Speed
James Hartley
The good thing about warning lights on car dashboards is that they’re clear no matter what language they are written in. Jem Siow does not speak Polish. But he can tell there is a problem with the van he and his bandmates in Speed are using to drive around Europe this summer. The van is parked outside a north London venue, and Siow is texting their driver as he stares at a flashing red light. On the other side of the tinted glass is a line of fans waiting for the doors to open. Tonight, Speed – Siow, his bassist brother Aaron, plus Joshua Clayton, Dennis Vichidvongsa, and Kane Vardon – will cause carnage on stage. But right now he’s trying to establish what “nagły wypadek” means. (It means “emergency.”)
Siow has a calm and reassuring presence. He is dressed all in black and the figure on his T-shirt, a skeleton in the shape of the nuclear disarmament symbol, doesn’t distract from the biceps pushing at the edges of his sleeve. The tour bus is small and tidy, but there must be room for barbells somewhere.
Speed’s debut album Only One Mode, released this summer, is a milestone the group never imagined breaching. “I used to think the idea of a hardcore album was dumb,” Siow laughs, nestled in the backseat of the van. “Who wants to listen to a band for 10 songs?”
It wasn’t long ago that Speed didn’t have 10 songs for people to listen to. After gaining early scene attention during the pandemic with the joyfully brash single “A Dumb Dog Gets Flogged,” the band was flown to L.A. to play Sound & Fury festival – essentially a hardcore AGM where the scene’s biggest and most talked about bands play to thousands of devotees. That was 2021; it marked just the sixteenth time Speed had played together. Their set was just the handful of songs they had written at the time. Having such a quick rise in popularity is something that weighs on Siow’s mind, he is keenly aware of discussion around the band and voluntarily brings up criticism the band has faced – essentially that they are overhyped – as explains how it motivates the group. In many ways that first Sound & Fury show set a mission statement for Speed moving forwards: embrace those who believe in you and work twice as hard to prove the haters wrong.
Right now Speed are arguably the most talked about band in a hardcore scene that’s grown beyond recognition and begun to interact with the mainstream. It is, as Emma Garland wrote recently at The Guardian, at least partly down to the genre becoming “less rigid,” creating “more points of entry.” Bands like Militarie Gun and Fiddlehead have ushered in a wave of melody driven hardcore that sits neatly alongside the indie rock bands they often share festival bills with. Groups like Scowl, Soul Glo, and Home Is Where…, meanwhile, are helping diversify the image of what a hardcore musician looks like. Then there is Turnstile, whose glossy, groove-laden album GLOW ON, may have always been primed for a breakout moment, but still exceeded all expectations and saw them pick up multiple Grammy nominations in 2023.
What’s impressive about Speed is that they have made huge leaps with an uncompromising and heavy sound powered by a community-based attitude that guides their every move. That’s not to say Speed don’t experiment; one of the most unexpected moments on Only One Mode is when Siow plays flute on “The First Test.” It’s surprising and a little funny. But, crucially, it still sounds hard as nails.
Only One Mode is a much more considered collection of songs that wraps its arms around Speed’s blunt-force message of friendship and self-acceptance. It wasn’t created in a vacuum, though, and Siow admits the early praise and attention around the band has added weight on their shoulders. “The overwhelming thought I had was that the hype of the band was superseding the substance,” he says. It’s rare to hear a musician admit that the discourse was getting away from the music, but to Speed that just created a bar to clear. “We saw the album, finally, as a chance to put everything on the table and create something to justify the noise.”
James Hartley
Speed’s mission since day one, Siow says, has been to “promote Australian hardcore culture.” There is no sound or musical style that is inherent to the scene but more “a pulse that guides the way we interact with one another.” He underlines “compassion, acceptance, and understanding” as the three key tenets the band and their crew all believe in. Though this isn’t specific to Australia, Siow sees his country being forgotten or overlooked when it comes to hardcore fan’s attention and wants to put it back on the map.
The album title, Only One Mode, is another mantra the band lives by. “It’s my life philosophy,” Siow explains. “The way I’m wired I have to do everything at 100%. Go hard as fuck and don’t look back. When you trust and have faith in what you’re doing? Only good can come from that.”
That earnestness is enough to suggest Siow’s other stated aim – that “the goal for a Speed song is to psyche you up to lift the heaviest weight you can” – isn’t entirely tongue-in-cheek. The songs on Only One Mode operate in brazen, chest-beating fashion. “Real Life Love” is a quest for connection in a world of fakery and isolation. “Shut It Down,” with the line “This bullshit’s gotta go,” will surely inspire new personal records or, at the very least, get you off the couch.
While Speed’s rise has been a product of their swaggering and glass-shatteringly rowdy music, the band has also had a couple of unlikely brushes with celebrity and internet virality. Last year, Kourtney Kardashian posted a mirror selfie wearing some of their merch (“How to get ready in 5 seconds, wear your husband’s oversized jerseys” she captioned the picture; Travis Barker is a fan). Meanwhile, Only One Mode single “The First Test” became meme fodder online when people jumped on the flute parts between breakdowns.
“I didn’t find hardcore through TikTok or a viral moment,” Siow says on the Sprinter van, focused and present. “What we want is for everyone who sees us online to understand what this scene is and what this band stands for. I hope people see the realness that’s in us.”
Siow speaks earnestly and passionately about hardcore, like an ambassador for the genre. He says the past few years have been “mind-boggling” and cites quitting his job in 2023 as a milestone. He had spent the previous 14 years teaching flute. The irony of going from woodwind tutor to the subject of YouTube comments like, “If you see the vocalist holding a flute, just know you’re about to die in that pit,” isn’t lost on him.
It’s understandable to be so earnest about the music you love when it helped reinvigorate you like it did for Siow. Prior to starting Speed, he played guitar in a band called Endless Heights. They had a much more radio friendly sound and secured support slots on arena tours in the U.K. and U.S. Despite this, Siow says, they were “in debt our whole career” (hence the teaching job) and were playing what he describes as “concerts, not shows.” Walking off stage at London’s O2 Arena in 2018 brought him a unique moment of clarity. “I remember getting on a bus that we were paying all our money to hire and thinking, ‘I wish I was just playing to 50 people back home.’” The group disbanded shortly after.
When he moves away from the beast mode inspiration, Siow reveals a more introspective side. He talks about “championing your own identity” but also how hardcore gives him the profound opportunity to “make change in a world where people feel so helpless.” This was born out on the 2022 single “Not That Nice.” The song was a response to the rise in hate crimes against people of Asian heritage during the coronavirus outbreak. “I spent a long time watching the news and feeling completely defeated by the way the world is going,” Siow says, looking back at a time when assaults and racist abuse increased globally. “Being in a band where I have a voice and can be heard gave me so much more purpose. This music that is so inherently aggressive is one place where I can channel those feelings in a positive way.
“I was seeing people who look like me and my family being brutalized. In my experience as an Asian-Australian I feel privileged because me and my brother were raised to be confident and outspoken. I was recognising that privilege and using my voice to speak out for people who look like me and might not have the confidence to do so themselves. It was also a chance to write our own narrative. We aren’t all submissive or silent.”
Bringing people together is what Speed does best. Siow cites the rise in popularity for the genre as being a product of people “longing for the human element in culture.” On a macro level that means “people in a room together experiencing real emotions in real time, completely unfiltered.” On a micro level it exists in the way the band are fiercely loyal to those closest to them. Only One Mode was produced by Elliott Gallart – whom Siow jumped into his first ever mosh pit with when they were 13 years old – and is dedicated to Tahmid ‘Lad Street’ Nurullah, a friend and photographer from Sydney whose camera work helped define the band’s early aesthetic and who passed away in 2023.
“We’re simply the product of those around us, and Tahmid was one of our closest friends,” Siow says. It is why the band says no to “99.9%” of industry offers that come their way. “We have received offers from some of the biggest labels in the world and turned them all down,” he confesses. “We have no aspiration to operate beyond our vision of a hardcore band. We’re taking everyone with us. Otherwise, what’s the point?”
Speed’s vision of hardcore is on display in front of 500 fans later that night. It’s a chest-pumping, death-growling display of unity. Waves of people clamber onto the stage before throwing themselves off it in a variety of ways depending on confidence and ability to gain air. Even though it’s a hardcore tradition, in an age of paid meet and greets as well as entitled fan behavior, it feels refreshing to see band and audience working in tandem. The destruction of the gap between audience and performer is inherent to Speed’s reason for being in a band. Circle pits spin like whirlpools populated by topless men. Some wear Speed-branded “Team Hardcore” merch, like a sports jersey for stage divers, while at least one guy is wearing an England soccer jersey (the show clashes with an important European Championship game). The show reaches a climax as the band rips through “Don’t Need,” a vicious bolt of a song that makes the idea of putting love out into the world feel spiky to the touch.
Drenched in sweat and surrounded by people, Siow delivers another all-caps slogan. It’s one that cuts to the heart of what has pushed Speed from the very beginning. “Find your people,” he roars. “Love them with all your heart. And don’t look back.”
