A Wilhelm Scream On Tour…

Massachusetts-based melodic hardcore powerhouse A Wilhelm Scream are on tour in Australia for a run of headline shows in seven cities across the country. Coming off the back of a HUGE 2025 – including the European Common Thread Tour with names like Hot Water Music, Spanish Love Songs and Joyce Manor – A Wilhelm Scream shows no sign of slowing down. Playing over two hundred and fifty shows each year, such work ethic can only be described as “heroic.” Far from a cliche quintet, A Wilhelm Scream have carved out a reputation as one of the best live bands around, bolstered by their staggeringly rich albums of ultra-technical melodic punk rock firestorms. Kicking off in Hobart, the band will race around the country with the pace, the party and the riffs to show exactly why they’ve stood the test of time. Nuno Pereira and Nick Angelini talk to Hi Fi Way about the tour.

Another big year of touring, does it feel like it’s going to be a tough assignment trying to top 2025?
Nuno: Uh, no. With a new record out, it’s going to be, it’s going to be a cake walk.

So is Australia going to be your favourite place to tour, do you think?
Nuno: It’s, it’s in the running for me, for sure. It’s hard to pick one place in particular, but we’ve been lucky enough to get down and make a couple runs around Australia, couple trips to New Zealand, a couple trips to Tasmania. So, I’d say we’re pretty lucky. As far as like favourite places to tour, it’s definitely up there and it’s always one of those things, I don’t know if it’s the same for you, Nick, but like, anytime in my day-to-day life, I’ll be like, oh, I’m not going to be around next week. We’ll be gone for a little bit. People be, oh, where, where are you going? I could tell them like, oh, California or wherever, they’ll be, oh, that’s cool. But every time I say Australia, they’re like, holy shit, that’s amazing. I’m like, yeah, it’s going to be like our thirteenth trip down there or something like that.

It’s great that you are going to Tassie as well as they miss out on a lot of tours?
Nuno: It’s true, but it’s worth it. I mean, the scene down there has always been real supportive of punk, metal and hardcore and the scene’s always been great down there. We were lucky to be able to get down there and tour with some kickass bands and then get over there and do a bunch of solo headline and stuff, make friends and meet other bands. We’re stoked to be a part of it.

What is it about Australia and Australian fans that you love?
Nick: Seems like they’re just down to have a good time, which is always good. It’s like positive energy and they just seem like they want to have fun, which I appreciate because I want to have fun too.

Nuno: Yeah, I think the appreciation of it like you said, being their favourite band who are from thousands and thousands of miles away. I think when you get over there, it shows that people are really grateful for bands making the trip. I’m sure every band feels that, you know what I mean? So that makes Australian fans amazing just like Shoey’s which I would say is up there.

Shoey’s might be falling out of favour with a lot of American bands?
Nuno: Oh yeah. No, I’d, I’d, I’d never, I’d never do that. It’s disgusting. I would never do that. There might have been one night somewhere in the depths of a good time where I might have sipped out of a shoe, but I don’t remember it and if I was any bit sober, I would flat refuse. My least favorite thing is wet socks. I would never purposely set myself up for soggy socks anywhere.

Are you playing more of the new album on this tour?
Nuno: We’re always down to mix new songs in. I think on this one we’re going to throw a couple of the new songs in, a couple of the new singles. For the most part, we’ve always done a good mix of everything. As long as the set list doesn’t piss Nick off, we should be good to go. Right. Nick

Nick: Yeah, they’ll listen to me to find I’m pissed off! I’m excited to play the new songs. Seemed like they’ve had a pretty good response so far. I’ve been trying to practice them a little bit every day and I’m ready to show them to the world

Nuno: I’m with you there.

Does it make it all the more exciting having new songs in the set as well to kind of mix it up and bring a different dynamic to the set?
Nuno: A million percent.

Nick: Yeah, definitely. It’s always a little bit scary playing them for the first time too, because you don’t want to screw up the new ones, the other ones are just old hats, so you don’t even think about it. But then when you’re repping the new ones, it’s like, uh, got to nail this one.

When you start focusing on the new album, do you write with the live show in mind? How does it work for the band?
Nuno: I think that’s always a big part of it. I mean, the connection with the listener and the overall energy of a song. I don’t know that you write to it to do that, I think when you kind of get that feeling when you’re working on a song that you’re like, oh, this one will probably get you going, it’s got me going. That transitive property is what you’re banking on. If everyone in the band is hyped on it, we’re going to play the shit out of it. We’re going to have high energy the entire time and try to share that energy and get some of that back from the fans. It’s been a pretty natural kind of way of doing things, like whatever stokes us out the most, you know what I mean? We just are assume that we’re so close to our fans it’ll more than likely stoke them out and get them moving.I have a feeling that this new record’s going to get a lot of movement.

How would you compare it to anything else that you’ve done?
Nuno: It’s the best thing we’ve done so far. It’s the best, best shit we’ve ever done. Yeah, it’s my kid’s favourite record of ours so far, and he is like a big fan of the band, and listens to everything and could probably play most of it at this point. He thinks it’s the best shit we’ve done. So he is my litmus test.

When you say that it is up there as the best that you’ve done, did it come across like that whern you started working on the songs and seeing them take shape in the studio that you knew that this is going to be something?
Nuno: I think so from my viewpoint. From my experience in the studio you and going through the songs for this record, as a singer, you’re coming into all the tracks pretty much dialled in. Getting to listen to all the hard work that like Nick, Brian, Trevor and Ben put in musically with their instruments, getting to go into the studio and lay down tracks over it always got me excited. To go back in and do more or fix something or find another harmony or something somewhere that was the best. It felt like we were really onto something, so to speak.

Does the, the process change much in terms of how you go about doing the album? Or do you have much sort of disagreements along the way?
Nuno: No, not really. We’ve always been very, very good at sharing ideas, not being married to our ideas, allowing other members to put their stamp on it. We’re a collaborative group, always have been. For this record, we got to take a couple trips out west, like a couple groups of us at different times to focus on aspects of the album, whether it was the guitar players going out, jamming on stuff, getting ideas down, arranging songs, and me, Trevor, Ben going out there to work on vocals, that was different. Usually everything’s done centrally here in New Bedford around Trevor’s studio, so that was different, but it was fantastic. The collaboration’s always been there ever since we were young trading little tapes of ideas back and forth. We’re getting more proficient at it. We’re getting better at getting these ideas down with technology now. Ben can send me some shit, and be like, Hey man, like I got this idea. Play it a few times. Maybe come up with a melody and I could listen to it, write down some lyrics or just sit there with a microphone and Garage Band or Logic here at my kitchen table and just bang out demos. That’s great because that keeps the fire kind of stoked being able to work on things like that.

Do you usually just write enough for the album, or did you have plenty left over? Was it a bit of a hard process to narrow it down to the, the final track list?
Nuno: It’s a lot of ideas floating around out there, A lot of ideas are still floating around out there. Half baked, half done. It’s one of those things, whenever the mood strikes, you get on one of those moments or you dig up an old idea. Like I said, nothing’s ever thrown away completely, just because we don’t use it. We’ve always got our demos and our ideas recorded or written down somewhere, and those songs are probably going to be on the next release, like an EP or something like that.

Nick: We did that one song that’s been kicking around for probably almost ten years now. I remember that’s been kicking around since Obama was president. I used to be called the President’s Weed!

Nuno: Yeah. That’s song’s been there. That’ll make it out into the world someday, I think.

Nick: Yeah, definitely.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch A Wilhelm Scream on the following dates, tickets HERE…