Alien Weaponry - New Zealand TeReo Maori Thrash Metal Band..

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Alien Weaponry - A short documentary 

Alien weaponry are a three piece “Te Reo” metal band taking the world by storm. Many of their songs are in New Zealand’s native language “Te Reo Maori”

With their debut album “Tū” being acclaimed worldwide and included in many “top albums of 2018” lists, they are touring extensivly and are playing some of the biggest metal festivals in Europe and North America. Their sound is fresh, raw and energetic just like their stage show.
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"One of the best young metal bands in the world right now"

Alien Weaponry was formed in Auckland in 2010 by two brothers, drummer Henry Te Reiwhati de Jong and guitarist/singer Lewis Raharuhi de Jong, who were only 10 and 8 years old respectively. Their mother and their paternal grandfather are of Dutch descent, and their father and paternal grandmother are Māori. Their tribal connections are with Ngāti Pikiao and Ngāti Raukawa. The brothers named the band Alien Weaponry after watching the film District 9. After moving to the small town of Waipu they were joined by bassist Ethan Trembath in April 2013. Trembath replaced Wyatt Channings who had briefly played bass for the band the previous year. The band were managed by the de Jong boys' father Niel, himself an experienced rock musician and audio engineer who also filled the role of front of house sound engineer when they toured. Their mother Jette is also involved with the band, tour managing and acting as the band's publicist.

In 2016, the band won both the national finals of Smokefreerockquest and Smokefree Pacifica Beats—the only band to have ever won both events. They had previously come second in the 2015 Smokefree Rockquest, and been regional finalists for four years running. The band also toured with New Zealand chart topping band Devilskin on their "We Rise" tour in 2014 and performed at The Powerstation in support of Shihad in May 2015.
Alien Weaponry are believed to be youngest recipients to have ever received New Zealand on Air funding with their song "Rū Ana Te Whenua" in October 2015. They received a NZ$10,000 grant to complete recording of their song and produce a video in 2015 and then another two NZ$10,000 On Air grants in 2016 to record their singles "Urutaa" and "Raupatu" and produce music videos.[citation needed] In 2016, the band was named by UK Metal Hammer magazine as one of New Zealand's top 10 metal acts.

The band toured Europe and North America for the first time in the latter half of 2018, performing as a supporting act for Ministry in their American tour.During their European tour, they performed at several large music festivals, including Metaldays, and Wacken Open Air, the largest heavy metal music festival in the world.

In 2019 they toured Europe and North America again. As bassist Ethan was unavailable for the final American leg of the tour as he chose to return to New Zealand to finish his high school exams, bassist Bobby Oblak filled the role. The band had stated that they had a goal of performing at Wacken before Henry, the drummer, was 20. They succeeded in that goal, as Henry was only 18 at the time of their performance.

On 17 February 2019, the band (alongside Radio New-Zealand) released a ten part documentary series entitled: 'Alien Weaponry Shake Europe', that documented their European tour the year prior. In December 2018, Holding My Breath was made the official theme song for NXT TakeOver: Phoenix (series of specials produced by WWE featuring NXT brand).

On 19 August 2020, it was announced that bassist Ethan Trembath would be departing the band and he would be replaced with high school friend Tūranga Morgan-Edmonds, also Māori, of Ngāti Rārua, Ngāti Wai and Ngāti Hine. In official video declaration Ethan Trembath said that the reason of leaving the band is: "health and my own happiness" also being away from home and pursuing career in making music in studio.

10 September 2020 saw an announcement from the band that they were shifting management to The Rick Sales Entertainment Group based in Los Angeles. Rick Sales is the long-standing manager of Slayer and also represents other notable metal artists such as Gojira, Mastodon and Ghost in his small exclusive portfolio. Niel de Jong continued on in the role of production manager and front of house engineer under the pseudonym Hammerhead.

January 2021 saw Alien Weaponry appear on the cover of British heavy metal publication Metal Hammer Magazine with the tag line "Meet The Future Of Metal" The band was profiled by The Guardian newspaper in September 2021.

They were nominated 'Breakthrough Oceanian Band' and 'Breakthrough International Band' at the 2021 Global Metal Apocalypse awards, they finished 3rd & 4th respectively

Tūranga Morgan-Edmonds - Lewis de Jong - Henry de Jong

https://alienweaponry.com/index.html

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Māori thrash metal trio win big at the Silver Scrolls

Haka metal trio Alien Weaponry take home the Te Ngore trophy for their te reo Māori metal song ‘Raupatu’ beating Maisey Rika and Kingi Kiriona for the 2017 APRA Maioha Award.

During the song writing awards ceremony, the band's winning song was re-imagined in a more traditional Māori setting using taonga puoro. You can watch that spine-tingling performance here:

The teenage band hail from the sleepy Tai Tokerau town of Waipu, just 40km south of Whangarei, which they call the “heavy metal centre of the universe”.

Te reo Maāori is seldom heard in the metal scene, and conversely metal is not well represented in the waiata Māori world. But for Henry, Lewis and bassist Ethan Trembath, kapa haka and heavy metal share a wairua.

“Kapa haka is very loud and aggressive and in your face so it kinda makes sense that it goes together,” says Alien Weaponry’s 15-year old guitarist Lewis de Jong.

Drummer Henry de Jong, Lewis’s 17-year old sibling, explains. “There is definitely a very unspoken part of the music, it is feeling you get. It’s that same feeling you get when you hear an awesome haka. Pretty much if you can do that with your music and you’re playing metal, that is a really good thing.”

Although he recently told RNZ’s Mihingarangi Forbes,“it’s weird we were the first to do it.”

Alien Weaponry have been embraced by both the metal and waiata Māori communities. They’ve toured with local metal stalwarts Devilskin and supported Shihad. Earlier this month they impressed the manuhiri as the closing act at the Waiata Māori Music Awards. Soon they’ll be releasing their debut album, produced by Shihad drummer Tom Larkin, on the German label Das Maschine.

In their younger years,Henry and Lewis attended kura kaupapa Māori immersion education. For Lewis, te reo Māori was his first language, and music was not too far behind. He wrote his first song aged two. “I just kind of strummed the ukelele and it went ‘raiona, raiona, raiona’, which translates to lion in Māori”.

Henry adds, “We ended up having to move schools and we lost the reo and Lewis and I have been trying to pick it up… so really it’s been a huge help with the band to be writing in Māori to get that back.”

‘Urutaa’, ‘Rū Ana Te Whenua’ and ‘Raupatu’ are songs that speak the the de Jong brothers’ whakapapa, learnt on car trips with their manager, sound engineer, roadie, and dad, Niel De Jong.

His sons share the universally familiar tale of childhood of playing the unwilling backseat audience to a parental monologue.

“Every time we’d drive past a location where a battle happened or something he’d say ‘Guess what happened here boys!?’ and then he’d tell us a whole story of how everything unfolded,” says Lewis.

Henry continues, “we used to think it was boring and stink. And then one day it was this particularly brutal incident when a missionary was stationed up somewhere and one of the old koroua was bought into his little house and they were being attacked by another iwi and the old koroua’s wife was like [to the missionary] ‘can you please hack my husband’s head off so the enemy don’t get it?’ “It’s pretty much this really brutal story and we were like ‘man that could be a really good song!’”

Within a decade the brothers have gone from singing about lions to telling the stories of land confiscations and battles faced by their tupuna. The desire to write these songs is an “awesome way” of keeping their reo alive.

“I think there’s a lot of Māori in New Zealand that have at one point known the reo and then they’ve stopped speaking it and kinda forgotten it.”

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Māori metal band lands major international deal

Kiwi thrash metal band Alien Weaponry has landed a major international record deal with Napalm Records.

The Austrian-based label will globally market and sell the debut album of the Waipū three-piece, who sing in Te Reo Māori, later this year.

Some of Napalm's other acts include Satyricon, The Sword, Hammerfall and Cavalera Conspiracy.

"Napalm is a great label for us to work with, because their whakapapa includes a lot of thrash metal, which is where our roots are," says drummer Henry de Jong.

"We fit within their whanau, but we're also doing something different, introducing our own language and style. We think we will both grow and benefit from this relationship."

The three teens are "the youngest musicians we have ever added to the Napalm band roster", according to label spokesperson Sebastian Muench.

"Their combination of old school thrash metal, and Māori culture elements and language creates intense and energetic songs that should be highly attractive to all true genre fans, especially those who stopped listening to Sepultura after the Roots album."

Alien Weaponry released a debut EP The Zego Sessions in 2014, before starting work on their full-length debut at Neil Finn's Roundhead Studios in Auckland, with record producer Tom Larkin, in September 2015.

Last year, the band signed with German-based management agency das Maschine, before announcing a European Festival tour that included slots at MetalDays in Slovenia and Wacken Open Air in Germany.

Woah they even got onto Vice Channel even...

Fewer than four percent of New Zealand’s population are Māori language speakers. Three teenagers from rural town Waipu have become unlikely heroes in the fight to preserve the indigenous language by making heavy metal inspired by Māori history. VICE embeds with Alien Weaponry in the build up to the release of their first album, from the garage on the de Jong family farm where brothers Henry (drums) and Lewis (vocals and guitar) and their friend Ethan Trembath (bass) rehearse, to catching the bus to high school, working at the local mechanics and bringing in the washing for mum. We also road trip to Lake Rotoiti for an overnight visit to Otaramarae where the brothers reconnect with their iwi [tribes] Ngāti Pikiao and Ngāti Raukawa. It’s a chance for the band to immerse themselves in the culture and history at the core of their music, and consider their personal part in the resurgence of te reo Māori as it struggles for survival.

New Zealand Māori metal band Alien Weaponry lands album of the decade honour..

New Zealand thrash metal band Alien Weaponry has been awarded a major honour by a Finland-based magazine, winning Album of the Decade with their debut Tū.

The Waipū three-piece, who sing in Te Reo Māori, also won the Best Rock Artist at the 2018 Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards (VNZMAs) with the album.

The Best Albums of the Decade list Tū topped was voted on by readers of Finland's Tuonela Magazine, with other albums including Gojira's Magma and Tool's Fear Inoculum, which came in at second and third respectively.

"The debut album sounds like a new breed of crossover, replacing speed by groove, but [still] remaining deeply rooted in the thrash metal scene," said Tuonela Magazine of Tū.

"We knew we had a bit of a following in Scandinavia, but this is insane," says Alien Weaponry drummer Henry de Jong.

In February last year, the band landed a major international deal with Napalm Records.

Alien Weaponry has just returned home from a two-year tour

Opening support for Slayer Concert:-

Denmark -Festival

Kiwi metal band Alien Weaponry keep heat on with hot sauce challenge

Kiwi heavy metal band Alien Weaponry has created a massive following overseas, with big tours across Europe and the US. But for now, they're in New Zealand for a headlining performance at Auckland Town Hall as part of Fringe Town. So to keep the heat on, The Project interviewed the boys with a stash of some of the best hot sauces.

Watch video of hot sauce challenge:-

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/entertainment/music/kiwi-metal-band-alien...