The Chats

The Chats are from Coolum Beach on the Sunshine Coast and they sound exactly like that sentence suggests — except also somehow like the best punk band you have ever heard. Three blokes making short, fast, extremely funny songs about being broke, getting in trouble and living on the fringes. Smoko went viral in 2018 for reasons that are immediately obvious the second you hear it. The song became an international phenomenon, racking up tens of millions of streams and introducing the band to audiences in the US, UK and Europe who had no idea Australia produced music like this. The Chats are punk in the truest sense — unpretentious, direct, genuinely funny, and sharper than they look. Their live shows are chaos in the best possible way.