FISHER
Dance / electronic
Paul Fisher came out of the Gold Coast surf scene and took his outsized personality into dance music. The city is still there in the energy of his records and shows, even as the crowds have grown to festival scale.
Gold Coast Musicians & Bands
The Gold Coast has sent FISHER to enormous festival crowds and Hollow Coves to listeners around the world, while bands keep filling rooms from Miami to Burleigh. YELO’s selection takes in country, rap, soul, roots and guitar bands alongside the better-known names, with room for more as the local scene keeps moving.
Updated September 2026
Hear the scene: Gold Coast Pineapple Mixtape on Spotify ↗
YELO / editorial picks
Gold Coast picks
From FISHER’s dance floors to Selve’s restless guitar music, these are two Gold Coast acts on YELO’s radar.
Selve
Alternative rock
Led by Jabirr Jabirr frontman Loki Liddle, this Gold Coast six-piece makes expansive, theatrical guitar music. Their releases are a good counterpoint to the city’s more familiar dance and beach soundtrack.
More Gold Coast artists
Hollow Coves
Indie folk
Ryan Henderson and Matt Carins built a Gold Coast duo around close harmonies and acoustic arrangements that travel surprisingly far. “Coastline” remains an easy place to hear what first drew listeners in.
Amy Shark
Indie pop
Before “Adore” took her music around Australia, Amy Shark spent years writing and playing on the Gold Coast. Her songs keep their conversational detail even when the choruses get big.
Casey Barnes
Country
Tasmanian-born and long based on the Gold Coast, Barnes went from local rooms to national country stages. His 2026 album “Made For This” gives the city a country voice with a far bigger reach.
Bootleg Rascal
Indie / hip hop / reggae
Carlos Lara and Jimmy Young built their genre-hopping duo on the Gold Coast, sliding between laid-back grooves, rap and live-band energy. A decade after “Asleep In The Machine”, they are still taking that sound on the road.
Girl and Girl
Garage rock
This Gold Coast band pairs Kai Aubort’s sharply drawn songs with the restless drumming of his aunty Liss. Signing to Sub Pop took their scrappy live energy overseas, while the new 2026 singles keep the guitars close to home.
Peach Fur
Indie rock / psych
Peach Fur started playing together at school on the Gold Coast and grew into one of the city’s best-loved live bands. Their loose, sunny psych-rock has carried them well beyond the rooms where they first built a crowd.
Tijuana Cartel
Electronic / world
Formed in the Gold Coast underground in the 1990s, Tijuana Cartel blend electronic beats with flamenco guitar and sounds drawn from across the globe. Few acts make the city’s musical history feel quite so hard to pin to one genre.
Hussy Hicks
Roots / blues / soul
Julz Parker’s guitar and Leesa Gentz’s voice have made Hussy Hicks a formidable live act from the Gold Coast roots scene. They can move from intimate songs to a full-band roar without losing the thread.
Karl S. Williams
Blues / roots
Based around Currumbin, Williams draws on blues, gospel and folk with a voice that can hold a room on its own. His Gold Coast Music Awards history and continuing local shows make him a key name in the region’s roots scene.
San Mei
Dream pop / indie rock
Emily Hamilton makes hazy, guitar-heavy pop under the name San Mei, with melodic hooks that sit against heavier textures. “Weightless” is a recent doorway into a Gold Coast artist who has kept shaping her own sound.
Jesswar
Hip hop
Fijian-Australian rapper Jesswar grew up partly on the Gold Coast and has made music from Yugambeh/Kombumerri Country. Fierce early tracks and the more tender turns of “LIFE’S SHORT, LIVE BIG” show the range behind that unmistakable delivery.
Eliza & The Delusionals
Indie rock
With roots across the Gold Coast and Northern NSW, Eliza Klatt’s band turn early-2000s guitar-pop nostalgia into big, emotionally direct choruses. The music has taken them well beyond the border towns where they first came together.
daste.
Alternative pop / R&B
Gold Coast trio daste. make slow-burning pop with soft vocals, polished production and a strong R&B pull. “Wayside” is a good place to hear how much movement they can put into a relaxed song.
Beckah Amani
Soul / pop
Beckah Amani’s songs move between soul, pop and R&B while keeping her writing about identity and belonging at the centre. The Gold Coast artist’s “M.I.A” and earlier “STANDARDS” show two sides of that voice.
TANISHA
R&B / soul
TANISHA is part of the Gold Coast’s current R&B wave, pairing poised vocals with tracks such as “Silk & Smoke” and “Like It Used To”. Her “On My Terms” release earned a Gold Coast Music Award in 2025.
bella amor
Indie pop / soul
Gold Coast songwriter bella amor lets the emotion sit right at the front of her songs, with a voice that can turn a quiet line into the centre of the track. “rocks in my pocket” took Song of the Year at the 2025 Gold Coast Music Awards.
Chutney
Indie rock
Chutney have carried Gold Coast guitar music onto east coast stages, building their songs around bright hooks and a live set made to move. Their Unearthed tracks offer a route into a band that has stayed part of the local circuit.
SAINT LANE
Hip hop / electronic
Fijian-Kiwi artist Lane Muir has made the Gold Coast home while moving between rap, guitar-led songs and electronic production. “FLASHBACK” shows how comfortably he shifts those sounds into the same track.
