Official press release:
New Zealand’s rising musical stars and teenage thrash metal band Alien Weaponry have signed a worldwide deal with Napalm Records. With such an impressive career that started five years ago when the band members were just 10 and 12 years old, and this unique combination of thrash metal and Maori cultural background, Napalm Records is excited to welcome Alien Weaponry to their eclectic artist roster. Sebastian Muench, A&R of Napalm Records says:
“Napalm Records is proud to announce the signing of the thrash metal band Alien Weaponry from New Zealand. Besides the fact that they are the youngest musicians we ever added to the Napalm band roster they are also one of the most exciting and unique bands in recent years. Their combination of old school thrash metal and Maori culture elements and language creates intense and energetic songs that should be highly attractive to all true genre fans especially those stopped listening to the Sepultura after the Roots album. Kia Ora Alien Weaponry and welcome to the Napalm family!”
The band comments:
“Napalm is a great label for us to work with because their whakapapa (genealogy) includes a lot of thrash metal, which is where our roots are. So we fit within their whanau (family), but we’re also doing something different, introducing our own language and style. For these reasons, we think we will both grow and benefit from this relationship. Being based in the tiny town of Waipu, New Zealand, we are pretty much as far away as you can get from the heavy metal centre of the world (which to us is Wacken, Germany), so this is a massive step for us towards establishing our career internationally.”
The trio shocks and surprises audiences on a number of levels. Alien Weaponry’s songwriting is complex, developed and highly political. Their live performance energy is startling, with just two fifteen-year olds commanding the front of stage as effectively as four- and five-piece bands three times their age. But perhaps most surprising of all, given their blonde flailing locks and Viking appearance, many of their songs are in New Zealand’s native language, Te Reo Maori.
In fact, guitarist/lead singer Lewis de Jong (15) and his brother, drummer Henry (17), are of Ngati Pikiao and Ngati Raukawa descent – they call themselves ‘Stealth Maori’. They attended a full immersion kura kaupapa Maori (Maori language school) until they were seven years old, where singing waiata and performing haka were a daily routine. Also ingrained in their early learning were stories of New Zealand history from a Maori perspective. In September 2017, they won the prestigious APRA Maioha Award for their song “Raupatu” – a thrash metal commentary on the 1863 act of parliament that allowed the colonial government to confiscate vast areas of land from the indigenous Maori people. On 16 November, they took their places among NZ’s musical elite as nominees at the Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards.
The combination of thrash metal with Maori history and language has proved popular. Their latest music video for “Ru Ana Te Whenua” has more than a million Youtube and Facebook views, spent 2 weeks at no. 1 on Spotify’s NZ Viral chart, and hit no. 2 on the iTunes global metal chart (just behind Iron Maiden’s “Run To The Hills”). The band’s music has been playlisted on stations in New Zealand and around the world – from Scotland to Brazil, as well as the USA, Australia and Germany.