Aussie Artists Heading To Austin For SXSW 2024

While October’s first round of artists announced for SXSW 2024 only had three Australian artists on the bill – Melbourne indie outfit Cool Sounds, Brisbane’s garage rock four-piece Girl And Girl, and Bruny Island up-and-comer Miss Kaninna – the second round has locked in a whopping 17 more Aussies to join the likes of Dry Cleaning, Dream Nails and many more for the annual Austin music showcase festival.

SXSW, like the Australian music scene, aims to represent the best new acts in all sorts of genres, which means that alt-country/folk band Folk Bitch Trio make perfect sense alongside post-punk darlings dust and R&B crooner Forest Claudette. You can check out the complete list of Aussies heading to SXSW 2024 (so far) below. More performers will be announced at later dates.

“Enroute to Austin, we spent a night in Fort Worth, Texas to get a handle on the jet lag before the mammoth ’12 shows in 4 days undertaking’ that was to be our SXSW experience,” South Australia’s Wanderers told The Music upon their 2022 SXSW appearance.

The band added, “The whole aesthetic met the energy of SXSW in a way that created something completely out of this world, and though the music part of the SXSW Conference hadn’t actually officially kicked off yet, the energy was electric. Hell, even Nic Cage was in town. I like to think I may have been within a 100-metre radius of him at some point. Basically, we’re besties now; I lent him my lawnmower.”

In past iterations of the festival, SXSW has hosted the likes of tons of Aussies, including Amy Shark, Alex Lahey, Ruby Boots, Dean Lewis, Mo’Ju, Wafia and many more.

The Music previously caught up with former Director of SXSW, Brent Grulke, for a chat about the festival and the impact of Aussie artists, in which he told us, “Americans love Aussie bands – they're seen as familiar, but exotic.

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“Australian bands (and Australians) are seen as being tough but friendly, independent, hard-working and self-reliant, but generous and willing to lend a hand. These are qualities that Americans respect and like to think of as ones Americans embody. Plus, we all know that Australian bands can really rock!”