How EGOISM’s Openness To Connection Has Welcomed A Worldwide Community

Self-proclaimed as “just a band from Sydney”, EGOISM have had an impressively international year of worldwide impact.

Imagine hopping on a plane to Singapore, playing shows in a new country for the first time, and returning home with armfuls of heartfelt, handwritten fan mail — but that is what band members Scout Eastment, Olive Rush, and Adam Holmes experienced first-hand.

“In the three shows that we played,” Eastment explains, “we met people who became fans of ours as we played and they came to each show.”

“We did a meet up on the very last day,” says Rush, “and they'd all written us handwritten letters to each band member about like: ‘This is what your music has taught me for the past week that I've known you guys existed.’”

“It was amazing,” Eastment marvels.

And not just the local Singaporean crowd: “We had people from Thailand and Malaysia and the Philippines travelling to Singapore too to see us,” Rush adds.

Even recently on a holiday to Japan, Rush decided to spring an impromptu meet-up. “I literally just posted: ‘Hey I'm going to go record shopping on this day in Shibuya. Come hang out,’” he recounts. “And then there were like 15 people and we just all hung out for an hour.”

“They gave me handwritten letters to take home and give to the band and to me as well.”

“I still have the vinyl that they bought me actually,” Holmes chimes in, rummaging through his collection to retrieve the gifted vinyl.

But the weight of this impact is certainly not lost on EGOISM. Fostering a welcoming community has always been a core backbone to the project, and in a week’s time, they will be bringing the Sydney music community together to raise up a cause close to the band.

Presenting the second edition of Cough It Up on Friday, December 12th (tickets available here), EGOISM alongside a massive line-up including RAGEFLOWER, Dylan Atlantis, Breakfast Road, and more will take over The Lord Gladstone.

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All profits from the night will head to CF Together, whose work supports those in Australia living with Cystic Fibrosis. “I've just always admired what they do,” Holmes says, beaming through the camera.

For Holmes, who lives with Cystic Fibrosis himself, putting on fundraiser concerts has been a long-time dream, which he was able to set into motion with the band for Cough It Up’s first instalment back in 2023.

“I've always loved charity shows for what they stand for — everything about them. I just think it's such a great community event,” Holmes emphasises.

Bringing people together has become a running theme for EGOISM’s 2025, which saw the release of their debut album And Goes Nowhere in May, followed by a huge national run of dates including sold out shows at Sydney’s The Lansdowne and Melbourne’s Bergy Bandroom. 

Alongside the album release, instead of putting all their marketing eggs in the social media basket, EGOISM wanted to see if something a little outside of the norm would spark a new channel of community interaction. 

“I had this phrase thrown around in my brain for a while which was: Just a local band from Sydney,” Rush describes. “I literally just wrote it on a blank screen on my computer and showed it to everyone.” 

And from that, the possibility of an interactive billboard was born.

“Being a visual artist as well,” says Rush, “I care very deeply about physical print because I think digital marketing is like the main thing that everyone's doing.” But when circling back to the world of print media, Rush thought, “This is underutilised. This idea of something in real life, and people doing it almost like a throwaway.”

“We also then have a song called Addison Road,” Eastment points out, “and we knew that was going to come out with the album on the same day, so we were like, ‘Why don't we connect the two and put it on Addison Road?’”

“We were kind of open-ended about whether we wanted people to write on it or not,” Rush explains. “We had the idea, like it came up, but then it took someone literally writing on it themselves first over the whole thing, commandeering it essentially."

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The billboard’s defacing, disheartening to most, instead turned into the act that broke the ice for a flood of positive messages written from fans to pour in.

“The thing about the billboard was that it created an alternative route to have an interaction with the band,” Eastment unpacks. “It gave people the tangible experience to connect.”

“Unlike so many billboards that surround us, which are just ads trying to sell you things, this one was about connecting with art that you really like in this way that the artists are going to see and connect with you back, and I think that's really beautiful.”

While the love has been resounding, on home soil and overseas, EGOISM haven’t been immune to the growing hurdles that lay in the path of independent Australian artists.

“We're still just products of being independent musicians in Sydney,” Rush acknowledges. “I'm here in my parents' house,” they gesture to the background. “We all are somewhat unemployed and work really hard. We've played like 50 shows this year. And everyone's like that. All these musicians are like that, but then it's kind of how you position yourself and I think we position ourselves as very, very open to connection.” 

“Because we are. The thing is that as a band, we genuinely are really open to connection with our listeners, and that just pays off.”

Any mode of connection that exists, whether it be a Discord or a close friends list on Instagram, EGOISM hop on board to pave these channels of closeness and community with their fans.

“I feel like we push each other because our values are about connection and community,” says Eastment, “then we push each other to not be afraid of people and not be afraid of maybe doing something different. Maybe coming off a little cringe. You have to climb Cringe Mountain to get to success, as they say.”

And it’s a fair argument to make. Since younger generations are now growing up amidst always-on social media surveillance and scrupulous online identity curation, the snowballing fears of ‘being cringe’ have dramatically shifted the ways in which younger people express themselves and what they are passionate about.

“Everyone is kind of in this position of self-consciousness,” Rush reflects. 

Eastment agrees: “It's quite conservative.”

In a project rich with poignant lyricism and intricate world-building, navigating expressions of sincerity have often made EGOISM feel the need to push against the grain.

“I think that in Australia,” Rush explains, “people are very sensitive about the vibe. If you push things too far in any kind of preachy direction, people are really easy to push back and be like: ‘Hey don't take yourself so seriously.’”

“I've always thought it's sad because I've always enjoyed music that takes itself very seriously.”

“All these artists that I think are amazing in Australia who are writing songs straight from the heart, and it doesn't really go anywhere because… I still don't really understand why, but I guess my closest thing is that people don't want a mirror.”

“Australians don't want to see themselves reflected in music too much.”

“Unless it's in a fun way,” Eastment clarifies.

Instead, the band have watched many even in their own local scene go down the path of the “Trying To Be Cool Apocalypse”. 

“It's not sustainable,” Eastment insists.

With a trend of suffocating safeness spreading in recent years as major tech disrupters rock the music landscape, the music world has flocked to feeds in the chase for the next viral hit. But a dangerous byproduct — a sweeping homogenisation to fit into the next “overnight success” mould.

“I think part of where the music industry has sort of lost its way is that because things are harder for the music industry, they're trying to be safer with who they sign and who they support,” says Eastment.

“The problem,” she continues, “is that people don't really care that much about conservative and safe music at the moment because everything is so safe.”

“‘Safe’ is almost now less safe, in my opinion, for the music industry,” she highlights.

“And so we sort of want our art to express ourselves in a more out-there way.”

“All the Australian exports are quite out-there,” Rush adds, with Holmes also using the example of SPEED and the community they have carved out and built from the ground up. 

“I've always said the best advice is: create your own scene,” Holmes affirms. “If you don't feel like you fit in, create your own.”

“I've seen all the effort that it takes to create a scene and a culture and a community,” he says. “And you can do it. You just have to keep doing it. And I know that's such a whatever comment… but you have to be passionate.”

There’s a passion that burns even through the zoom screen from each of them. Passion bubbling as they talk about their next album in the making: “I'm keen for an un-lonely album,” Rush laughs. 

And after Cough It Up, the final send off for EGOISM’s 2025 will be hitting the stage at Beyond The Valley.

“We're playing the same night as Addison Rae,” Eastment mentions. “We have to find her and give her something Addison Road related.”

But beyond album recording stints and festival dream stages, the core values that fuel EGOISM remain unchanged. 

“I always had this thought in my mind that I want to be a good influence on the next generation really,” says Rush. “If I have that feeling that someone is inspired to essentially make music and perform music because of me, that's kind of my goal.”

“I’m super grateful I picked up the drums when I was 10 years old,” Holmes smiles. “I quit and got back into it, and quit again, and then just kept grinding because now I'm kind of reaping the rewards of that. Whether it's through fan interactions, or teaching people how to play the drums, or giving back to CF charities… this shit's very fulfilling.”

“We’re rich where it counts.”

EGOISM’s Cough It Up event takes place on Friday, December 12th at The Lord Gladstone in Sydney. Tickets are available now.

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