Biography

The Belligerents are a five-piece psych/pop/electronic band originally hailing from Brisbane and based across the Northern and Eastern coasts of Australia. Spread across different cities and all busy with various other successful projects, The Belligerents hadn’t seen each other for almost two years – since their last show in 2018. It wasn’t until a chance meeting at a birthday party, which turned into a late night drunken D & M, that bassist Konstantin Kersting and frontman Lewis Stephenson decided to get the band back together Three years since their debut album, Science Fiction, and the results of that chance party encounter is the Emily EP, a collection of songs that extends beyond the psych-dance of their debut and into the realms of electronic music and UK acid house. The Belligerents’ debut successfully introduced the band – completed by drummer Samuel Sargent, guitarist James Griffin and synths/keyboard player Andy Balzat – to a legion of fans and landed them plum slots on festivals such as Beyond The Valley, Grow Your Own, Sugar Mountain Festival, Hey Sunshine and Bad Friday. But Stephenson says he’s captured his voice far more effectively this time around. “Lyrically a lot of the things I’m saying now resonate more with me. I feel like that’s something I’ve developed over time – getting better at saying things I’m thinking about and putting thoughts into words. I feel like I wasn’t really good at doing that on the first album.”