How this Aussie independent punk band topped the ARIA charts with no industry help

Topping the charts these days as a musician can feel like a harder feat than ever. With streaming and social media now all playing a part, you can’t just rely on good music anymore. You need to be able to do it all, and doing it all is a lot easier when you have the backing of major players in the music industry, be it from labels, radio and other huge stakeholders.

Punk band SoSo had very little backing for unknown reasons. Yet, they just topped the ARIA charts and ranked higher than the biggest artist in the world. But how?

“A lot of hard work,” lead vocalist Rhys said on the latest episode of MUSICbible Australia.

“Honestly, it never stops. And it’s a lot of going direct to our fans.”

That direct-to-fan marketing tactic, which Rhys taught himself how to execute, has been a saving grace for the band and put them in a position that other independent artists dream of. Millions of streams, over 10,000 mailing list subscribers, raking in over six figures thanks to merch sales this year alone.

So, it’s no wonder when it came to the release of the band’s debut album So Much For Second Chances, that community of fans the band has spent so long trying to build showed up, and did so in a big way. It scored the #1 spot on the Aus Albums chart, #4 on the Albums chart and #3 on the Vinyl chart — sitting one spot above Taylor Swift.

“We make music we think’s really good,” Rhys said, “but we want to offer extra stuff just because they’re on this ride.”

“If we’re asking fans to sign up to a mailing list, we want to give them something that’s actually worthwhile. We record pop-punk covers that are only available to subscribers, we do free merch campaigns where we’ll deliver a whole lot of merch if they just cover shipping, just so they have something in their hand. It’s all about building up that good will.”

SoSo’s story is fascinating, and they spoke more on MUSICbible Australia about their ambitions, how many sales it actually takes to secure a #1 and the many, many, many different hats artists are required to wear in 2025.

Stream the full episode below.

Stay tuned for more episodes of MUSICBible over the coming weeks, with guests like Mansionair, Anna Lunoe and more.