Interviews

Jem Siow & Joshua Clayton - SPEED ‘Walking Away From Grief Brings Brotherhood and Sisterhood’

Georgia Haskins

Sep 9, 2025

8 min read

Since the release of the debut full-length album, ONLY ONE MODE, just over a year ago, SPEED have been at the hands of a relentless timeline consuming every waking inch of their life. Jet-setting around the world and capturing stages most hardcore bands would never fantasise of. The band’s cup was full - doing what they love the most on a global scale. But life has heinous ways of grounding us, and in the case of these Western Sydney hardcore heroes, the universe’s balance came thick, fast, and powerful. The months away on tour coincided with months of immense grief and learning how to let go without being closest to the ones they love.

Through these experiences, the band has not only grown closer, but has redefined the power of their ethos, creating a palpable EP of feeling and morality in the form of ALL MY ANGELS. Raw, intense and showcasing the talents of the band in a way we have never quite seen before, there is something so special about this body of work.

We had the privilege of sitting down with vocalist Jem Siow and guitarist Joshua Clayton for an incredibly sombre and insightful chat about turning grief into empowerment and recognising one’s core strength in great moments of peril and futility.

Watch below, or read on for some highlights.

‍The instances that have occurred have been truly grounding. And it's such a reminder of the lack of grasp we have on things in life. Yet when you look at this EP, you've taken grief in with open arms and allowed it to flourish. At what moment did grief become empowerment rather than something that stopped you? What made it tick?

Jem: Josh said that we've gone through the biggest highs of our lives at the same time, juxtaposed with the lowest lows in the last two years. The whole thing that we're describing here is just going through a journey together. Without generalizing too much—I don't know how to put this any better— with having some practice with grief, moving on through life. I've lost quite a few people, which is to get a lot of reflection and a lot of process of re-evaluating meaning.

With the most recent loss of our friend Aje earlier this year, it was feelings that you never get used to. But this time, when I came around, I was very present to the feeling of clarity amidst all of the confusion and the hurt and the devastation.

I remember sitting down in the days after the news, being beside myself, but weirdly feeling more alive than ever. And I was saying this to my partner and the other guys, feeling like, I feel so alive right now. And I was sitting with that feeling for a while thinking, why? Why I should be... I expect myself to just be defeated by this. And upon reflecting on it, sitting with that thought for a while, I realized that it was because of all of the values that SPEED, and when I say SPEED, I just mean ourselves as friends and people. All the ethos we've chosen to harness and latch onto and also export through our art have been doubled down or tenfold. Because when I try and give myself a reason or an answer as to why we've lost someone and how it could happen, the meaning is… the feeling has always come back to gratitude of having them in our lives and being grateful for investing so much into each other without regret throughout that entire relationship.

That's really all we can do as human beings is just do our best and choose our best and walk through those values. We know that we've done that with each of the people that we've lost. Walking away from grief, we felt so much more conviction of these things about unconditional love and loyalty, brotherhood and sisterhood. These values we've always preached, they become even more real when you literally see people come and go with those. As much hurt as we've gone through, sorry, despite going through so much hurt, as I said, these instances have brought so many people together, bonding together, a time of loss. It's I think in the process of grief, it's brought us closer to a greater sense of meaning.

We were speaking about this just moments before we started. I did want to touch on some of the shows from before, particularly these all-ages shows that happened. I was at the Factory Theatre Show, which was perhaps one of the craziest, rowdiest shows I've seen, including children having to be held back from crowd surfing and stage diving. You've obviously been championing All Ages for a while, but was there a certain standout moment from these shows for you that you just can't get out of your head?

Jem: For me, and I think I can speak for all of us, it took us a couple of years to do our first All Ages show in Australia, and that's just because the hurdles to book one in 2025 are way, way bigger than they were compared to 10, 20 years ago. I think last year, it may have been one of the first. It was maybe two, three years ago. It was our first All Ages show.

Anyways, in a nutshell, we've been able to see kids come to their first ever hardcore show at being a SPEED show at the age of 13 or 15 wearing a Guns N Roses tee. And then six months later, see them again, and they're wearing a No Apologies tee with the DRI-Fit. And then six months after that, they're wearing a Cold As Life tee and they're moshing to a breakdown cover and singing all the words and now Xed up and everything.

What I'm saying is on this last tour, we're noticing kids and realising that we're watching them go through the process of falling in love with Hardcore in real-time and grow through it. That is also one of the most fulfilling things because for people like Josh and I, who largely formed our entire identities through going to shows at that age together and just figured out and navigated the world together as young kids who are now reaping all the benefits of these friendships and experiences in our mid-30s.

That's the craziest thing, just seeing kids really just find out about it for the right reasons and love it. That was really apparent on this last tour.

I love as well, I saw, obviously, throughout the crowd, there was a plethora of parents and child combos. They came together. At not one point was any parent concerned. It was like, “Get in there, do what you need to”! It was so beautiful. It's such a trusting environment that, regardless of anything else that comes from it, they know that there is safety within this room. I think that's such a beautiful thing as well. Seeing some eight-year-olds smack down harder than other people in there is also crazy.

Jem: I'm glad that they're cool with it because I'm not going to lie, I get nervous seeing the kids there.

If the parents are cool with it, then that makes me feel a lot better.

One of the things I loved watching the most from the past year was the Coachella vlogs. Now… the SPEED Burger. Another crazy triumph. Can you wholeheartedly say that the SPEED Burger was the best thing on that menu?

Josh: We can't lie to you right now. That was the only burger we tried. As far as we're aware, it was the best, but sample size was pretty small. But it was really good.

Jem: Coachella prices are like, fucking... I was not paying for anything else on that menu.

Heaven forbid they give an artist a free burger.

Interview by Georgia Haskins @ghaskins2002

ALL MY ANGELS is out on the 23rd of October via Flatspot Records and Last Ride Records. Today, you can stream 'PEACE' and watch the official movie below.