Go hard or go home: King Parrot to uncage their fiercest record yet at Amplifier Bar
Melbourne heavy metal act King Parrot have announced a fresh round of tour dates for Part 2 of their Australian album launch tour in support of their new record, A Young Person’s Guide to King Parrot—including a Perth stop at Amplifier Bar on Friday, November 21—with tickets on sale now. It caps off a massive year for the band, who have torn through 36 shows across Europe, headlined their own east coast tour, and are currently blitzing North America with a 43-date run after being personally invited by Pantera to return to the US as support. BRAYDEN EDWARDS caught up with King Parrot to talk about the new album and what fans can expect when the chaos hits the stage.
Congrats on the release of your new album, A Young Person’s Guide to King Parrot! For the uninitiated, what’s the first rule of the King Parrot club?
The first rule of the King Parrot club has gotta be “Go Hard or Go Home.” We’re pretty well renowned for our chaotic live shows and off-kilter stage presence, so if you come see us play, you can expect a crazy, wild, and extreme show with lots of stage diving, crowd surfing, and people generally losing their shit. We tend to walk a fine line between aggressive extreme metal and humour, and we’ve been pulling it off for almost 15 years now, so I guess we’ve got it down to a fine art.
You’re, of course, returning to Australia for Part 2 of the album tour, which hits Perth’s Amplifier Bar this time around. Why was it important to you to play the towns and cities lined up for this second leg?
When we did the first leg, we only managed to do shows on the east coast, so we wanted the opportunity to come back and do the rest of the country after our massive US tour. We planned to do two parts initially, as we like to hit a lot of regional spots, and we did far north Queensland in Part 1 of the tour. Part 2 has seen us get to the Sunny Coast, Brisbane and Gold Coast, and now we are coming out to see you guys in WA and doing Adelaide too. We’ll also do a bunch of regional shows in Victoria and a hometown all-ages show in Melbourne to finish off the year.
It follows a massive run of dates in Europe and the US with Pantera. What was that experience like? Even by your standards, the crowds must have been pretty wild for shows like that!
It was a dream come true for us to be able to tour with Pantera. For a band like us, it really doesn’t get much bigger than an opportunity like that. We got to play some legendary stadiums like Wembley Arena in London and The Forum in LA this year. It’s kind of unheard of for a band that plays the style of extreme metal to do venues that big. We really took great pride in doing those tours and stepped up our game as much as we possibly could. Playing in front of over 10,000 people most nights is something that most bands only dream of, and we have done it all over the world now. We are truly grateful for every opportunity we’ve had, and the Pantera crew have been nothing but absolute legends to us and treated us so well.
You’ve just announced the support acts for the tour, with Scarnon, Ratking and Bile Cannon joining you for the Perth show. What made these acts the right fit for the occasion?
Scarnon are one of our favourite bands from Victoria. They are really awesome and great guys too. They bring a mix of Aussie pub rock with some stoner/metal elements and are really fun live. Rat King have become great mates of ours over the years and always help us out in Perth. Bile Cannon are friends of friends, and we hear they are the latest up-and-coming grindcore sensation in WA, so we thought we better get them on board. All in all it’s gonna be a great night, with sick heavy tunes for everyone, and we always have the best shows at Amplifier Bar. We love that venue. It’s one of our favourites in Australia.
The new record has been described as “ugly, nasty, harsh, dark and brutal”— amongst other things. How was the band trying to make this album different from what came before? And would you describe it differently, or does that sum it up?
Those words all definitely sum up the new record perfectly, although there’s a few I’d add, like ‘measured’, ‘well-executed’ and ‘tight.’ We took a different approach in the studio with this album and really wanted to hone our craft and make it feel more together and professional but more visceral and nasty at the same time. Considering it clocks in at under 30 minutes, we sure put a hell of a lot of time into getting it to where we wanted it. That being said, we are hungrier than ever to get moving on to another new one as soon as we can.
And are there any tracks you particularly enjoy taking to the stage? Other than the new songs, what else can fans look forward to at the live show?
Fuck You and the Horse You Rode In On has definitely become a crowd favourite as it has a whole bunch of singalong moments that the audience can get into. It’s a Rort has also been getting some pretty solid crowd interaction too! We’re bringing our new drummer Max Dangerfield over for his first WA shows, and we can’t wait for our WA fans to see this new incarnation of the band. It’s gonna be a blast because we feel like the band has never been in better shape than it is right now.
King Parrot’sA Young Person’s Guide to King Parrot album tour hits Amplifier Bar on Friday, November 21, 2025. Tickets are on sale now from tickets.oztix.com.au
Photos by The Tin Foil Biter
