NEW BLOOD: Forged By Fear (Planet Perth/Boorloo, Western Australia)
One of our favourite Australian releases of 2025 came from Perth band FORGED BY FEAR's "Cruelest Creature" EP. New to our ears, the band play a traditional heavy metallic hardcore sound in the vein of Ringworm meets Integrity. We caught up with singer Griffo for a chat to find out more about the band.
At what point did Forged By Fear form and how did it all come together?
We got together in early 2025 and by the middle of the year we had already written enough material to put something out into the world. Before that though we have all been friends since the mid-late 00’s whether that was going to high school with each other or playing in our first hardcore bands together.
Would readers recognize the members from any other bands?
So ¾ of us (Riley, Tom & Griffo) used to play in a chaotic/melodic hardcore called Vanity and another ¾ of us (Declan, Riley & Tom) used to play in a metallic hardcore band called Bounty Hunter.
Other than those two there’s probably like at least a dozen other bands we’ve all been in at some stage haha, these are the ones I can think off the top of my head:
- drummer Riley (Losing Grip, Lowlight, First & Ten)
- guitarist Tom (Flowermouth, First & Ten)
- bassist Declan (Tohst, Sweet Leaf, Adrift)
- vocalist Griffo (Unravel, Banished Realm, Warcycle, Suneater, Mindless)
In your own words how would you describe the sound of Forged By Fear?
The Unction playing the kind of metallic hardcore/crossover thrash we’ve always wanted to do in a band.
What bands are influencing the sound of Forged By Fear?
The Big 5 (Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth AND Sepultura), Integrity, Black Sabbath, Cro-Mags, Ringworm, Pantera, Leeway, Iron Age, Motörhead, Power Trip, Agnostic Front, Mindsnare, Municipal Waste, Hatebreed, Merauder, Alice In Chains, Shipwreck AD, Converge, Obituary, Discharge, Alpha & Omega, Black Breath, Killing Time, Toxic Holocaust, Mindforce, Crowbar, Only Living Witness, Death, The Exploited, Helmet, but the list goes on and on and on…
What would be a dream line up of bands to play with?
Pretty much any of the bands mentioned above (some of which we’ve actually been fortunate enough to have opened for in the past in our old bands!)
You recently released your debut EP “Cruelest Creature” through LLR, how did the partnership come about?
The Lair family are without a doubt some of the most passionate people we’ve met when it comes to Hardcore in general and they have supported every band we’ve done in one way or another, whether that was putting our previous bands on a sick show or even taking a chance by releasing our music onto physical formats. When the discussion came up to work with them towards releasing the EP we were honored and stoked because it seemed they understood from the get go what we’re trying to accomplish with this band.
LLR asked the question, is it hardcore influenced metal or metal influenced hardcore? What’s your take?
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Haha. We all grew up listening to all sorts of punk & metal music and as everyone does over time, you go down that musical rabbit hole; listening to your classic ‘gateway’ bands then discovering the pioneering bands that influenced said bands, or checking out all the other bands that share gigs/tours/record labels with said gateway bands and going from there (I personally miss how bands don’t really list other bands to check out in the thank yous of their releases’ credits anymore, some of my all time favourites bands were discovered that way). But yeah to answer the question, we came up and met each other through hardcore so that’s who we’ll always be at heart.
What’s your fave track on the EP, why that one?
I’d probably have to say the track “In The Shadow”. It sort of encompass everything we hope to accomplish musically with this band (ie hectic solos, cool melodic parts and fun breakdowns) and lyrically it discusses what it’s like to co- exist with a mental health disorder. As someone who has struggled with one for most of my life I wrote the lyrics as a sort-of-personal reminder to myself that yeah, this thing will always be there and out of your control no matter what you do, but what you can control is whether you let it consume you and dictate your life, or you choose to accept that it is in fact a constant battle, that you will have some good days and then bad days, but ultimately you will be better off health wise in the long run for fighting that battle.
Where does Forged By Fear fit into the Perth scene? What sort of bands/shows are you playing with?
It’s a bit hard to say really haha. Planet Perth/Boorloo has such a diversity when it comes to its bands simply so often you have individuals playing in multiple bands that sound vastly different to one another. So because of this you often get quite mixed bills where you’ll have a Youth Crew band, a Death Metal band, a D- Beat band, a Sludge band and a Beatdown band all playing on the same show. We’re just stoked to play any heavy show that anyone puts us on to be honest haha.
Any other bands from Perth that you recommend people pay attention to?
Most readers will recognise some of these names but I highly recommend that they check out the ones that they aren’t familiar with: Lokka, No Future, The Chain, Concrete Bomb, Gaoled, Day of Demise, Intro, Crosscheck, Iron Eater, Total Defeat, Gob, Betrayed By Life, Dirtywork, Engage, Blinder, Hysteria, Nervous, Gunner, Carbon Copy, Shattered, Guild, Warden, Flesh Prison, End It All, Dreamspeed, Termite, Chalked, Closed Off, Halo Of Teeth, Bone Geer, No Pity, Horus, Sevenish, Tomcat, Woodbridge, Pensive, Puke, No Brainer, Ratking, From The Ruins (new music coming soon?), The Others and Miles Away.
What else is in store in the foreseeable future for Forged By Fear?
We probably have written enough new material already for another release so for 2026 we’ll probably just continue honing away at getting that out in the midst of hopefully playing some more shows (and eventually making it over to the eastern states to play and show everyone the dark side of Planet Perth haha)
How can people get in touch or keep up with what’s happening in the band?
https://linktr.ee/forgedbyfear
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Order Cruelest Creature here:
https://lifelairregretrecords.bigcartel.com/product/forged-by-fear-cruelest-creature-cs
