Australia, the wait is over – prepare to witness the beautiful hardcore chaos that is Better Lovers when they land later this month.
The hardcore supergroup – consisting of Greg Puciato (vocals), Jordan Buckley (guitar), Will Putney (guitar, producer), Steve Micciche (bass) and Clayton 'Goose' Holyoak (drums) – will make their Aussie live debut joined by special guests Split Chain and Blind Girls.
With the amalgamation of some of the scene's most prolific musicians rallying together over a shared vision of creative fearlessness and relentless energy, Better Lovers were always bound to be something magic and memorable.
With each new release the group – bringing together members of Every Time I Die, The Dillinger Escape Plan and Fit For An Autopsy – have organically and collectively evolved into something that borders on otherworldly.
In 2023, they bared their creative fangs releasing their debut EP 'God Made Me An Animal', before shifting into a whole new stratosphere via their 2024 debut full-length 'Highly Irresponsible', which spans gritty guitars and explosive melodies through power ballads and moments of maniacal metalcore.
Here Putney and Buckley share a number of Better Lovers songs they most enjoy playing live.
'Sacrificial Participant'
Buckley: The first song, 'Sacrificial Participant', on the EP [2023's 'God Made Me An Animal'] is probably, for me, the hardest song to play live because it involves things that I had never done in the last band.
It involves finger tapping, it involves very strategic pedalboard work, and it's also just a little bit of everything everywhere.
When I want to feel good about myself as a musician, I feel like that song is very well-rounded and it truly has little bit of everything; and I feel like if I ever had to make a resume, I'd be like, 'check out 'Sacrificial Participant', I can do this stuff!'.
'The Impossible End' & 'Don't Forget To Say Please'
Buckley: I really like the new two songs from the deluxe edition of 'Highly Irresponsible', 'The Impossible End' and 'Don't Forget To Say Please'.
Maybe it's because they're fresher, but I really, really like playing the new two. I think that's an unsaid prerequisite for our music, you've got to have fun playing them; and I really, really vibe with those songs.
Will [Putney] wrote those two songs and they're just so fun. They're the kind of things where if I was a 14 year old trying to teach myself tabs and I figured out how to play those songs, I would think I was Eddie Van Halen. They're so cool to play, they're so fun to play. I love those songs.
'Love As An Act Of Rebellion'
Putney: I like playing 'Love' when we play it good (laughs). Or when I play it good. I really like it because it's a really dynamic song, at least for me because there's a couple breaks where I have to do stuff, I have to do a really fast, crazy tap thing with all these pedals that switch.
Then by the end of the song, I'm playing a really pretty clean guitar by myself. So when I nail that song, I'm like, 'hell yeah, that was sick!'.
It's the one where I could kind of take my temperature for whether I did a good job that day. It's like, 'well, did I get that one right?', because that's got all the tricks in it and stuff. It's fast, it's slow, it moves around a lot and I have to do a lot in that song.
So when I get through that one, it's kind of like 'alright, cool, I can take a breath now!' It's also the one that's like 'all right, here we go! Hope I get it right today (laughs)!'. But I'm good at it now. So now it's really fun to play. When we first started playing it, I was like 'I dunno how I'm doing all this?'.
Buckley: It is very hard.
Putney: All these switching tones, and all the stuff. Early on I was like 'I don't know guys, we've got to slow this f...ing thing down!'. Now, I could play it in my sleep.
It's actually kind of cool because I got to watch myself progress as a live guitar player directly with that song where now I'm like, 'it's really fun'. It's easy now!
Better Lovers 2026 Tour Dates
Fri 23 Jan - Crowbar Brisbane
Sat 24 Jan - Hamilton Station Hotel (Newcastle)
Sun 25 Jan - Manning Bar (Sydney)
Wed 28 Jan - Max Watts (Melbourne)
Thu 29 Jan - Sooki Lounge (Melbourne)
Fri 30 Jan - Lion Arts Factory (Adelaide)
