Briggs swaps rap for punk with Big Noter: ‘I’m the same guy with the same middle finger!’

Adam Briggs has never been one for subtlety – in his lyrics, his punchlines or his activism. In person, the man has a huge presence. He speaks with deliberation, his voice resonating even without a microphone. Whether in front of a crowd of 80,000 or eight people, Briggs is comfortable being the focus.

“I can’t hide,” he says. Not that he wants to.

The Yorta-Yorta, Wurundjeri and Wemba-Wemba musician put Shepparton on the map in 2014 with his second album, Sheplife: a portrait of the town he was raised in, told through hip-hop. It almost never happened – the racist comments he copped for his debut, The Blacklist, had made him consider quitting music altogether. But Briggs has since climbed to the peak of Australian hip-hop as a solo artist and one half of AB Original; he has also launched his own record label, Bad Apples, as well as the Universal Music imprint Irruk Birruk, which both amplify First Nation voices.

As an actor, Briggs has appeared in the ABC’s Cleverman and Netflix’s Boy Swallows Universe; as a comedian, he has skewered the small-minded and the racist, with one video going viral in the lead-up to the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum. His screenwriting abilities impressed The Simpsons creator, Matt Groening, so much that he joined the writers’ room on Groening’s Netflix series Disenchantment.

Now Briggs has a new project: as the lead singer of a punk band. Big Noter is a furious and raw ensemble made up of Briggs, Steve Smith on drums, Leigh Davies on guitar and Craig Strain on bass. “I’ve been calling a gear shift; it’s not a departure,” Briggs says. “I’m the same guy with the same message and the same middle finger!”

Big Noter has the unblinking intensity of Mindsnare and a keen focus on soundscape and groove reminiscent of Rage Against the Machine (whose guitarist, Tom Morello, even brought Big Noter along on his Australian tour last year). Their debut album, Songs in the Key of Wrestling, is a sonic beatdown of chugging power chords and relentless snare.

Public Enemy’s Chuck D features on track A Message from Chuck, pontificating about the regressive politics plaguing Shepparton’s First Nations community over a menacing bass groove. “The power of Chuck isn’t just in his rap, it’s in his voice,” Briggs says. “Having him explain what happens in Shepparton, it’s a dream.”

Morello provides a solo for What’s Wrong With Adam, a song about mental health. When Briggs first heard the solo, he says, it felt “almost like what my brain feels like when I’m coming off an Efexor”. The album also features Idles’ Joe Talbot – “a fucking beautiful human”.

“Everyone on the record, I’ve met,” Briggs says. “I didn’t want anyone on my record who is a dickhead. Our values have to be intertwined.”

Punk and hip-hop have a few things in common: a DIY aesthetic, a strong political history and a natural aversion to authority. “They’re both the voice of the voiceless,” Briggs says.

Punk was “a staple of my childhood” and represents something more to him than just a sound. “It’s an effective lifestyle,” he says. “[Punk has] root ethics – don’t be a piece of shit, be kind, lead with fucking compassion … Hip-hop and metal and hardcore, they’re all community-based. It’s just about everyone having what they need.”

But hip-hop has always had one limitation: “It does not export well. Hip-hop is such a territorial beast … How many rappers have we exported? I’m talking about really making a dent.”

Aussie hip-hop rarely travels outside the country’s borders. Punk, on the other hand, has a universality. “I can go from Melbourne and roll into the Misfits Bar in Berlin and we all have an understanding of what we stand for,” Briggs says.

Punk’s aversion to antisocial behaviour, coupled with its DIY approach to all things, creates a healthy “accountability culture”.

“My mate has a punk rock bar in Shepparton called Shingo’s,” Briggs says. “He doesn’t have a security guard, which is wild in Shepparton. But if you’re a dickhead and you go to Shingo’s, you’re gonna feel like a dickhead. If you have a problem, you are the problem.”

On their new album, Big Noter worked with the production legend Nick Didia, whose name appears on records by Rage Against the Machine, Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam. Outside the studio, Big Noter had a big 2025: touring with Morello, Suicidal Tendencies and Karnivool in Australia and heading to Europe with Amyl and the Sniffers. All of this before their first headline show last month.

The music industry is a starkly different place to what it was when Briggs started out. “We had so many venues,” he says. “Radio play meant something and Spotify didn’t exist. We sold actual physical CDs. I made so much money.” Now, “the technology’s changed. Kids will record into their phone. They’ll release a thousand songs before they do a show. It was the other way around for us – we’d do a thousand shows before we had enough money for a studio session.”

But of all the changes, Briggs points to the lack of festivals and live music opportunities in Australia as the “big one”.

“Everyone’s feeling that pinch. We’ve got that brutal flight time, which means we’ve got to invest in our own a bit more. It’s crazy to go to Europe and see how much it was flourishing, how everyone was out and about, to come back to Australia and just see [live music] struggling. Like, what the fuck?”

Briggs is trying to give other artists a leg-up in a difficult time, with his label Bad Apples – which has launched the careers of more than a dozen First Nations artists – and his imprint Irruk Birruk, which focuses on distribution, ensuring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists can enjoy all the benefits of the streaming age.

Briggs points to two Bad Apples musicians, Barkaa and Kobie Dee, as “two of the best rappers in the country”.

“We don’t do wack shit,” he adds, of Bad Apples. “We just make good music. I think that’s lost on a lot of people who are trying to chase trends. Everyone’s trying to sign a TikTok singer. Good for them, I don’t do that shit over here.”

He adds: “I’m not done with rap, I’m never done with anything. I just like to create. That’s my gratification, bro.”

• Big Noter’s debut album, Songs in the Key of Wrestling, is out on 18 September. They are performing at The Tote in Melbourne on 19 September