Last year’s Psyched As Forever festival looked so damned good to me that it induced months of serious FOMO. There was no way I was going to miss out on the 2025 event, especially after the rip snorting line-up was announced. I knew immediately that a trip down to Sydney’s Portugal Community Club on Saturday, January 25th, 2025 was in order.
The crew behind Psyched As Forever organised the event to celebrate the life and legacy of Richard ‘Millsy’ Mills, co-founder of Psyched As and community guru in the industry. This year a portion of ticket sales will be donated to Bula Bula Arts Centre in Ramingining, N.T where Millsy devoted much of his passion for life and the arts.
I managed to do those hummingbird speed quickfire interviews that OnlyBands are famous for in-between sets and across two stages to the backdrop of buzzing tattoo guns, pumping DJ booths, food trucks, and other festivities. Due to time constraints, most but not all bands on the lineup were interviewed and we did four quickfire questions instead of five. With nine artists interviewed, we’ll be doing three for three over the coming weeks. For this first article, we have O.M.R, Antenna, and Full Flower Moon Band, so sit back, compare answers, and have a chuckle.
O.M.R
O.M.R is the equivalent of finding a fifty-dollar note in an old jacket pocket, comfort and surprise in one. They were the first band off the rank, and set the psych-punk pace burning with tracks like: Taxi Driver, Unsee/Forget, Lights, Heart Attack, Gone is the Future, and Rough Trader. It sounded like Dr. Sure hatched a King Gizzard egg in the heart of Marrickville! O.M.R are something I am begging to see perform in Brisbane. Their lead guitarist and vocalist Jeremey greeted me upon arrival and we jumped straight in:
1. Who are you Psyched As to see on this incredible line-up today?
Jeremy: Hi, I am Jeremy from O.M.R and I am Psyched As to see the Gooch Palms!
2. As the Hottest 100 is being drawn today, which Australian artist would you advise readers to keep a close eye on in 2025?
Jeremy: Oh my God, I have not been keeping up with Triple J at the moment.
OB: Oh no! Artists from anywhere… the Triple J Hottest 100’s relationship with Australian artists is dreadful.
Jeremy: Oh, like what’s hot in 2025? The Vovo’s… The Vovo’s from Melbourne.
OB: The Vovo’s huh? Are you from Melbourne?
Jeremy: Nup, we visit there a fair bit. But it’s a bit expensive to tour there at the moment. But check The Vovos. They are brilliant.
3. What’s big in 2025 for your band?
Jeremy: Well, Psyched As is a pretty good start! We are thinking about touring Europe at the end of the year as well. That’s the long or rather short-term goal at the end of the year.
4. To keep the healthy NSW vs QLD rivalry in check, if you had to choose between Sydney rock oysters and Resches or Moreton Bay Bugs and XXXX, where do you stand?
(If we weren’t drinking the Grifter Brewing Co. Psyched As Pilsner today – now pouring at venues around Sydney’s Inner West).
Jeremy: Wo ho ho! I’d go the Moreton Bay bugs, I’ve never tried one before, and XXXX is alright yeah. I’m keen to try a Moreton Bay bug, my granddad loves them.
OB: Thanks Jeremy, and looking forward to the set.
Note: After seeing the O.M.R set, I have continued to beg them to tour QLD!
Antenna
I was incredibly fortunate to attend the sold-out Antenna show at the Beardo last month. The venue was reluctantly having to turn desperate punters away by the dozens, due to the cult following for Shogun’s art. It was one of the most joyous gigs I’ve ever attended. Today’s performance did not deviate from that emotional high mark, and formed a large part of why I travelled to Sydney for the festival today.
Shogun is a veteran of the scene, pouring rivers of rawness into Antenna’s self-titled EP. It will delight the hardest punk, and fascinate the sweetest of souls. It pulls no punches in sentimentality nor rests between song that you may doubt can excel each other, yet they do. The tracks form crafted chapters of a perfectly paced modern masterpiece. With Cubes, Antenna State, Lost, English three… you just have to get it into your soul.
Shogun: G’day everyone, I’m Shogun. Singer of Antenna, Royal Headache, guitarist in Finnegan’s Wake, Nintendo Police, and about a million other bands since I was fourteen years old, some better than others…
1. Who are you Psyched As to see on this incredible line-up today?
Shogun: Can I be honest? I haven’t really had much of a chance to get across it because we’ve been playing, and we were in Melbourne last week. But it’s a contemporary indie vibe today I guess, not so much my thing. I’m into old school punk, hardcore and hip hop and stuff. But there is this band here from New Zealand actually, called Dick Move, and they are pretty cool. I like Kiwi music, there’s something in the water there, it’s good stuff.
OB: Oh yeah. Like Dartz, a good Kiwi punk band. They played the Beardo before you, I think.
Shogun: What, the same gig?… Oh, before ok. I don’t know that band. I spend a lot of time listening to old death metal and stuff, maybe I should spend some more time being acquainted with what’s going on these days.
2. As the Hottest 100 is being drawn today, which Australian artist would you advise readers to keep a close eye on in 2025?
Shogun: I don’t know, this year? Australian bands… I like stuff like Gaoled from Perth, that’s incredibly brutal stuff, I don’t think that’s going to be on the radio. Because their music is aggressive and violent.
OB: But they are ones to watch on the hardcore scene?
Shogun: Oh yeah, yeah! They are killing it, and are awesome. Go check out Gaoled from Perth. With a G-A-O-L-E-D, the Australian spelling of jailed/gaoled. Yeah, I’m mostly watching hardcore shows at the moment. There is a band called Threshold from Melbourne; a fucking dope female fronted hardcore band that’s awesome! It has elements of Integrity, Madball, the old school stuff I really like. Go check them out. Threshold are cool.
3. What’s big in 2025 for your band?
Shogun: Well, we are trying to not play too many gigs, that was the intention. But I’ve already broken that resolution, the gig book is filling up really fast. And I think I’m playing every weekend with either Finnegan’s Wake, or Antenna until, like the end of March or mid-March. So, I think after that we’ve got to say enough you know. Like it’s lovely being offered shows, I’m stoked about it. But we’ve got to finish our record, and resume human form. Working full-time and playing gigs every weekend… you know it’s taking years off my life. Probably the worst years though, I don’t want them anyway!
4. To keep the healthy NSW vs QLD rivalry in check, if you had to choose between Sydney rock oysters and Resches or Moreton Bay bugs and XXXX, where do you stand?
Shogun: Probably go with the first one, I like Resches, and I like oysters. Yeah, I’ll go number one. I don’t think I’ll go XXXX, and I don’t like mid-strength beer. Resches is lovely. But sometimes it makes my brain feel like Vegemite if I drink it on an empty stomach.
Full Flower Moon Band
I saw one-hundred and twenty-two gigs in 2024 and my number one pick was easily the Full Flower Moon Band album launch at The Triffid. That famous gig had a tidal wave of crowd surfers from the barrier to the sound desk, that no one saw coming, allegedly it was only bested by their Princess Theatre show a few months later. You haven’t lived in Brisbane until you see a Full Flower Moon Band show. We’ve interviewed them previously but we love this band so much that their guitar slinging, lyric smith frontwoman Kate ‘Baby Shakes’ Dillon jumped on again to do a quickfire!
1. Who are you Psyched As to see on this incredible line-up today?
Kate: Oh man! I just saw O. M. R, and I’ve only ever seen them on Instagram. I knew they were good, but I was really, really happy with their live show. Really intimate… A three-piece too! I took a photo of his pedalboard, low key! Ha-ha-ha!
OB: Yeah, I’m hoping to see them in Brisbane real soon, they want to come up and play there they said. I did tell them FFMB was pretty impressed with them, so watch your e-mails!
Kate: Ha-ha yeah!
2. As the Hottest 100 is being drawn today, which Australian artist would you advise readers to keep a close eye on in 2025?
Kate: I’m notoriously bad at remembering band names! But I’ll give you one, I just booked them actually… let me just find it for you really quick… (checking phone) This is how bad I am at remembering band names, I have to look at my own band’s gig poster!
OB: I am hopeless at remembering song names.
Kate: Wait, I think I’m going to keep it Sydney vibes, so I’ve got one for you. I’d say Finlay Ross. They hit us up to play a show, and we are going to play a show together in Newcastle, we will announce on Monday. Yeah!
3. What’s big in 2025 for your band?
Kate: Well, there’s a few NDA’s that I’m not allowed to talk about yet ha-ha-ha! But basically, Full Flower is expanding on what we’ve done. We are going back into the studio, so I think that’s pretty good. We are really taking the path of quantity, and as an artist with how well Megaflower did, I am really keen to, I guess, keep running and not rest on our laurels…
OB: That’s really positive stuff Kate.
Kate: Yeah, because sometimes it can be spooky to be like “OK on to the next thing!” but, what else are we going to do right? I want to give our fans like as much as we can, take it or leave it.
OB: That’s pretty much what Shogun (Antenna) just told me, and he is a veteran of the industry. He was saying: “Bands don’t forget to keep writing, not just focusing on social media content and sitting back, it’s all about keep writing, writing, writing, keep creating all the time.”
Kate: Exactly that is great advice. And that’s totally the mistake I had after Diesel Forever came out. We had a two-year gap between albums, because we were so busy touring, and I hadn’t quite developed that muscle of still writing songs in my down time. I had these little ideas, but it did take me a minute to get back into that space. Whereas this time around, I haven’t left that space, and I’m still in a producing head space.
4. To keep the healthy NSW vs QLD rivalry in check, if you had to choose between Sydney rock oysters and Resches or Moreton Bay bugs and XXXX, where do you stand?
Kate: Wait, what am I doing with that? Ha-ha!
OB: Oh, you have to choose either one.
Kate: I am definitely going Moreton Bay Bugs and XXXX Gold. Not a big seafood fan overall, but I think XXXX would be the best thing to wash it down with!
OB: That’s it!
Kate: Thank you, and I’m so glad that you are here, it is going to be such a fun day!
It was an epic day, it filled me with pride to see to see one of my favourite hometown acts being adored interstate, so much so that I had to get a little FFMB tattoo to celebrate!
A big thanks to Joel McDonald of Yeah Rad (@yeahrad) and The Underground Stage (@theundergroundstage) for all the amazing shots in this article!
Stay tuned for parts two and three!
