Youth Group - Big Whoop Youth Group

20 years on from the recording of their number 1 single ‘Forever Young’, beloved Sydney band Youth Group drop a new single The Joke, announce a new album for September and a national run of headline shows at the end of the year. The Joke is classic Youth Group: a deftly observed story of growing up in the Sydney suburbs set to a soaring melody and a jangly, driving sound.  The forthcoming record Big Whoop combines this familiar Youth Group magic with some new explorations into a more dance-rock feel – as previewed on the 2024 single ‘Siberia’ – with journeys into a dark synth and beats world with long-time friend and producer Wayne Connolly. It’s a fresh approach for Youth Group and some say their best record yet.

 2025 will also mark the 20th anniversary of their recording of Forever Young, which went on to become Australia’s first number 1 single on the ARIA Digital Singles Chart. Before ‘Forever Young’, though, Youth Group were already a much-loved indie rock band on Australia’s underground touring circuit. With two albums under their belt, their debut Urban & Eastern and the 2004’s follow-up Skeleton Jar, the band had built a solid reputation for sharply observed lyrics and a wistful, chiming and effervescent sound. 

Formed at the end of the twentieth century in Sydney’s inner-west, it was 2004’s Skeleton Jar that really started to spread the word about Youth Group and the skill and depth of the extraordinary songwriting on show turned listeners into true believers. Scoring four and five star reviews, it also made fans out of Death Cab For Cutie’s Chris Walla (who invited Youth Group on tour with them in the US), the music director of then hit drama ‘The O.C.’ (who featured the band’s song ‘Shadowland’ and their version of ‘Forever Young’ in the TV show) and world-renowned LA label Epitaph, who signed the band to their roster for the US/Europe. 

The band went on to release two more acclaimed albums, 2006’s Casino Twilight Dogs which spawned crowd favourites ‘Start Today Tomorrow’ and ‘Daisychains’,and 2008’s The Night Is Ours, and toured the country supporting Coldplay on the UK rockers’ 2006 arena tour of Oz.

After a decade long absence, Youth Group returned in 2019 with Australian Halloween Propelled by singles ‘Cusp’ and ‘Erskineville Nights’, the album received glowing reviews and was album of the Week and one of the Top 50 Albums of 2019 by Double J, all proof that the band had lost none of their charm while they’d been gone.

Through the travails of covid and distance (drummer Danny lives in the US), the band carved out pockets of time to work on Big Whoop with Connolly. The record is full of surprising delights – songs about new parental angst, memories of Canberra teenage years, meditations on middle-age – all set to a driving Sydchester sound.