Undead Apes are four friends who banded together after realising they all wanted the same thing: to make catchy punk tunes and have some hardcore fun.

Two and a half years later, the punk-rock outfit have two albums to their name, while they recently supported one of their biggest musical inspirations, The Hard Ons. “I think if you listen to our music and you listen to theirs, they’re probably the band we’ve been inspired by the most … we should really be paying them royalties, if that makes sense,” jokes the group’s bass player, Adam Scott.

What wasn’t a laughing matter was earlier this month when The Hard Ons singer, Peter ‘Blackie’ Black, was bashed while driving a cab in Sydney. The Brisbane band are headed south to play at a benefit gig for their mate. “He’s a cab driver in his day job, and last week he was assaulted … with a couple of kids trying to rob him … he’s on the mend now but he’s not going to be able to work for some time and won’t be able to play shows,” Scott says.

“We’d already booked to play some shows with the Hard Ons in Sydney and Newcastle, but now those will be fundraisers for Blackie, so he can get back on his feet.”

Not ones to shy away from helping out a mate, the Undead Apes approach their songwriting in a similar, no-nonsense way.  “There’s three songwriters in the band. Simon, John and I all write songs. Once we bring them to the band there’s always a little bit of collaborating and changing things around but they don’t really get changed too much.”

Undead Apes have a busy schedule ahead, with an appearance at 4ZZZ’s Rumble Rock Wrestling 4 event next month. And with a third album in the pipeline, Scott says all their energy will turn to that once their hectic gigging schedule settles down. “We’ve got half the new album written already and we’ll be wanting to get in and get a few more songs and then do some recording as soon as possible,” he says.

Undead Apes join Regurgitator at  4ZZZ’s Rumble Rock Wrestling 4 at the Arena Sunday June 10.