Blood ties bind Arnhem Land surf-rockers King Stingray ahead of The Sound TV debut
While Covid uncertainty has played havoc with most musicians, a group from Australia’s remote corner has found a different path.
While the uncertainty of touring has made life smaller and harder for most musicians during the pandemic, a group from one of the nation’s most remote corners has found a different path for itself.
Since releasing its debut single a year ago, northeast Arnhem Land rock act King Stingray has shot to national attention and become one of the most impressive young acts in Australian music.
Formed in the small NT community of Yirrkala, where three of its members grew up on the same street, the five-piece band has swiftly built a following despite issuing just three tracks to date.
“So much has happened in such a short period of time for us,” guitarist Roy Kellaway told The Australian. “The future’s looking really bright, and we’re just so pumped up with joy and love for it all.”
Kellaway’s father, Stuart, was the founding bassist of Yothu Yindi, and he’s one of two King Stingray members with blood ties to that iconic band.
Frontman Yirrnga Yunupingu – nephew of the late Yothu Yindi leader Dr M Yunupingu – is a livewire vocalist who alternates between English and Yolngu Matha languages in song.
On Sunday, the band – which plays a distinctive style of music Kellaway describes as “Yolngu surf rock” – is among the performers to appear on The Sound, the ABC TV music program produced by Mushroom Studios which returns for its third season after debuting in July last year.
“We try to have a breakthrough artist every episode, and there’s been a lot of conversation about them, so we felt that they would be a really exciting act to put on our first week back,” said The Sound’s artist programmer Susan Heymann.
Other artists booked to appear from 5.30pm on Sunday include Vance Joy, Vera Blue and Fremantle band Spacey Jane, all of whom have recorded new performances exclusively for The Sound.
Last week, King Stingray filmed a live version of its upbeat party-vibe single Milkumana at the Gold Coast venue Miami Marketta.
“We don’t really know too much about the strategic stuff; we’re playing music and loving every minute of it,” said Kellaway. “But this is up there with some of the biggest forms of promotion a band can do: you see the film crew there and you feel like a full rock star.”
The somewhat sudden shift to notoriety has been jarring for all five musicians, and Kellaway now finds himself straddling two worlds: burgeoning rock stardom and his day job as a podiatrist and diabetes educator specialising in indigenous health.
“I have the plate pretty full, trying to balance it all, but this is my hobby; this is my fun stuff,” he said. “It’s quickly become a livelihood in a very wholesome way.”
On Saturday, King Stingray played its biggest headline show to date before a near capacity crowd at The Tivoli theatre in Brisbane.
Its tour of Queensland continues this week with shows in Gladstone, Airlie Beach, Townsville and Cairns, while the band is among the nominees for new talent of the year at the National Indigenous Music Awards (NIMAs), which will be held as a virtual event on Sunday November 14.
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