Sydney Band SPEED Takes Hardcore Global With a Flute

A Sydney hardcore band just proved that staying true to yourself can take you from 60-person basement shows to 13,000-seat arenas. SPEED's journey is rewriting what it means to make it big.

Five years ago, SPEED was playing to dozens of people in cramped community spaces. Last year, they became the first Australian hardcore act to perform at Coachella. This February, they wrapped a U.S. tour with Grammy-winning band Turnstile, playing to over 200,000 people total.

Lead vocalist Jem Siow never expected this scale. "It literally went overnight from 'How do we get people to shows?' to 'How do we make sure this doesn't become diluted?'" he tells reporters.

The band's breakout moment came from an unlikely source. One of their tracks features a flute solo, played by Siow himself, who taught flute for 14 years but kept it hidden from his hardcore community.

"The whole time I was wearing two masks," Siow says. "With this band, I was like, I'm going to do this with my friends and I'm going to be me."

That authenticity extends beyond music. SPEED maintains hardcore's traditional ethics even as they scale up: no racism, no homophobia, no transphobia, no bigotry, no misogyny. "Hardcore is definitely a left-leaning political ideology," Siow explains. "There's no compromise on these kinds of ethics."

The Ripple Effect

SPEED isn't just growing their own platform. They're using it to elevate voices that rarely get heard.

On their latest tour, they brought Thai band Whispers to Australia. For bands in cities like Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, or Jakarta, touring internationally means facing barriers that Australian acts rarely consider.

"Bands that can barely even speak English are now being moshed to by people from all over the world," Siow says. "For the first time, people are paying attention to hardcore all around the world."

As a second-generation Chinese-Malaysian Australian, Siow knows representation matters. "When you can see the image of yourself in someone else, you see a pathway," he says. "There are so many people who never get the chance to see their potential because they thought a door was closed to them."

The band's success proves you don't have to dilute your message to reach more people. SPEED kept their community values, added a flute, and watched the world come to them.