Yorta Yorta icon Adam Briggs is synonymous with a lot of things: hip-hop, Bad Apples Music (as the founder), comedy writing, acting, and being an author. But punk, hardcore, and heavy metal? Not really on fans’ radars when thinking about Briggs’ work.
But according to the consummate entertainer, the arrival of his hardcore-fused project, BIG NOTER, wouldn’t be a surprise to those closest to him.
“Everything that I've done, I've put my heart into, be it rap music, writing scripts for animations, you know, or TV, doing comedy, doing kids’ books, all this stuff,” Briggs tells The Music on a typical miserable winter day in Melbourne. “It's another part of my contribution; it's another outlet for me to share art.
“I grew up with this music. So, to me, it's part of me, you know? Like everything else. And everyone who knows me from home knows that I started out in punk rock bands and stuff when I was a kid,” he adds.
“So, nobody who actually knows me is surprised, but like, I think the rest of the world likes boxes, and they like imaginary boundaries and [gestures left and right] they'd like to know you over here, and you do this, and you stick to this.
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“It's like, ‘No, you don't do that. You do this, and you stay over here, and you do that,’ you know? It's even doubled up when you're a blackfella. So, yeah, I always like to push the boundaries. I always like to do something that I haven't done, and I always like to make new art.”
BIG NOTER were introduced to the music-listening world in early 2025, when it was announced that they’d be opening for Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine fame on his Bluesfest sideshows in Melbourne and Sydney.
For the new band, performing at the Forum in Melbourne marked their live debut. “We were fucking terrified,” Briggs admits with a chuckle. “Performing with one of our favourite artists ever, from one of the most important bands ever, you know, in my favourite venue in the city, you know, it's like, fuck.”
BIG NOTER had recorded their debut single, the nu-metal-inspired Identity, in August 2024 and released it last April. Then, with one official song to their name, they hit the stage.
“You just got to do it, or you don't; that's how I live my life,” Briggs tells. “There's this kind of hypothetical thing at every point where you're backstage, curtain and then the stage and the show. At every point, you've got to choose to walk through the curtain or not.
“Most of the time, you've already made that decision. By the time you're there, you're doing it. So, yeah, we had to go. The opportunity was too good to pass up on.”
While the band – Briggs, on vocals, formed the project with drummer Steve Smith, who then recruited guitarist Leigh Davies and bassist Craig Strain – had played their songs in a studio environment, they’d never played them live on stage or without looking at one another by the time they appeared on the stage at the Forum.
“So, like, there was none of these big nods or, you know, looks for the changes when the verse is going to end or when the chorus is coming in or anything like that,” he says. “I think it was just about confidence, you know? As long as we look like we know what we're doing, we'll get a pass [laughs].”
And that confidence has carried over to now: BIG NOTER have since opened shows for punk heroes Amyl And The Sniffers and Suicidal Tendencies and prog-metal titans Karnivool. Next month, they’re releasing their highly anticipated debut album, Songs in the Key of Wrestling, and playing a run of shows, starting this week and wrapping up at The Tote in Melbourne in mid-September.
For the album, BIG NOTER worked with record producer Nick DiDia, whose resume includes collaborations with Bruce Springsteen, Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam, and Powderfinger, to name a few. And for Briggs, that meeting of the minds served as a meaningful, empowering experience.
“It was the most conducive environment [to making music] I've ever been in,” he begins. “It's easily the most productive kind of space I've ever felt like being in. That studio that he [Nick DiDia] runs is just amazing. I don't really need much pushing in the studio, but what he actually did was just like, bring me back a bit.”
Briggs explains, “With rap, I'm so used to filling space with words and what about this and what about that? And he's like, ‘Hey man, let the music play.’ He'd have these great stories from Danzig to Chris Cornell and just working with all these artists—we watched a lot of baseball, too [laughs].
“But yeah, he would just tell me to come back and let the music do what it's got to do. It was a great difference in approach for me. With rap, if you don't like something from that morning, the next day, you can just change it.
“Whereas, after listening to the songs for a bit, if I went back to Nick, like, ‘Man, it'd be great if after this verse, we had this pre-build, like, bridge or something like that.’ And like, there's just nothing you can do about that. You got to drag everyone back up. You gotta get all the amp settings the same, you know? It was a good exercise for me and just learning how to deal with acceptance.”
A totally different vibe, then, “Especially for a dude who gets to do what he wants most of the time.”
Songs in the Key of Wrestling opens with the raging My Genocide (“My genocide looks a lot like yours,” Briggs spits) and keeps up the heat with the just-past minute-long It’s All Good Til It’s Not. Following two riff-heavy singles, Talk Straight and Identity, the first of three creative guest appearances arrives.
A Message from Chuck features Public Enemy icon Chuck D, who issues a soothing balm after the hard-hitting tracks we’ve just been pummelled with. “I wrote it for Chuck and explained to him what I wanted it to be,” Briggs explains.
“Whenever I do a collaboration, it’s always like, ‘I really want you on this record. I hear you in this part. It would have felt right with you, you know what I mean? Like, and this is how I hear it.’ With Chuck – I've met with Chuck. He's played my songs on his radio show before, so we're aware of each other. We've been in each other's orbit.
“A part of it was also, I was like, ‘Yeah, this is not a departure from rap. This is like, nah, man, this is just another thing, you know, welcome to it.’ It's like, as I said, when I did a kid's book or when I was doing the animation, it was never a departure from rap, was it? This is all me; it's all the same thing. It's all just the things that spew out of my brain.”
And the guest appearances don’t end there. BIG NOTER stars IDLES frontman Joe Talbot, a bass-heavy, energetic track Briggs said “paints the picture of the ultimate punish of an individual. It’s the neighbourhood bully’s anthem. It’s completely satirical; it bears no resemblance to any person you, Joe or I know.” Then, the album closer What’s The Matter welcomes Briggs’ idol, Tom Morello, for a signature solo (Davies more than keeps his own throughout the record).
Songs like A Message from Chuck, By the Time I Get to Yorta Yorta and F.M.D. touch on subjects such as “lazy myths and deep-seated racism” towards Aboriginal people in Australia. While Briggs has visited these topics in the past, he’s never sounded like this.
“There was this freedom of getting a point across very quickly, very succinctly,” he shares. “In this world of [heavy music], you don't have to hang out too long to get your point across. You don't have to be super wordy. I look at myself as part of the band, where my voice in this is percussive, you know?
“It's like, ‘What's my role in the song? What's my contribution to this song? How do I deliver this message? How do I give something to the audience and my crowd to sing back on a hardcore track?’
“All the shit that I grew up on, with Sick Of It All and whatnot, what’s that microphone-grabbing moment that I'm trying to give to the audience?” Briggs continues. “And you haven't heard a lot of these kinds of attitudes from Australia in this kind of genre before either, you know?
“So, here's an opportunity to say some shit. I got a lot of messages from a lot of blackfellas who love hardcore and heavy music, and they're like, ‘Oh, thank fuck. Like, thank you.’ And I'm like, ‘Man, yeah, everything's up for grabs. I'm glad it helps, that's all.”
Before the album is released next month, BIG NOTER will play a handful of headline shows, at Crowbar in Brisbane and Sydney this week (14 and 15 August, respectively). The band will then showcase an album launch show at The Tote in Melbourne on Saturday, 19 September.
When quizzed about what punters can expect if they’ve never witnessed BIG NOTER live in action, Briggs quips that you should prepare for “A lot more sweat.”
Opening up about the impact of the venues on emerging artists, Briggs muses, “The Forum is probably like my favourite venue in the city; I love it. But the small venues, where it's like, low roofs – The Tote’s a classic, man. The Curtin’s a classic. The Northcote Social is a classic. I love all these places; I'm so grateful that we still have them in Melbourne.”
He adds, “We've looked after them, and we keep them because we need them. We need them to keep bands alive, fed and keep us making stuff. BIG NOTER doesn't really make sense until you see it.
“It's like, the music's one thing, but it doesn't really make sense until you're in the crowd. That’s where it really clicks for me. I just want to keep doing shows. That's the most fun part of making this stuff. Doing the shows is always the killer part, you know? This is what we do it for.”
For Briggs, the project of BIG NOTER is all about getting up close and personal with the audience, not about social media, streams, views, or going viral.
“Somewhere along the line, we got lost in streams and views,” he says. “And it's like, what are we doing? It's like, yeah, cool, whatever. Let's get back to these sweaty venues, man. That's where we started, in the community halls and stuff like that with the bad sound.
“Now, we're in a place where we can have the best of both worlds. But the community element of being this [pinches his fingers together] far away from someone who knows your song, that's what it's about. That's hip hop; that's hardcore; that's punk rock. That's all the things I love.”
Songs in the Key of Wrestling is out on 18 September via Island Records. Tickets to BIG NOTER’s upcoming shows are now available.
BIG NOTER
ALBUM TOUR DATES
Friday 14 August - Crowbar, Brisbane
Saturday 15 August - Crowbar, Sydney
Saturday 19 September - The Tote, Melbourne
