Amid an epic line-up announcement for Brisbane's new concert series On The Banks, the name of one band shines brightly for its reputation for killer live shows: Northeast Arnhem Land's very own King Stingray.
Since bursting onto the scene in 2020, the band's star has risen on the back of two albums' worth of super-catchy surf-rock tracks taken to the next level when played live.
The upcoming appearance at On The Banks is the perfect opportunity to catch a band tighter than ever and ready to rip it up. "We've just come off a really epic year," guitarist/ vocalist Roy Kellaway says.
"We went to 15 different countries and finished off the year [with] a fun tour with Parcels; a band that we love and have collaborated with in the past.
"That was a great little kind of ribbon around the year as we finished it off at the [Sydney] Opera House. We're just frothing from the energy from that and from the energy of 2025 springing us forward into 2026."
Even the most perfunctory internet search reveals a slew of glowing reviews of the band's shows, going back to the very outset of their career. "We are a live band," Kellaway says.
"We've always been a touring band since we started. We absolutely love performing live and it's something that we really spend a lot of time focusing our energy on.
"We make our songs on the run when we're on the road. At soundchecks we're coming up with ideas or riffs, but our live show has definitely evolved big time.
"Every time we play a show, we love expressing ourselves in different ways musically, trying things out and just playing without thinking about things too much.
"We love to have fun with it, and we hope that people can feel that energy that we have onstage. That's how we play music, and it's always been about the jams and the fun."
The band's most recent album 'For The Dreams' was released in November 2024, following a self-titled debut in 2022. A little downtime between touring has allowed for more time to be creative, Kellaway says.
"We've been spending a lot of time working on music as a bit of a creative start to the year after such a heavy touring year.
"We've been back in the studio, which is great. From all the excitement of travel and life and everything, we're really excited to be harnessing that froth energy and putting it into music and jamming.
"We're trying to not put limitations or rules on things in the studio. I love to keep it all kind of vibe based, but there does absolutely come a time when you're working on the song, maybe not initially, but once you're deep in the song and you, we definitely start to think about how it will go when we play it live."
On The Banks, running across select dates in February and March at the Cultural Forecourt, South Bank, will see King Stingray feature among an impressive list including Grace Jones, Marlon Williams, Sarah Blasko and many more. "We would love to see The Streets," Roy says.
"We played a festival with them, but we missed them; and Bernard Fanning; there are some absolute sticky songs he's got. His music is kind of like the soundtrack to Australian summer; especially 'Songbird' for me. But the whole line-up looks totally stacked. I'm super pumped to let it rip in Brissie."
King Stingray plays On The Banks at QPAC's Cultural Forecourt (Brisbane) on 25 February. On The Banks runs on select days between 25 February and 22 March featuring the likes of Marina, De La Soul, Grace Jones, Peach PRC and Marlon Williams. King Stingray also play Palace Foreshore (Melbourne) on 1 March.
