HEAVY Music Interviews

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...

Every now and then, a band bursts out of the local circuit with the kind of sonic swagger that leaves your ears ringing and your jaw firmly pinned to the floor. If you haven’t crossed paths with Sydney ’s own theatrical rock powerhouse NECKO yet, you’re about to get a rude, blues-drenched awakening. Dubbed by some as the next torchbearers of massive arena rock, this formidable three-piece—featurin...

Every now and then, a band comes along that leaves a massive, unforgettable dent in the heavy music landscape right out of the gate. If you have been paying attention to the underground metal circuit lately, you already know that Stockholm’s very own heavy metal prodigies, Bloodstain, are exactly that band. Ever since they burst onto the scene and dropped their absolutely savage 2024 debut EP, I A...

Every now and then, a release comes across my desk that doesn't just demand a loud, unapologetic spin—it violently grabs you by the throat and forces you to confront the world outside your window. If you fancy yourself a follower of the Australian heavy music scene, you already know we are living through a massive golden era of home-grown talent. But right now, it's Vault Hill, a devastating four-...

Let’s be completely honest for a second: nineteen years is a bloody long time to keep a fanbase waiting. But when you are dealing with a band as musically meticulous and unyielding as Gothenburg’s finest, Evergrey, you know the payoff is going to be absolute perfection. After a brutal postponement earlier this year due to unpredictable airspace chaos, Tom S. Englund and his crew are firing on all...

There is nothing quite like the raw, unfiltered power of a band that breathes their entire soul into the music. It’s that exact, devastatingly beautiful energy that rising Texan metalcore heavyweights I Promised The World are bringing Down Under this month. For the very first time, the five-piece is packing their bags and hitting our shores for a massive nationwide tour alongside August Burns Red....

Interview by Angela Croudace Few musical trajectories in recent Australian heavy music history have matched the breakneck, neon-soaked velocity of Germany's electronicore powerhouses, Electric Callboy. What began as a wildly packed, early-afternoon curiosity slot at Good Things Festival 2022 has evolved into a full-blown love affair with the Southern Hemisphere. Aussie audiences quickly proved the...

Australia, stretch your necks and brace your ear drums, because the metal gods have smiled upon us once again. After nearly three long decades of waiting, industrial symphonic black metal royalty The Kovenant are finally crossing the equator to make their monumental Australian debut this September. Let that sink in for a second. Thirty years. For decades, Aussie metalheads have had to settle for s...

Interview by Angela Croudace Australia, strap yourselves in.  If you thought Sydney’s heavy hitters Polaris were done pushing the boundaries of the global metalcore landscape, you are dead wrong. These guys don’t just walk up to the line; they systematically tear it down and rebuild it with more grit, more venom, and more raw emotion than almost any other band on the planet today. They have consis...

Brisbane’s favorite rum-guzzling party pirates, Lagerstein, are back and ready to lay waste to your livers. After what feels like an eternity off the map, the boys have finally dusted off the S.S. Plunderberg to deliver the most aggressively fun spectacle in Australian heavy music. If you’ve ever been lucky enough to witness a Lagerstein show, you know it’s not just a concert. It is a full-blown,...

Synth-driven producer Perturbator is heading back to Australia next month, joining HEALTH's tour as support after the two acts crossed paths through mutual popularity in the region. In a new interview, the artist explained the tour was an easy yes: a chance to return to a country he already loves, paired with an invitation from friends whose Australian fanbase is thriving. It's not his first rodeo...

Interview by Ali Williams CRASH TEST DUMMIES have reached a particularly agreeable stage of their career. They can tour when they want, play songs that have already survived several decades of public consumption, slip some new material into the set without causing mass panic, and frontman Brad Roberts no longer feels obliged to work quite as hard as he once did. Catching up with HEAVY’s Ali Willia...

If there is one band that embodies the absolute, steel-plated spine of traditional heavy metal, it is Germany’s legendary sonic architects, Accept. For half a century, these heavy metal pioneers have been forging the blueprint for speed, power, and razor-sharp riffage, leaving a trail of broken necks and shattered eardrums in their wake. 2026 marks an unbelievable milestone for the band, celebrati...

Interview by Ali Williams Calling a band TEENS does leave you open to a few fairly obvious questions, particularly when nobody involved can reasonably blame puberty for their decision-making anymore. Thankfully, Tasmania’s TEENS are well aware of this.  The name has survived longer than originally anticipated, having been hacked down from the considerably more cumbersome Teens of Thailand lifted f...

Interview by Ali Williams Being a Perth band with East Coast ambitions requires several things: good songs, patience, a tolerant bank account and an acceptance that Australia is ludicrously large when you are paying to move musicians and their gear around it. GLOAM know this very well. Founding member Rowan Hardy sat down with HEAVY’S Ali Williams to chat about the bands beginnings and their progr...