Darling Brando: Meet Australia’s hardest working boy band

Since signing with Sony Music towards the end of 2019, Australian boy band Darling Brando have been flying under the industry’s radar amassing a monster fanbase.

For those in the know, Tom Jay Williams, Vlado Saric and Alex Mather have together approached the artist development process with a “marathon, not a sprint” attitude.

The trio of mates knows it’s going to take a lot of hard work and determination to crack the boy band code outside of the reality television machine.

While working on their debut single ‘Beat Up Guitar’, the band played an astounding 80 shows in 30 days around the country and, just as the track was set to drop, along came COVID-19.

“As a band we’ve been non stop behind the scenes for close to two years now, just really trying to figure out who we want to be as artists,” Saric told TMN via email.

“When we started planning the release for ‘Beat Up Guitar’, we could never have imagined we would be releasing our debut single in a pandemic.

“It’s been both challenging and exciting for us to be doing virtual meetings with media partners, our management and label; alongside figuring out new ways to keep our fan base engaged.”

Darling Brando released the official music video for ‘Beat Up Guitar’ on April 2 and two weeks later the track debuted at #70 in the TMN Hot 100 official airplay chart.

Upon its release, the debut also landed on key Spotify playlists in eight territories, including the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. As a result, Taiwan is now a top 3 streaming market.

It has since hit #2 on Shazam Discovery and #36 on the Spotify Viral 50 in Australia.

Bunkered down in Sydney during isolation, the band have been creating a number of videos and content pieces across their TikTok and YouTube channels.

“Just before the lockdown we were on tour across the country, sometimes doing up to 4-5 shows a day,” Mather told TMN.

“We love nothing more than getting out on the road and are looking forward to picking up from where we left off. The three of us are up to the challenge, willing to put in the hard work.”

The band got together the old-fashioned way, “I’m from Adelaide originally, Alex is from Brisbane and Vlado is a Sydney boy so it really is fate that we ended up in the band,” said Williams.

“Vlado and Alex met five years ago at a singing camp in Sydney and I’d met Vlado through a mutual friend. I couldn’t believe the incredible voice on him,” he added.

“Straight away we clicked, so we started hanging out and writing music, then Vlado brought Alex into the mix.”

Best friends first and foremost, the boys share a cheeky sense of humour and a passion for music that can only be matched by their love of a good chicken parmi at the pub.

“Tom’s our straight down the line pop fan, Alex brings a bit of country flavour and I grew up listening to a lot of screamo and metal,” explains Vlado.

Their authentic mateship and impressive vocal talent captured the hearts and attention of a fervent and fast-growing audience, who are keeping up to date with their every move.

That 80-date marathon, performing up to five gigs a day, has paid dividends. The band’s Instagram, YouTube and Facebook accounts have all doubled in size.

“We’ve been so excited to see all the love that we have been getting online,” Williams told TMN.

“As a group, we have been making sure that we’re interacting with every single fan – we really wanted to take the old school approach.”

On TikTok, the Darling Brando started with zero followers, climbing to 24,000 since January.

“It’s been incredible watching our fan base grow daily, especially across platforms like TikTok.”

Williams, Saric and Mather remain hard at work writing new music for release later this year.