balls,” Mike laughs, praising both Farnham’s technique and the sheer force behind that unmistakable voice.
Then comes Michael Jackson.
Mike saw Jackson’s HIStory tour in 1996, and what stuck with him wasn’t simply the songs. It was presence: the ability to stand on a stage, barely move or say anything, and still completely own an enormous crowd.
For somebody who would eventually have to learn how to move from drummer to frontman, that lesson mattered.
The Eagles supplied another piece of the puzzle through harmonies, musicianship and the ability to somehow create magic together onstage despite the famously difficult relationships behind the curtain.
Put those influences together and Ion Sky suddenly makes a lot of sense: power, melody, harmony and stage presence, all underpinned by the instincts of somebody who still thinks like a drummer.
“THE DIRT WILL HUMBLE YOU”
Ion Sky had already been building Before We Die when another song suddenly forced its way into the conversation.
Mike wasn’t sitting down attempting to manufacture the album’s next single. The words simply appeared:
The dirt will humble you.
“That literally came into my brain,” he says.
The phrase immediately connected with something Mike had been observing around him: people with money, authority or influence treating others as if they were somehow worth less.
The fundamental message became brutally simple. It does not matter how rich you are, how famous you are or how much power you’ve accumulated. Eventually, everybody goes to the same place.
Or, as Mike summarises it considerably more efficiently:
“Don’t be a dick.”
The music arrived just as instinctively. Mike doesn’t necessarily hear riffs as guitar parts first. He hears melodies and rhythms, so he grabbed his phone and recorded what was in his head, including the electronic pulse he imagined running through the track.
He took the idea to Ion Sky guitarist and producer Jake James, who somehow translated what Mike was hearing into the sound sitting inside his head.
From there, Mike’s drumming background kicked in again. He developed the beat, the pieces locked together, and once the rest of Ion Sky heard the demo, the supposedly finished album suddenly had another contender.
The song had forced its way in.
“MY SWEAT IS NOT YOUR SLAVE”
Reading the lyrics away from the music makes their anger even clearer. There are people taking until nothing remains, people looking down from positions of authority and people assuming that somebody else’s labour exists purely for their benefit.
One particular line jumped out during my preparation for the interview:
“My sweat is not your slave.”
Mike sees that behaviour starting at the everyday level: a workplace, a manager, somebody with a small amount of authority deciding it gives them permission to treat another person like shit.
“You don’t know what they’re going through,” he says. “You don’t know who they are. You don’t know their background.”
His own approach is deliberately the opposite. Give people something first. Treat them with kindness. Assume there is a story behind the person standing in front of you that you know absolutely nothing about.
“All people need, man, people just need love.”
And for the people who choose greed and power instead?
The dirt is waiting for them too.
The conversation eventually arrived at a uniquely Australian distillation of the entire philosophy:
Be a good cunt. Don’t be a shit cunt.
Hard to argue with that.
BEFORE WE DIE
Once you know Mike’s history, the title Before We Die stops sounding like something chosen simply because it looks good across an album cover.
The members of Ion Sky landed on the name surprisingly quickly. Five musicians reaching agreement on anything can apparently be difficult enough, let alone something as important as naming a debut album, but Before We Die felt right almost immediately.
“What if it was the last thing that we did before we fucking die?” Mike asks.
Nobody knows what sits around the corner, and Mike knows that better than most.
The record consequently deals heavily with death, but he is quick to make clear that it isn’t simply an album wallowing in darkness. There is anger, there are moments aimed directly at death, and there are plenty of “fuck you” moments, but there is also resistance, rising above and refusing to stay down.
There is light and shade.
“The Dirt Will Humble You” might hit with both fists, but it isn’t necessarily a complete representation of everything waiting on Before We Die. Mike hints at a broader record with different dynamics and textures still to be revealed.
If this first single is the opening punch, Ion Sky clearly have plenty left hidden behind their back.
STEPPING OUTSIDE ION SKY
That willingness to move beyond obvious expectations has already appeared elsewhere.
Ion Sky’s collaboration with Black Shades & Arrogance, “Twist Ya,” pulled the band into rap-rock territory. The relationship goes back further than Ion Sky itself, with Mike having previously collaborated with Black Shades & Arrogance on “Lucidity” during his solo period after knowing Mike from the group since school.
Once Ion Sky began gaining momentum, Mark’s own love of rap-rock made another collaboration an obvious experiment.
Not everybody immediately saw the need to step away from album work for it, but Mike remains glad they did. The real proof came onstage when the band performed “Twist Ya” at Melbourne’s Northcote Social Club and the thing went off.
Apparently it also has approval from an even tougher demographic.
Mike’s six-year-old niece regularly demands it.
That’s probably about as honest a review as any band is going to get.
BEFORE THE DIRT
Ion Sky may still be early in their story, but Mike Joseph certainly isn’t.
There is a straight line connecting the toddler disappearing from family gatherings to stand in front of bands, the teenager behind the drum kit, the 21-year-old relearning what his body could do after a devastating crash, the drummer slowly realising he wanted the microphone, the solo artist searching for something more, and the frontman now preparing to release Ion Sky’s first full-length record.
That history gives Before We Die a weight that no marketing campaign could manufacture.
Mike has already experienced what it feels like to have the future suddenly become uncertain, so when Ion Sky write about mortality, pushing back, refusing to be treated as disposable and using whatever time we have while it’s still ours, it comes from somewhere real.
“The Dirt Will Humble You” is angry, heavy and catchy as fuck, but underneath all of it sits an incredibly simple message: none of us are above anybody else. We bleed the same, we breathe the same air, and eventually, whatever we’ve accumulated and whatever importance we’ve assigned ourselves, the dirt gets the final word.
Ion Sky’s “The Dirt Will Humble You” is out now, with the band’s debut full-length Before We Die currently expected in 2027.
And judging by Mike Joseph’s promise before signing off our conversation, Ion Sky aren’t planning on going quietly.
“Before We Die will be fucking out next year, and I promise you it will rock.”
ION SKY LINKS:
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