Why doesn’t anyone know anything about Balu Brigada?

The New Zealand band has millions of streams, plays major international festivals and counts Jimmy Kimmel as a fan. So why are they still so unknown back home?

It was just after 9pm when Pierre Beasley stepped up to a microphone in front of a sold-out crowd at The Powerstation and said: “The last time we played Auckland it was at Whammy – and it didn’t sell out.”

His quip said everything about the strange plight of Balu Brigada, the New Zealand dance-pop band fronted by Mairangi Bay brothers Pierre and Henry Beasley who have become such a sought-after international touring act that they’ve barely been home for the past three years.

June’s Powerstation appearance was a true homecoming show – but Pierre and Henry, with Harper Finn on keyboards and Jacob Stockman on drums, are used to playing to crowds far larger than the 1000 or so who turned up that night. 

Right now, Balu Brigada might be the biggest local band you haven’t heard of, racking up appearances at the festivals Lollapalooza, Outside Lands, Pinkpop, and Reading and Leeds, as well as an extensive arena tour through Europe and the US opening for Twenty One Pilots.

Balu Brigada’s 6.2 million monthly listeners on Spotify makes them a bigger streaming success than many household names, including Benee, Fat Freddy’s Drop and Six60. Jimmy Kimmel is a fan too, hosting them for a late-night TV performance in 2025. An NME cover story describes them as “slick, cool … self-assured”.

Just last Saturday, the four-piece played on the main stage at Austin City Limits a few hours before it was graced by another big New Zealand name, the Texas festival’s headliner Lorde. Both acts will do the same thing again this weekend to a potential audience of 75,000 – and many more watching the Disney+ livestream. 

And yet, when Balu Brigada reached another milestone by earning a spot on last week's Laneway 2027 poster, they didn’t even warrant a mention in this RNZ write-up – despite the band’s name appearing on line five of a 16-line poster.

Aside from receiving the Te Manu Mātārae Tūī at this year’s Aotearoa Music Awards – an award that acknowledged the band’s international success when, ironically, they were too busy touring overseas to accept it – Balu Brigada remain virtually unknown at home. 

So, why the apathy? The Spinoff wanted to put that question to Pierre and Henry, but a plea for an interview this week to the band’s manager went unanswered. Another plea sent around the time of that Powerstation performance also did not result in an interview.

For insights, The Spinoff instead turned to local music industry watchers. They agree Balu Brigada have become quietly massive. “They are truly one of the most successful artists to come from these islands,” says Duncan Greive, The Spinoff’s founder who, more recently, co-founded Lume, a new, mostly-local digital music platform.

To prove it, Greive sent me a series of impressive-looking charts and graphs to show how Balu Brigada’s popularity has soared over the past year. This seems to be a result of the ongoing streaming success of the singles ‘So Cold’ (124 million Spotify streams) and 'Backseat' (90 million) from last year’s third album Portal.

Greive calls Balu Brigada’s music “borderless” and points to their lack of ties to any particular New Zealand musical sound or movement as the reason for the lack of awareness back home. 

“Where Lorde or Crowded House or Princess Chelsea are unimaginable without their origins, Balu Brigada feel to me like they would be largely the same product and as successful wherever they were born,” says Greive. “That's the opposite of a criticism – I think it's harder than ever to succeed the way they have, given the volume of competition.”

Music journalist Gareth Shute says social media and streaming platforms gave Balu Brigada their audience, rather than radio station support. He believes the band’s move to New York in 2022, after signing to Atlantic Records, was the right move. 

“They didn’t fit into any Auckland scene or sound like other bands,” says Shute. “In the old days they might’ve gained an audience through (the alt-rock radio station) Channel Z. Fortunately they now have streaming algorithms and YouTube.”

At that Powerstation show, the Beasley brothers swapped sunglasses, danced together while hopping on one leg, covered Grimes' 'Oblivion' and Kanye West's 'Stronger', and debuted several new songs. Those included their recent single ‘Bedhead’, a song about “the sacrifices we make to relationships, sleep and home life … written after the busiest year of our lives”. 

Between songs, Pierre and Henry spoke of the band’s early days, detailing seven years spent playing to half-empty venues around Auckland, struggling to break through. Looking out at the sold-out crowd that included their parents grinning down from the venue’s upper platform, Pierre said: “This is our dream.” 

It’s fair to say Balu Brigada’s dreams are a little bit bigger these days.

Balu Brigada play Laneway, February 21 at the Western Springs Bowl