It’s not every day two of the country’s most exciting heavy acts happen to share a name prefix and a spot on the BIGSOUND 2025 bill. So naturally, we had to lean into the chaos.
Naarm/Melbourne scene staples Bad/Love and Bad Juju have each carved out a distinct lane in Australia’s evolving alt-heavy ecosystem. The former are cinematic, unapologetically emotional, and loud in all the right places. The latter are gritty, aggressive, and flying the “grungecore” flag. Between them, they’ve got world-class live chops, mountains of new music on the horizon, and plenty to say about where the heavy genre is headed next.
Bad/Love – ‘Dead Weight’
Ahead of BIGSOUND 2025 and their upcoming turns at the Brisbane and Melbourne-straddling Converge Festival, Music Feeds handed both scene baddies the reins — no publicist interference, no media filter — and let them loose in a peer-on-peer showdown. Read their interview with each other down below.
BAD/LOVE ASK, BAD JUJU ANSWER:
Bad/Love: Bad Juju has taken quite a sonic turn since the Hidden Desire EP (2018). You have gone from a somewhat edgy pop punk/alt rock sound into now a dark and aggressive (I want to coin the term) “Grungecore” attitude with these new singles ‘Honey’ & ‘Incision’. Run me through what’s happening with this new direction for Bad Juju and what we can expect in the near future?
Bad Juju: Haha yeah Grungecore sounds pretty spot on! We started the band as a bunch of musicians who had only played in bands in the hardcore/metalcore genres and we wanted to broaden our horizons a bit. We focused on learning to write songs like the bands we grew up listening to. A lot of grunge, pop-punk and rock. As time went on we started enjoying the heavier sections of our songs more and more in our live shows. It felt like ‘us’, which makes sense because it’s like the band has grown up, just like we did and moved on to heavier music in our bands older age. We definitely feel like going back to our roots taught us a lot about song writing and now we are excited to continue with our grittier “grungecore” sound.
Bad/Love: Bad Juju has been around for 7 years now – what has been your personal and industry highlights?
Bad Juju: We recently played our biggest shows to date with French band LANDMVRKS. It was a great experience that we won’t forget any time soon.
Otherwise we have had some good luck along the way, such as being picked as a triple j Unearthed feature artist, getting played on AFL broadcasts, and some daytime radio play amongst performing alongside some of our favourite bands. We’ve met a lot of great people in the industry and look forward to meeting more at BIGSOUND!
Bad/Love: If Bad Juju could soundtrack a movie that already exists, what movie would you choose?
Bad Juju: Oh man, If we could get a couple of tracks on the old Queen of the Damned soundtrack we’d be pretty stoked haha. That soundtrack is GOATED. So many nu-metal legends on it.
Bad/Love: What other acts (besides Bad/Love of course) are you looking forward to seeing the most at BIGSOUND in 2025 and why?
Bad Juju: There’s so many good bands playing. Off the top of our heads, we are very keen to watch ‘Late 90’s, Sleepazoid, Nightlight, Homesick, Mannequin Death Squad….lots more. It’s gonna be great because there’s so many genres of music to check out. Keen to watch as many bands as possible!
Bad/Love: For any industry thinking about catching a Bad Juju set at BIGSOUND (which they should, you guys are AWESOME!), why should they make you a MUST SEE act?
Bad Juju: We certainly won’t be holding back on stage, so if you wanna feel some energy, and let loose a bit, you won’t wanna miss what we have coming for you BIGSOUND. We are just getting started with the new music we’ve been putting out, so if you wanna hear more, you know where to be.
Bad/Love: Bonus Q: BIGSOUND is known for opening new doors to help grow Australian artists careers on a global scale. What does the next few years look like for Bad Juju and what goals do you want to tick off the bucket list?
Bad Juju: Global sounds good haha. We definitely want to head overseas in the next few years. We’ve been writing a lotttt of music, so we won’t be slowing down any time soon. The more people we can meet that want to be a part of the journey the better, so we are excited to show everyone what we’ve got at BIGSOUND 2025!
BAD JUJU ASK, BAD/LOVE ANSWER:
Bad Juju: You guys just played a bucket list venue, the Forum, in Melbourne with Short Stack! It looked like you guys had a great time. Are you excited to bring that big stage experience to BIGSOUND?
Bad/Love: Playing The Forum was an absolute fever dream. It has been my personal goal to play at The Forum since I started playing music 16 years ago and to get to play to a SOLD OUT crowd was simply insane, Short Stack fans know how to have a good time! We write our music to translate the most in a live setting and we cannot wait to show that off at these BIGSOUND showcases.
Bad Juju: We saw a sneaky social media post containing a photo from a recording studio. What can we expect from new Bad/Love music?
Bad/Love: Well aren’t you quite the detective? We’ve been locking ourselves away this year working on our debut album. We’ve been creating the most authentic & best Bad/Love music to date that we are really proud of. Let’s just say we aren’t coming into BIGSOUND without something new for you all, keep your eyes peeled 😉
Bad Juju: What is Bad/Love hoping to get out of or learn from the BIGSOUND experience? Apart from partying with Bad Juju…
Bad/Love: I’ve had the pleasure of attending a few BIGSOUND’s before and LOVE THEM! The vibe is amazing, the talent is amazing, the people are amazing. Our plan is to expand our team and make more industry connections but we will be going in doe-eyed and ready to learn from all the incredible industry and other artists at the event. If a mimosa or 10 with our best boyfriends in Bad Juju jump out in front of us during that time, so be it.
Bad Juju: What is on Bad/Love’s dream backstage rider? The more ridiculous the better.
Bad/Love: Asking a former nightclub owner what he wants on his backstage rider is a dangerous question. 1x Bottle of Clase Azul Tequila (Best drink in the world), 10x Bottled Water (hand bottled by Samurai from melted snow from Mt Fuji, Japan), Private Chef Gordon Ramsay serving up party pies & sausage rolls, Vodka Redbulls (For the pre-show wings), Prosecco & last but certainly not least, Corn Chips and Salsa because let’s face it, they are yummy aren’t they?
Bad Juju: Finally, who are you guys most excited to see play at BIGSOUND?
Bad/Love: C’mon, that is too hard to limit to one artist! This is the BEST BIGSOUND lineup of alternative heavy music so go and see every single one of them because they are all amazing, but in our world I am most excited to catch Nightlight again. They are going to blow everyone the f88k away. Outside of our emo world, I am really excited to catch HEYZUKO!, BVT & Velvet Bloom – these artists are all such a damn vibe. But if you haven’t already, you should listen to the BIGSOUND Playlist HERE and you might just discover your next favourite artist…
Further Reading
Bigsound Announces Over 100 Bands And Artists For 2025 Conference
New Alt Festival ‘Converge’ Drops Killer Local Lineups for Melbourne & Brisbane
BIGSOUND Artist on Artist: Immy Owusu and Sonic Reducer
