Australian grindcore band King Parrot are having their biggest year yet.
They released the monstrous album 'A Young Person's Guide To' in June, and they just wrapped up a North American tour supporting metal icons Pantera and Amon Amarth.
Vocalist Matt 'Youngy' Young answers his phone a day after landing back on Australian soil. It's a rare break ahead of their Part 2 album tour, which is heading to Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth plus a number of regional centres from October to December.
Each night on their North American tour, King Parrot were invited onstage with Pantera to sing one of the biggest metal anthems of all time, 'Walk'. "Every night we get up there and do the gang vocals on 'Walk'," Youngy explains.
"The Amon Amarth dudes would get up and we would get up and then if there's any friends or whatnot of the band they would get up and do it as well. So it was really just a free-for-all in the last two choruses of 'Walk' every night.
"So much fun and it's just such a trip, to think, you know, four or five years ago, no one ever would have thought that we would see Pantera play again in any way shape or form, and to have this celebration go on for the last few years.
"For a band like us to be able to play with Pantera in Europe, in Australia and to do two tours in America with them is just mind-blowing."
King Parrot has slipped into a fresh groove within the band with new drummer Max Dangerfield. He's been thrown into the deep end, performing on a tour with metal titans in front of tens of thousands of people.
"[Max's] first show in America was at a three and a half thousand capacity, sold out theatre with Acid Bath and Pentagram. So that was just a f...ing trip in itself and a really cool experience, for him, and us, you know, but I couldn't imagine being his age and that being my first American show.
"He just took it in his stride. You know, he's very cool, calm and collected. Like a week later after we've done a bunch of club shows he played in front of like 10 or 15,000 people with Amon Amarth and Pantera in Boston."
One of the best things to come out of the new album campaign is the video for 'F... You And The Horse You Rode In On'. It's a disgustingly beautiful tribute to the toilet scene in 'Trainspotting' and takes it a step further with the band swimming underwater in a pool of floating turds.
"There was a lot of research that we had to do around how they actually made it look like they were going to dive into the toilet. So we spent quite a lot of time and money creating a toilet block, like a makeshift toilet," shares Youngy.
"We had to research how they made it look like they were jumping in the bowl and how to try and do it in a relatively safe kind of way, which was really challenging. It was really challenging, but we had so much fun with that.
"It was ridiculous and then, you know, sort of getting the pool scene set up with all of that sort of underwater stuff where everyone's swimming through turds was done in a pool so that took a lot of preparation and work as well.
"Then we bought like 200 fake turds from Kmart and we had kids standing on the side of the pool, throwing the turds in the pool and then we go 'action!' and then start swimming through and collecting the turds with the pool mat. If you were a fly on the wall for that one, you'd be like, what the f... are these guys doing?!," Youngy laughs.
As the music video is age restricted, you'll need to visit the YouTube site to view it.
As well as the Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide gigs, the Part 2 album tour features regional shows in Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Ballarat and Albury. "When we go out to those regional places, it's always a bit of a different vibe, you know, there's a bit of a different feeling just depending on where you are.
"We've got some pretty loose fans and they always get excited to come out to the shows and bring that energy as well as some debauchery to mix it up, so it's always great man. We've always appreciated that and appreciated doing it."
Local supports have been announced with three up and coming acts plus King Parrot each night. "I guess it's just sort of paying it back almost. I mean, we've had so many opportunities from bands that are bigger than us, to be able to play to a bigger audience and all that sort of stuff.
"We get a lot of bands hitting us up and saying, 'hey, can we support you next time you guys play' or 'next time you come to our town'. So we just feel like we're trying to pay it back.
"We've got Goat Shaman coming up to Queensland with us and doing some of the Victorian shows as well. Then we've got a band called Scarnon, another Melbourne band, who we're friends with that are coming over to do Adelaide, Perth.
"So for us, it's like we really try and repay the favours that have been given to us as well and keep supporting the scene as best as we possibly can. That's the most important thing."
King Parrot 2025 Tour Dates
Fri 10 Oct - Norton Music Factory (Sunshine Coast)Sat 11 Oct - Crowbar (Brisbane)
Sun 12 Oct - Mo's Desert Clubhouse (Gold Coast)
Fri 21 Nov - Amplifier (Perth)
Sat 22 Nov - Uni Bar (Adelaide)
Fri 5 Dec - Volta (Ballarat)
Sat 6 Dec - Beer Deluxe (Albury)
