Hard-Ons

The Hard-Ons are a Sydney punk band formed in 1982 in Punchbowl, western Sydney - three kids from a working-class multicultural suburb who taught themselves to play and deliberately picked a name that would guarantee no radio airplay. The founding trio of Korean-born bassist Ray Ahn, Sri Lankan-descent drummer Keish de Silva, and Croatian-heritage guitarist Peter "Blackie" Black built a sound that ran punk's velocity through pop hooks and flashes of metal and psychedelia, racking up 17 consecutive number ones on the Australian independent charts before most people had figured out what to call what they were doing. Forty-plus years in, they remain one of Australia's most prolific and idiosyncratic punk acts - a fact underscored by their 2026 "Korean Language Mini-Album," in which Ahn re-recorded four catalogue classics entirely in his native tongue ahead of a September South Korea tour.