His mother Anne said he would mimic AC/DC and their famous guitarist Angus Young and that influence can be heard in Airbourne's music.

"One of the things Joel did at the annual school swimming sports at the pool was take his red electric guitar and played AC/DC along the wire fence - he was doing Angus and carrying on," she said.

His uncle-in-law, Felix Meagher, also recalled Young's influence.

"Joel was displaying tendencies of Angus Young at high school when he was playing guitar," Mr Meagher said. "Irish music also had a bit of an early influence on him."

Brothers Joel and Ryan O'Keeffe formed Airbourne in the early 2000s alongside fellow Warrnambool musicians Justin Street and David Roads, who has since left the band.

Joel spoke to The Standard from Toronto in Canada where the band is in the midst of a world tour which takes in North and Latin America, Europe and the United Kingdom. They will return to Australia in October as support act for glam rockers Steel Panther.

He said the brothers played music from a young age. He took up guitar aged 11 and Ryan, who is almost four years younger, played drums at the same age.

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While the pair were pupils at St Pius X Primary School, Joel undertook guitar lessons with Russell Moody from another iconic Warrnambool band The Motorvators, who lived across the road from the school.

"It was the best thing ever just sitting in his back room and learning guitar just one-on-one," Joel said. "He's teaching about this electric guitar and everything it's about. I'm just learning basic things where it's a song like (AC/DCs) TNT and being able to do it and him showing you how it's done.

"You would write it down in grey lead pencil on your little book. If I had school homework or something like that, I just never did it but with guitar it was different.

"I was too small and no good at footy so that was never going to be a thing. Being from Warrnambool it's either you're playing footy or you're not."

He said "making noise" with Ryan from a young age was fun and addictive. "It felt like when we went to school that we didn't fit in," he said.

Joel said at the time Warrnambool was conservative which urged them to play rock and roll loud.

"People like to whinge on how loud you're playing," he said.

One of his memories while studying at Emmanuel College was being allowed to practice music in the art room. "They gave me a master key and one lunch time I unlocked the gymnasium and let everyone in," he said.

"Some of the students were out the back smoking ciggies in the dunnies.

"We stacked up a couple of altars on the stage the priest would use and climbed on top of them to see who could do the most flips off the thing on to the high jump mat."

They were caught by one of the teachers and the master key was taken off him.

In 2006 Airbourne played to 200 people at Warrnambool's Criterion Hotel - a far cry from the more than 100,000 they play to at shows around the world now.

"We were all really nervous and excited and all those kind of things," Joel said. "I just remember thinking that I couldn't believe all these people were coming to the show to come and see us play.

"It might've only been 200 but we hadn't had a crowd like that before, or if we had, the value wasn't a quantifiable thing. This was our biggest show ever, it may as well have been 100,000 people in there."

He said when they hit the stage they couldn't stop. "I remember we ripped right through the crowd," Joel said. "It felt like we were a hurricane or a cyclone or something that just blew right in. The crowd were nuts.

"There was a dude hanging off the rafters and he was naked and he was hanging upside down ... and everyone's throwing beers at him and high-fiving his bum."

"It was the first time we'd ever seen that sort of thing. It was classic Warrnambool too where everyone has a few pre-drinks and then they get really amped up and get in there.

"It just felt like this is what we're meant to be doing. We're going to take this to the world.

"We're going to take Warrnambool rock and roll and Australian rock and roll and all of those things of whether we didn't fit into school, the police coming around to say 'guys, you need to turn it down' or the neighbours are whinging again.

"If we weren't from Warrnambool, I don't think we'd be the same band we are. The things that were against us drew us to it more - being from Warrnambool it was a badge of honour."

The pub, which later was demolished after a fire, also holds a special place in his heart as a space they used to write music.

Joel said when they performed overseas they felt the need to "go hard or go home because Australia is a long way away'. "It's the same as playing at the Cri or 100,000 people at Hellfest (a music festival in France) - everything you've got you give it on the day," he said.

"The crowds and how they react to the music, if they walk away and they don't like (it)... but if they scream and take off their clothes and hang off the roof you know you're doing something right."

Joel said playing with his late father Dennis influenced him to pursue a career in music. The pair played as a duo called Father and Son which included performances at Koroit Irish Festival and Port Fairy Folk Festival.

He said Dennis guided the boys with their music at a younger age and into the early years of their careers. "Playing with dad at those pubs and festivals taught us so much," he said.

"He was such a great singer, the way he would command the room when he played, it rubbed onto us and gave us a start to go out to crowds and play. What that instilled in us, if we didn't do that we wouldn't be the band we are today."

Joel said during the COVID-19 lockdowns he and Ryan spent their downtime in Australia.

When their latest tour ends, Airbourne will work on new music in Australia and hopefully return to Warrnambool to perform.

Airbourne have toured with the likes of The Rolling Stones, Metallica and Iron Maiden but Warrnambool will always be Joel's favourite place to perform. "There's no better place to play than at home," Joel said.

Waiting for their return will be mum Anne. When they were teenagers, she insisted they had to complete school first before moving to Melbourne to pursue their music.

Joel, 21, completed a hospitality degree at South West TAFE then onto a business degree at Deakin University while waiting for his then 17-year-old brother Ryan to finish school. The pair also worked at Hotel Warrnambool for three years.

"They moved to Melbourne and played for slabs of beer when they started off," Anne recalled. "It is a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll and they worked hard and played hard and still do."

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