Band: Bully Squad
From: Sydney, Australia
Their formation story:
(Jesse, vocals): "After the pandemic and a few life things falling apart, I moved back to NSW. I'd made friends with Dylan (bass) and Benjamin (guitar) during that time due to our collective and deep love of music of all kinds. They hit me up to do a band with them. I initially didn't want to do it, I hadn't been in a band for roughly 10 years but I eventually came around to the idea.
"I think it may have been a knee jerk reaction to the amount of jangly guitar tone, reverb vocal hardcore bands that were saturating the scene at the time, not that there's anything wrong with that style, but we wanted to write and play heavy, ignorant hardcore, the stuff that was energetic, fun, and a little bit scary.
"After writing the demo, we found Hamish to drum for us and then after some discussion decided we had to have Rhys (guitar) as everyone decided he and I needed to be in a band together as were the same person essentially. During the same time, the guys were discussing with Brodie playing guitar as well. So we decided fuck it, why not have three guitarists, the more big boys on stage who are actually doing something and not standing behind the amps the better."
Their sound in their own words:
"Knuckle-dragging hardcore. We're not reinventing the wheel, we just wanted to play metallic stuff that's clearly paying homage to CTHC like Hatebreed, Death Threat, 100 Demons, whilst making the sound a bit modern. I think we managed to nail that pretty well.
"Music that people can mosh, stage dive, pile on and sing along to. They say the hardest moshers make the best music to dance to..."
Latest release info:
"Demonstration of Style is our first release. Call it a demo, call it an EP, we don't care, as long as people are enjoying it and listening to it how it's meant to be listened to: In the gym, hitting a PR/using it as the soundtrack to overcome and achieve something great in your life.
"Recorded/mixed/mastered by Benjamin, our guitarist at his studio The Burial Sound, design and layout by me, and photos provided by our dear friend Jack Rudder, who I'm sure most people are aware of by now for his amazing camera work with SPEED and a slew of other hardcore and metal bands. New Ethic Records liked it so much they wanted to help put it out for us. You can pick up merch and a cassette at their website."
Future plans:
"Push the release, play shows with all our friends in every city in Australia that we can manage, release a single or two as we write for a split 7-inch or two that we have in the works with some friend's bands."
What other bands from their region should we check out?
There is honestly way too many to name all of them but ill shout out some newer bands from friends from all over the country:
Jokes On You - Sydney hardcore that sounds like '80s Lower East Side NYHC
Hell On Earth - Our brother band, and solid All Out War-inspired metallic hardcore
Threshold - Our siblings from down in Melbourne, metallic hardcore
Algor Mortis - Beatdown/death/doom absolutely insane shit
Mud - Kinda Lockin' Out-style harccore from Brisbane
Mauler - Droppin' Many Suckers-era Madball from Newcastle
Downside - Older band now but just released one of the best Aus hardcore releases in years. Reminds me of Blacklisted
I could keep going, Australian HC is thriving right now.
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Hit the Bully Squad Linktree to find all of their social media pages.
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Tagged: bully squad
