HEAVY Music Interviews

There are few bands in the modern alternative rock landscape that can genuinely claim to have completely rewritten the rulebook, but Essex powerhouses Nothing But Thieves are definately one of them. From their explosive self-titled debut right through to the sprawling, neon-soaked conceptual masterpiece that was Dead Club City, these boys have consistently refused to play it safe. They have spent...

Interview by Ali Williams Sixteen years into a band, creative expansion can become a logistical problem. For PROTOMARTYR, the latest version apparently comes with horns, extra personnel and the growing realisation that every good studio idea eventually turns up on the tour budget demanding its own seat. The Detroit post-punk veterans are preparing to release their seventh studio album Hotel Usona...

The global punk rock landscape would look vastly different without the bruising anthems, razor-sharp sociopolitical fury, and unwavering grit of Chicago’s finest, Rise Against. For over two and a half decades, Tim McIlrath, Zach Blair, Joe Principe, and Brandon Barnes have acted as the sonic conscience of alternative music, throwing their weight behind causes that matter while sound-tracking the l...

After decades spent establishing himself as a formidable guitarist across bands including Vicious, Lizzy Borden and Metal Church, Ira Black is entering a new chapter — one where he is stepping behind the microphone and putting his own story at the centre of the music. Apocalypse marks a deeply personal evolution for Black, who began exploring his voice during the pandemic after turning his attenti...

Interview by Ali Williams Interview by Ali Williams Faroese artist Eivør is celebrating the impending release of her latest studio album, Tungl. For over two decades she has been considered one of Nordic music’s alluring treasures with her voice and also the range of her music, managing to captivate audiences worldwide. She is also midway through a European summer festival run, having recently pla...

Swedish metalcore visionaries Imminence are a band that refuse to be put in a box. Just when you think you have their signature blend of crushing riffs and symphonic grandeur figured out, they tear up the rulebook and build an entire universe in its place. Following the massive global breakthrough of their 2024 masterpiece The Black, the band has entered a bold new era by signing with heavy music...

If you’ve been paying any attention at all to the breeding ground of chaotic, beer-soaked, sweat-drenched rock and roll coming out of the Sydney and Central Coast underground over the last few years, then the name NFÏ should already be permanently tattooed onto your brain. These local punk rock lords have built a reputation as an absolute must-see live experience, tearing up local institutions lik...

La Dispute have always been a band that operates entirely on their own axis. For over two decades, the Grand Rapids, Michigan post-hardcore titans have bypassed traditional genre boundaries, instead crafting a visceral, emotionally exhausting world built on spoken-word poetry, jarring rhythms, and some of the most fiercely passionate storytelling ever committed to tape. They don't just play songs;...

When the news broke that progressive metal titans The Ocean had lost two-thirds of their lineup, the heavy music community as a whole held its collective breath. Longtime vocal powerhouse Loïc Rossetti, alongside Paul Seidel and David Ramis Åhfeldt, all stepped away. For lesser bands, a mass exodus like that is a definitive death knell. It’s the moment you pack up the gear, raise a glass to the me...

Interview by Ali Williams If organising an interstate show for your band meant first having to consult an aviation specialist, gather a road-condition report and possibly notify the Department of Defence, most would assume that you're either stuck in a fever dream and or that definitely be some A grade ganga you've gotten your grubby little mittens on. However this is standard band life for Northe...

Interview by Ali Williams NIGHTDIVE may be a relatively new band, but its members are hardly wandering into BIGSOUND armed with blind optimism and three rehearsals. Jack Robert and Mitch Clews have spent years working as session musicians, learning other people’s material, backing lead artists and making the whole operation sound considerably more competent. Now, alongside vocalist and guitarist S...

When you talk about the foundation of Australian heavy music, one name immediately commands respect.  Mortal Sin.  Emerging from Sydney in the mid-1980s, Mortal Sin became the undisputed pioneers of local thrash metal. Their 1987 debut album, Mayhemic Destruction, didn't just break the mould—it drew a definitive line in the sand, proving that Australian bands could match the speed, aggression, and...

Few bands can drag a generation by the heartstrings quite like pop-punk royalty Yellowcard. When they wrapped things up a decade ago, it felt like the final curtain on a sound that defined the sweaty, sun-drenched glory days of the Warped Tour era, but true rock and roll never stays buried for long. In a massive creative renaissance, the boys are officially back, and they aren’t just playing the n...

JD Fortune is returning to Australia this October, bringing a full band and a set packed with the songs that helped make INXS a defining force in Australian music. Following the sold-out response to his 2025 Australian tour, Fortune says it was the connection with Australian audiences that made returning an easy decision.“The love was insane,” Fortune tells HEAVY. “The energy for the music… there’...

Forget everything you know about the traditional, sanitized big-top circus, because a beautifully twisted, punk-infused counter-cultural storm is rolling through regional Australia. Straight from the beating heart of the underground party scene, Cirque Le Strange - the mind-bending brainchild of Oozing Future - is hitting the highway for its Regional Tour. This is not a show designed for the faint...

Melbourne-via-New Zealand heavy hitters Banks Arcade are a band completely devoid of boundaries, systematically smashing the modern metalcore blueprint to pieces and rebuilding it in their own chaotic image. Merging towering post-hardcore riffs with hip-hop swagger, electronic glitch-work, and raw, bleeding-heart lyricism, this four-piece has rapidly evolved into one of the most exciting and unpre...

Interview by Ali Williams Australia has been claiming a little piece of MUDHONEY for longer than most of the world had worked out exactly what to call them. The Seattle band first made it down here in 1990, possibly becoming the first of the emerging grunge contingent to do so. Speaking with HEAVY, guitarist Steve Turner still has a fairly simple correction for anyone getting too enthusiastic with...

When it comes to genre-bending, heavy music demolition, few bands have lit up the global landscape quite like central Pennsylvania's rap-rock juggernauts From Ashes To New.  They didn't just crack the door open for the modern nu-metal resurgence—they kicked it down, set it on fire, and built an empire from the remaining embers. Led by founding mastermind, producer, and co-vocalist Matt Brandyberry...

If there is one band that has spent the last forty years flipping a massive, middle-finger to the rules of conventional music, it is the absolute legends in Fishbone.  These boys didn’t just break the mold when they burst out of South Central Los Angeles back in 1979—they blew it to pieces, swept up the debris, and used it to build a completely new sonic monster. Fusing punk, ska, funk, metal, and...

Interview by Ali Williams There are easier ways to run a band than placing half of it in Melbourne and the other half in Finland. THE ETERNAL have apparently decided ease is overrated.  For guitarist/vocalist Mark Kelson, geography has become one of the least complicated parts of the equation. More than two decades into THE ETERNAL, he is preparing to release the band's eighth studio album, Obscur...

If your idea of a good time involves enough hairspray to deplete the ozone layer, leather pants tighter than a second skin, and hooks that could catch a great white shark, then brace yourselves, Australia. The glorious era of Sunset Strip debauchery and power-pop majesty is heading Down Under this November for the RU PRETTY ENUFF Australian Tour.  In what is shaping up to be one of the most unapol...

Interview by Ali Williams Some people describe themselves as busy and mean they answered three emails before lunch. Dave McCormack currently has CUSTARD shows, his freshly assembled David McCormack’s TRS80 project, recording, touring, assorted end-of-year plans and the small matter of being Bandit in one of Australia’s most successful television exports. McCormack caught up with HEAVY’S Ali Willia...

If you call yourself a fan of heavy music in this country and you haven’t heard of The Black Wreath and the current campaign to ensure its survival it’s time to pull your head out of the sand. Tucked away in Ciccone, Alice Springs - right in the dusty, unforgiving Dead Centre of Australia - this absolute powerhouse has spent the last 15 years acting as the beating, bleeding heart of the outback me...

If there is one undeniable truth in the brutal, beautiful world of heavy music, it is that complacency is a killer. The moment a band thinks they have the game entirely figured out is precisely when the universe steps in to deliver a ferocious reality check. Nobody understands this balancing act of chaos and raw artistic instinct quite like Melbourne hard-rock outfit Ion Sky. Just when they were p...

Alright, music lovers, strap yourselves in and clear some space on the floor because you’re going to need it! When it comes to the Australian heavy music scene, Brisbane has a legendary reputation for breeding some of the most fiercely uncompromising, sonically massive, and downright dangerous rock bands on the planet. But even in a city bursting at the seams with top-tier talent, few outfits have...