It’s 7am.
The world should be asleep. But here I am, coffee barely warm, talking live with Tūranga Morgan‑Edmonds — bassist, cultural ambassador, and low‑end thunder for Alien Weaponry — fresh off stage in Lyon, France where just hours earlier they turned a European venue into a tribal ritual ground of roars and gnashing riffs.
This isn’t a promotional catch‑up. This isn’t a checklist interview. This is ancestry over amps, blood memory over blood‑pounding bass, and language rewriting how metal beats through global crowds.
When Tūranga speaks about Te Reo Māori — the indigenous language of his Tupuna (ancestors) — there’s no angry proclamation. He describes it the way a storyteller does: calm, certain, weighted by lived experience. Once dismissed as “not useful,” as many Indigenous languages were, now those same Māori lyrics are erupting from European crowds — unfamiliar tongues singing lines they’ve learned for nothing more than connection and respect. That’s not novelty. It’s cultural reclamation in widescreen distortion.
Lyon, Spain, Portugal — the band has been grinding the festival circuits and city gigs across Europe ahead of the next leg of shows, and everywhere Tūranga’s bass has knotted with tribal energy and groove. He joined Alien Weaponry in 2020 — relatively recently compared to the founding De Jong brothers — but his presence is unmistakably the undercurrent holding it all together.
What’s striking is how Tūranga talks about it: not as an educator, but as “an introducer.” He doesn’t lecture. He invites. The Haka before a set isn’t a showpiece. It’s ritual — a reset and a declaration — delivered with the same seriousness that most bands reserve for tuning guitars. This isn’t performance theatre. It’s grounding, a breathing‑in before the sonic assault.
And then there’s Moko — the traditional Māori markings that Tūranga explains not as decorative but as Whakapapa (genealogy, ancestry, and lineage) etched in skin, identity incarnate. For many outside Aotearoa, Moko is seen as dramatic imagery; for him, it’s life narrative. It’s ownership of lineage, family, and journey all at once. That clarity — calm but pointed — lands harder than any barbed double‑bass blast.
Alien Weaponry’s latest full‑length album Te Rā, released in 2025 via Napalm Records, isn’t just heavy by modern metal standards — it’s heavy with narrative. Bass lines accentuate stories like “Mau Moko,” a track led vocally by Tūranga that wrestles with tradition, identity and near‑lost customs. It isn’t just music. It’s assertion.
Now they’re gearing up — soon — for Australia tour dates supporting Anthrax, hitting:
23 March – Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
25 March – Hindley St Music Hall, Adelaide, SA, Australia
26 March – Festival Hall, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
That’s the thing about this band: they carry identity everywhere they go. Crowds may not know every Te Reo word — but they feel it. They chant it. And they live it for the duration of the set. That’s not scene presence. That’s cultural resonance on a scale most artists never touch.
And Tūranga — standing there in Lyon’s late night calm, voice still warm from the set — isn’t shouting. He’s plugging into something older than thrash or groove. He’s channeling it, guiding it through bass frequencies into arenas where history hums under every breakdown.
If you want metal that rumbles in your chest and rattles something deep in your soul — not just because it’s loud, but because it’s alive — this interview with Tūranga Morgan‑Edmonds is a gateway. Watch it. Let every shouted Māori lyric hit your ears like a memory you didn’t know you had.
This is the gospel.
I bite crowd surfers.
Killer.
