Need new bangers for your playlist or a killer gig for your next big night out? These are the SA bands and artists proving what happens when talent gets the right backing.
“We’ve never had any physical copies of anything we’ve ever made,” says Georgie Evans, lead vocalist, guitarist and lyricist of Adelaide alt-rock four-piece Molly Rocket. “So this is the first.”
2026 is the year Molly Rocket’s first vinyl drops. Not bad for a band that started jamming “out of boredom”. It was 2021, the members had finished high school and weren’t quite sure what should come next.
Most of us have long since abandoned the hobbies we picked up in a post-COVID world (see you later sourdough starters and Zoom quiz nights!). But Molly Rocket haven’t just stuck it out, they’ve been gaining momentum.
Since their first gigs at Broadcast Bar, they’ve sold out rooms across the country, won an SA Music Award, supported Aussie rock royalty, topped Sounds Sick’s Sickest 100 for 2025, and just landed a Robert Stigwood Fellowship. Georgie is still a little surprised.
“Definitely didn’t expect it to go for this long,” she says. “You just kind of have a hobby for a bit and move on to the next thing. But yeah, it’s just a lot of fun – and I think it’s stuck.”
Supporting Grinspoon and Regurgitator at the Entertainment Centre last November was the moment it really sank in. “Probably the most exciting gig we’ve played so far,” says guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Ben Main. “That was insane.” Georgie agrees. “We’ve really stepped it up in the past year.”
How a dream became a band name
The band’s origin story started with a different name entirely. They began as Candy Cigarettes – until Georgie had a dream about a girl called Molly. First she was Molly Parachute, which Ben immediately vetoed (“sounds shit”). Then came Molly Rocket. The name stuck – and now it’s becoming known and loved across Australia.
Their debut show at Broadcast Bar on Grote Street coincided with one of Adelaide’s brief COVID-era windows for live music – limited capacity, high demand, lines out the door just to get in. They sold out their first eight gigs in a row and never really looked back.
It didn’t take long to figure out why. Reviews of their live shows read like dispatches from a friendly riot – moshing, crowd surfing, people singing every word back at them. At their Sickest 100 show in January, a reviewer noted the energy in the room was “off the charts”, with even someone on crutches joining the mosh.
It’s something about the four of them together – Georgie and Ben up front sharing vocal duties, with Trae Freeman on bass and Joe Keating on drums – that make a Molly Rocket show feel genuinely alive. While Georgie’s killer pipes have drawn comparisons to Amyl and the Sniffers’ Amy Taylor and Hole’s Courtney Love, she’s characteristically understated about the band’s onstage presence. “It is super high energy,” she says. “I guess.”
From Syrup to The Dogs Are Barking
If you haven’t heard of Molly Rocket yet, here’s what you’re missing out on: loud, fuzzed-out guitars with the kind of big melodic choruses you can’t help singing back. The DNA is classic – Nirvana and Sonic Youth in the guitar noise, Hole and Weezer in the hooks, Pixies in the quiet-loud dynamics – but the concerns they’re writing about are entirely now.
Their sophomore EP, The Dogs Are Barking, released in February, pushes into more considered territory than their first EP, Syrup.
There’s even a thread of contemporary folk woven through, which Ben says crept in naturally.
“We just write what we like,” he says. “We like doing a bit of everything. It just sounds like we got older.”
Georgie is more specific. “My vocals – I can’t really listen to the older stuff now,” she says. “Could have done better.”
This time, they knew what they were doing. Recorded at Wrangler Studios in Melbourne with producer Tim Maxwell, the EP shows how far they’ve come as a band – tight enough to track most of it live, drums, bass and guitars all at once.
The process wasn’t without drama: on their hardest track, they nailed the perfect take, only for Tim’s software to crash and lose the whole thing. It was the only time they saw Tim get angry. The band shrugged and did it again. Molly Rocket are a pretty low-maintenance bunch of rockers.
Lead single Another Year wrestles with thoughts of death and the weight of keeping your head above water – but Molly Rocket would rather you just felt something than analysed it too hard.
“If you feel good after listening to it, that’s enough,” says Georgie. Ben agrees: “It’d be good to have people dancing to it”.
The EP’s title, The Dogs Are Barking, came from a song and stuck around because it felt right – Ben says it also just rolls off the tongue nicely. “I kind of interpreted it as a sense of urgency,” says Georgie. “Like there’s stuff going on, everything’s happening at once. Also: market that dog.”
What it actually takes
For all their success so far, Molly Rocket are still working day jobs to pay the rent. Gig money goes back into the band. Touring means taking unpaid leave and running on adrenaline. “The first night’s fun,” says Ben, “then after that…”.
“You’re just in a different state with your best mates,” says Georgie. “You’re tired together, you’re out together, you argue with each other – peaks and valleys.”
That’s where the Robert Stigwood Fellowship changes things. Run by the SA Government’s Music Development Office, the program supports both SA artists and music industry entrepreneurs – giving selected acts up to $25,000 in funding plus 12 months of mentorship led by Stu MacQueen and Dan Crannitch of Wonderlick Entertainment, the team behind Amy Shark, DMA’s and The Paper Kites.
For Molly Rocket, it means doing The Dogs Are Barking EP tour properly – going, as Ben puts it, “balls to the wall” on the bells and whistles: Vinyl, merch, the full thing. “It just makes things a lot easier,” says Ben, “especially when you’re taking leave from work.”
The tour hits Adelaide at the Ed Castle on 28 March, with Grevillea opening (tickets here). Full tour dates for NSW and Victoria here.
After that? Molly Rocket aren’t the kind of band who dream of world chart domination – just the stuff that makes it all a bit easier. “No day jobs would be sick,” says Ben. “Hopefully an album out. New guitar,” adds Georgie.
SA’s next wave
Molly Rocket aren’t the only ones having a moment. Adelaide’s music scene in 2026 is on fire.
“The past couple of years there’s just been so many new bands coming through,” says Ben. “It’s hard to keep up.” Georgie agrees. “I’m always stumbling across something new on social media. Killer stuff coming out.”
The genres span everything from jazz fusion to hardcore. “Everyone plays with everyone,” says Ben. “It’s super friendly.”
Supporting that momentum is the Fellowship, named after Port Pirie-born entertainment mogul Robert Stigwood – the man who managed the Bee Gees, produced Saturday Night Fever and Grease, and became one of the most powerful figures in global entertainment. Past fellows include Tkay Maidza, Electric Fields, Bad//Dreems and Teenage Joans.
If the alumni list is anything to go by, the 2026 cohort is set for big things. Now’s the time to add them to your playlists and go see them live.
Any Young Mechanic – widescreen folk with a cinematic streak
Kaurna/Adelaide five-piece Any Young Mechanic make folk music for people who think they don’t like folk music – and they’ve already played the UK’s Reading and Leeds Festivals. Formerly known as Wake In Fright, they’ve already released two polished singles this year, Snug Barber and There’s a New Palce on the Market. Their debut album, The Modern Shoe Is Ruining The Foot, is due in June. Expect story-driven songs that feel like little films – vivid characters, shifting moods, arrangements that build to something genuinely surprising. In 2026 they’re also taking that sound to a national run of shows following their coveted slot at WOMADelaide, and a spring North America tour spanning Seattle, San Francisco, LA, Chicago, Toronto and New York.
Effie Isobel – romantic indie rock with spell-casting hooks
Kaurna/Adelaide artist Effie Isobel writes the kind of emotionally honest songs that have a habit of landing closer to home than you expect. Her recent single Higher Gear is a good entry point: driving drums, shimmering guitars, a breathless vocal that captures the rush of a sudden crush. The story behind it is even better – Effie called the very person the song was secretly about into the studio to play drums on it. They’re now a couple. Turns out her songs really do land. Catch her at an intimate, free Adelaide pop-up on 15 March, featuring an acoustic set and her first ever merch drop. RSVP here.
Maybe Hugo – late-night soul for the share-house lounge room
Maybe Hugo makes the kind of music that sounds like it was written specifically for your current mood, whatever that mood happens to be. Laid-back, groove-heavy and emotionally precise, his blend of soul, indie and R&B fills a gap in Adelaide’s scene that you didn’t quite know was there. His debut EP Maybe, Might Be, Could Be confirmed the hype, and singles since, like Our Time, have only sharpened the focus. This year, he’s already jammed out on the big stage at LIV Golf Adelaide and on The Academy x Northern Sound System stage at WOMADelaide.
Kurralta Park – guitar anthems from the suburbs
Kurralta Park make big-hearted, guitar-driven rock that feels unmistakably, proudly suburban Australian. Their debut album Powell Place is full of the stuff of everyday life – share houses, backstreets, growing up between the Flinders Ranges and Adelaide’s south-western suburbs – rendered with enough energy to fill a stadium. Which, as it turns out, is exactly where they’re headed: in 2026, they’re opening Foo Fighters’ Adelaide show. The suburbs are crashing the stadium.
For more information and how to apply for the Robert Stigwood Fellowship Program, click here.
