All My Friends Are in Bar Bands

Metallica. Slayer. Iron Maiden. Black Sabbath. AC/DC. These are just some of the many bands that Jacob has not played with. Still, don't get it twisted - this rock band is doing just fine for itself, with or without the support of Lars Ulrich. In what is unquestionably the most ridiculous episode of the podcast to date, we go four-on-one (and occasionally five-on-one) with the Wollongong/Newcastle...

It's been 15 years since Drowning Pool - primitively-heavy by design and southern by the grace of God - first let the bodies hit the proverbial floor. A myriad of changes have faced them and the world around them since then - the tragic loss of their original singer, the decline of their genre's movement - but the truth is that Drowning Pool have never gone anywhere. They've stuck to their guns de...

Let's get something straight - Melbourne's Clowns have been out terrorising unsuspecting victims in the dead of night long before any of these other posers. The Melbourne band are one of the country's most in-demand touring bands, having shared stages this year alone with previous guests The Bennies and The Sword as well as knocking headlining shows out of the park both her and abroad. Recorded wh...

Slap on your sunscreen and flash your laminate pass like you're in Wayne's World - this week, we're taking you backstage at one of the biggest festivals of the year, Yours & Owls' birthday bash in Wollongong. Across two days, we spoke to eight different acts about the highs and lows of their own gig experiences. Amy and Sarah from Stonefield, REMI, Rob Lind from The Sonics, Hayley and Sam from The...

You may know Tom Lyngcoln for his years of service at the helm of The Nation Blue, one of the most high-octane and zero-bullshit rock bands this country has perhaps ever seen. You may know him from Harmony, the heaven-and-hell garage-blues monstrosity that simultaneously inspires and terrifies. In more recent years, you may have also seen him fronting Pale Heads with mates from The Drones and Batp...

2016 has been a huge year for Brisbane's Cub Sport: They've released their long-awaited debut album This is Our Vice, played two huge shows with The 1975 and completed a totally sold-out national tour. It's a long way removed from when Tim Nelson originally recruited Zoe Davis, Sam Netterfield and Dan Puusaari to play music together - and although the group are still in their early twenties, their...

Back when the colour spectrum of Australian music held the likes of Purple Sneakers and Yves Klein Blue, Philadelphia Grand Jury - aka the Philly Jays - reigned supreme as one of the most exciting and energetic bands on the scene. It all imploded some years back, but serendipity and happenstance eventually drew the classic line-up of Simon "Berkfinger" Berckelman, Joel "MC Bad Genius" Beeson and D...

You can't keep Brad Fulton too far from a stage. The Melbourne native cut his teeth at the helm of a triple-pronged guitar attack in The Gun Runners before becoming a member of feminist hardcore renegades Outright. He's also subbed in as lead guitarist for Ceres, worshipped one of the dark lords of rock & roll with The Glenn Danzing Tapdanzig Extravadanzig and has most recently spent time as a sta...

Ipswich, Suffolk natives Basement are all about breaking down barriers. Across three studio albums, they've blended their love of second-wave emo, grunge, alternative rock and punk rock into some of the sharpest rock music to emerge from the UK in the 2010s. Then, there's also the literal aspect of things - at one of the band's shows, the surge of the crowd was so powerful that the crowd barrier c...

Austin and Casey Getz are one half of pop-punk hopefuls turned dream-pop delights Turnover. Born in New Orleans and now living in Virginia Beach, the Getz brothers have lived their lives through music together. In the half-decade and change that Turnover has been a part of their world, they've managed to live a hundred lives more than some bands twice their lifespan - taking in world tours, critic...

For awhile there, every man and his dog were in a two-piece band. Let the record show, however, that Brisbane-via-Sydney-via-Bundaberg's DZ Deathrays were making it cool before that shit was cool. Over nearly a decade on the scene, Shane Parsons and Simon Radley have rocked every fathomable stage there is both nationally and internationally - from house parties to stadiums; sell-out theatres to SX...

For most of his life, music was kept strictly behind closed doors for Tom Lanyon. These days, it's his life. As the lead singer, rhythm guitarist and chief lyricist of Melbourne upstarts Ceres, Lanyon has found a home on stage with three of his best mates; resulting in packed-out shows both as headliners in their native city and in support of artists like Violent Soho, The Hotelier and Against Me!...

Fear Like Us are a shining example of a Newcastle band: They're raw and passionate, the music is direct from the heart and they all now live in Melbourne. Although a band technically now for going on 12 years, it's taken the band a fair bit of their sweet-arse time to push beyond semi-activity. Before a ripper headlining show at Black Wire Records with friends of the show Run Squirrel, Canine and...

G'day from WA! Perth upstarts Tired Lion have been at it for only a couple of years, but in that time they've been able to grace stages nationally and pack out rooms with their sharp and shredding take on alt-rock. From touring with Spiderbait to opening Splendour, it's been a pretty huge run for the band between their first visit to Newtown Social Club last March, opening for Luca Brasi, and here...

Ever since Joel Martorana was a kid, he's had the music in him - he spent formative years singing in the choir and as part of an opera troupe. That was never going to be where he wound up, however - as the frontman for Endless Heights, he's channelled all of his passion and emotion into one of the most consistently-engaging and energetic live bands in Australia. It's lead them to shows with artist...

From the Cambridge Hotel to the Corner Hotel, Leroy Macqueen and Kat Friend - better known as The Gooch Palms - have laid waste to stage after stage with their stupidly-simple and seriously sensational take on garage rock. They have just completed a national tour in support of Violent Soho, playing some of their biggest shows to date; and this week saw them release their second studio album, Intro...

You might know him as the head of the Velociraptor. You might know him as the Sega Dreamboat. You might know him as the space cowboy, the gangster of love, Maurice, the joker or the southern dandy. You might just know him for bein' a plain old sweetheart of Australian independent music. However you've come across Brisbane's Jeremy Neale, he's made a lasting impression - and it's not hard to see wh...

More like Signals Mid-best! The adorable and charming Stern brothers - Max (Signals Midwest, The Skatastrophes) and Jake (Same, The Otis Wolves) - are in session this week. Having both gotten into guitar, piano and singing from an early age, the two share a history of high-school kick-arounds and DIY touring; all of which comes together on their emo-indie-folk project Meridian. On their final nigh...

Their union may have been one of pure circumstance and coincidence, but these days Modern Baseball are the four best friends that anyone could have. Over the course of three albums and just a few years, the band have become a mouthpiece for the awkward, the disenfranchised and the anxious through their motor-mouthed, anthemic pop-punk. In April, the band finally arrived in Australia after having t...

After a handful of false starts, Adelaide dad(elaide) Heath Anthony began forging his way as a solo artist in the early 2010s. Since then, he's racked up a bunch of shows around the country, made a bunch of friends for life and expressed himself in the only way he knows how - one voice, one guitar and zero bullshit. Before the final show on his national tour with Newcastle's Jack Lundie, Heath had...

From the indie haven of Dunedin, New Zealand comes Die! Die! Die!, a (literally) in-your-face post-punk outfit that have laid claim to some of the wildest and most high-energy shows throughout Australasia and beyond over the past decade and change. Put simply, if you don't leave a Die! Die! Die! show sweaty, torn and hoarse... you weren't at a Die! Die! Die! show. With 'new guy' Rory Attwell (Test...

Jeff Rosenstock lives and breathes DIY. He was formerly the lead singer of a band that anyone could be in, Bomb the Music Industry!, and you can download literally every piece of music he has ever worked on for free. The New York native and multi-instrumentalist has been at it since his teenage years, and shows no signs of slowing down following the release of one of 2015's best albums, We Cool? T...

Nicole Gaffney and James Stuteley are carb on carb, an Auckland indie/math-rock duo that have formed an inextricable bond with the DIY music community of Australia and, in true NZ fashion, are well on their way to being claimed as our own. From their young and hopeful days traversing through a myriad of genres, the twosome help explain the New Zealand music scene, their place in it and where they...

Don't let his youthful good looks fool you - Koby Geddes has played more punk rock shows in his life than you've had hot dinners. Currently, he is splitting his time between his new math-rock project Dividers and a reunited Bagster, the ska-punk act with whom Geddes first rose to both prominence and infamy in his teenage years. The guitarist, singer and songwriter met up for Sunday brunch in Glebe...

Yaaasss, queen! You might know him from his double-verified Twitter antics or his sweet Snapchat kisses, but Floridian singer-songwriter Chris Farren can do more than just make 'em laugh. Through his bands Fake Problems and Antarctigo Vespucci, as well as his own solo material, Farren has also broken hearts and raised fists; evolving from a back-of-the-van wunderkind into a front-and-centre showst...