← Back to Countries

Australia

Rural Victoria to Sub Pop

Cosmic Psychos

Cosmic Psychos came together in Melbourne in the early 1980s around bassist and singer Ross Knight, a cattle farmer from rural Victoria. They played loud, crude, beer-soaked punk, and some of their most devoted fans turned out to be in Seattle. They put out records on Sub Pop and Amphetamine Reptile, toured the US with Mudhoney and TAD, and made 1991's Blokes You Can Trust with Butch Vig during the same stretch he was producing Nevermind. A year later they shared the first-ever Big Day Out bill with Nirvana, who were reportedly fans. A 2013 documentary named after that album collected testimonials from Eddie Vedder, Mark Arm and Buzz Osborne. Knight, the last original member, still leads the band.

Sydney, 1980 — still going

The Church

Steve Kilbey, Marty Willson-Piper and Peter Koppes formed the Church in Sydney in 1980, and drummer Richard Ploog joined a year later. The sound rested on chiming, interlocking guitars and Kilbey's dreamlike lyrics. Their 1981 debut, Of Skins and Heart, started a run that peaked commercially with 1988's Starfish, which reached number eleven in Australia and went gold in the United States. They entered the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2010. More than four decades and two dozen albums later, Kilbey, the last original member, is still making records under the name.

Brisbane punk before London's

The Saints

Chris Bailey, Ed Kuepper and Ivor Hay started playing together in Brisbane in the early 1970s and were calling themselves the Saints by 1974. That put them ahead of nearly everyone. They were already releasing their own music in 1976, before the Damned or the Sex Pistols had put anything out, and praise from the British music press soon got them a deal with EMI. They moved to London in 1977 and fought with the label over being sold as generic punk. Kuepper left in 1979 to form the Laughing Clowns, and Bailey kept the Saints going for decades. The band entered the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2001. Bailey died in the Netherlands in 2022, at sixty-five.

They built their own venue

Radio Birdman

Radio Birdman formed in Sydney in 1974 around American expat Deniz Tek and singer Rob Younger. When most venues wouldn't book them, they built their own, the Funhouse at the Oxford Tavern. Their 1977 debut, Radios Appear, came out on their own Trafalgar label. Then Sire Records' Seymour Stein signed them and brought them to London, where they toured with the Flamin' Groovies, until Sire's money troubles cost them the deal and a planned US tour with the Ramones. The band split after a final show at Oxford University in June 1978. They have reunited on and off since a 1996 Big Day Out appearance, and entered the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2007.

Melbourne to London to Berlin

The Birthday Party

Nick Cave, Mick Harvey and Phill Calvert met as schoolboys in Melbourne and were playing as the Boys Next Door by 1977, with bassist Tracy Pew and guitarist Rowland S. Howard joining soon after. They became the Birthday Party when they moved to London in 1980, got championed by John Peel, and made two albums: 1981's Prayers on Fire and a harsher follow-up a year later. Then they moved on to West Berlin, and split in 1983 after a final show back in Melbourne. Cave and Harvey went on to form the Bad Seeds, while Harvey and Howard joined Simon Bonney's Crime & the City Solution, elsewhere on this page. Pew died in 1986, and Howard in 2009.

Crime & the City Solution's voice

Simon Bonney

Simon Bonney formed Crime & the City Solution in Sydney in 1977, moved it to Melbourne a year later, and watched it split by 1979. After moving to London in 1983, he rebuilt it in 1985 with the Birthday Party's Mick Harvey and Rowland S. Howard, and eventually based the band in West Berlin. Four albums followed between 1986 and 1990, and the band appeared on screen in Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire (1987). After it broke up in 1991, Bonney made two solo albums with an Americana tinge for Mute, Forever (1992) and Everyman (1995), stepped away from music for years, and then revived the band in Detroit for 2013's American Twilight.

Sunshine Coast punk, gone global

The Chats

Eamon Sandwith, Josh Price and Matt Boggis met in a high-school music class on Queensland's Sunshine Coast and started the Chats in 2016. What they play is short, snotty punk that could only be Australian. They went viral in 2017, picking up fans including Dave Grohl, Josh Homme, Iggy Pop and Alex Turner, and they release their records on their own Bargain Bin label. Their 2020 debut album, High Risk Behaviour, reached number five on the ARIA chart. The 2022 follow-up debuted at number two and won an ARIA Award. Josh Hardy has been on guitar since Price left in late 2020, and the band has since played festivals from Reading to Coachella.

The Collection