Pure rock\u2019n\u2019roll delivered with reverence for the past and a wholly unique perspective.<\/p>\n
It’s no surprise that the band’s have a proud home audience.<\/p>\n
“They’re really happy seeing us doing gigs in the big smoke,” Bird says of the response from the community.<\/p>\n
“It has given us pride showing our younger cousins what we can do with our music.”<\/p>\n
Just as the band learned from the generation before them, younger relatives are now watching them.<\/p>\n
“Whenever we rehearse in Mulga Bore all the families come in, and especially our younger cousins,” Bird says.<\/p>\n
“They always love to sing along with us and go up to the drums.<\/p>\n
“I remember doing the same thing while my uncles were playing. They’d always tell me off, like, ‘Sit there, watch us, learn.’<\/p>\n
“But I couldn’t help it. It’s like the instruments were drawn to me.<\/p>\n
“It’s always good to see the uncles and aunties coming in with a big smile on their face.”<\/p>\n
That connection to family comes up repeatedly when Bird talks about the band.<\/p>\n
“The best thing about being in a band is that all my cousins out there know how to play, they know how to rock,” he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It makes me feel good.<\/p>\n
“I know I’m the oldest in the band, but being there with them makes me happy. Rocking with my cousins keeps me strong.”<\/p>\n
The rare opportunity for east coast audiences to see the band live was thwarted last month when band members’ football injuries forced the cancellation of their album launch shows as part of the Vivid and Open Season festivals.<\/p>\n
“My happiness faded away,” Bird says of the cancellations.<\/p>\n
“They’re balancing music and footy, it’s what they love to do. And they won the tournament.<\/p>\n
“Even though they broke a finger and a wrist they still managed to win the final.”<\/p>\n
For the time being, Bird has moved from Mulga Bore to Melbourne to study sound production.<\/p>\n
“It’s been good, but I got to say I don’t really get the time to check in the bands that have been playing,” he says.<\/p>\n
Being away has reinforced what he misses most. Setting up the amps and making a racket with his cousins.<\/p>\n
“I’m really missing that,” he says.<\/p>\n
“They call me whenever I text them to give me a call, and they always seem to be happy.<\/p>\n
“But I don’t think they’re really doing rehearsals and stuff because I’m here.”<\/p>\n
That separation will soon become easier. Frontman Alvin Manfong is preparing to join him in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
“Alvin’s coming down in July. We’re doing the same course at the same uni,” Bird says.<\/p>\n
Dressed to kill<\/p>\n
Hard rock has always prized image almost as much as the music itself.<\/p>\n
Whether it’s Angus Young’s school uniform, Rob Halford’s leather, or the flamboyant excess of glam metal, generations of rock bands have built strong visual identities alongside their musical ones.<\/p>\n
Mulga Bore Hard Rock carry on that tradition.<\/p>\n
Dressed in black and wearing face paint, the cousins transform before each performance into an intimidating, unified crew.<\/p>\n
![\"Six](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/754d49f4b23d1bae3e1b972117070084.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Mulga Bore Hard Rock’s stage costume doesn’t just look cool, it gives them strength and confidence. (Supplied: James Caswell)<\/p>\n
Asked where the idea came from, Bird doesn’t hesitate.<\/p>\n
“Well, of course, Kiss, the hottest band in the world,” he says. “The rock legends. We do makeup and stuff like Kiss, similar, but our own version.”<\/p>\n
The transformation is more than aesthetic.<\/p>\n
“When we go into the gig without our make up on my cousins are shy and they don’t really get hyped,” Bird says.<\/p>\n
“Once we put on our make-up they’re like a whole other person getting up on stage, just rocking it, showing the audience what we can do.”<\/p>\n
Language and legacy<\/p>\n
For all their devotion to classic hard rock, Mulga Bore Hard Rock are not interested in simply recreating the past.<\/p>\n
Bird increasingly wants the band’s future music to carry more of the languages and stories that have shaped him.<\/p>\n
Loading Instagram content<\/p>\n
“I’ve got two other languages that I speak,” he says, besides the Anmatjere language of his home and English.<\/p>\n
“My mum’s side is Eastern Arrernte, and my dad’s grandmother’s is Alyawarre.<\/p>\n
“I want to do songs in the three languages, do one song of each and maybe do another [song] with all three languages.”<\/p>\n
The band already incorporates Anmatjere language into material on their debut. Seeing other Indigenous creators bring language to wider audiences has reinforced Bird’s ambition to do the same.<\/p>\n
“For me, it was something I always wanted to do,” he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Get the language songs out there for the other Aboriginals around the country.<\/p>\n
“Scrolling through TikTok or Instagram, seeing the Aboriginals singing in languages, it’s like ‘we should get our language out there to the rest of the world’.”<\/p>\n
For any band early in their journey the possibilities feel limitless.<\/p>\n
Mulga Bore Hard Rock draw heavily from the music of the past, but they’re beginning to imagine a future that sounds distinctly their own.<\/p>\n
Sweet Home Mulga Bore is out now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Good news for lovers of no-nonsense, guitar-driven hard rock. You know the type: big chords, screaming guitar solos,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":779446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[369150,81432,64,63,369153,23322,134,369152,369149,369151,341353,368693,369154],"class_list":["post-779445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-aboriginal-bands","tag-ac-dc","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bands-like-ac-dc","tag-djfrontpage","tag-entertainment","tag-hard-rock-music","tag-indigenous-bands","tag-indigneous-music","tag-mulga-bore-hard-rock","tag-naidoc","tag-sweet-home-mulga-bore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}