It takes about 10 minutes of chatting to Teenage Joans’ Tahlia Borg and Cahli Blakers to realise they are not to be fucked with.

The duo from Adelaide, who are only a few years out of high school, are hitting a zone in their career where they’ve learned a few tough lessons, mastered riding the hype wave, and are having more fun making music than ever. It turns out, making great music was the easy part. Just go look back at their ‘Like A Version’ to remind yourself of their powerful harmonies and ability to find something raw through even the most polished of pop prisms.

Their latest single ‘Coming Up From Hell’ delivers razor-sharp verses that lead into a massive chorus, and is simultaneously their most musically intricate and catchy track to date. It’s a clear sign that they’re reaching another level.

Recently, they hit the road with Violent Soho, performing at some huge venues and managing to fill them with so much sound that you’d hardly believe they’re a humble two-piece. And judging by our chat, getting to watch one of Australia’s most beloved heavy bands do their thing each night has only added more fuel to the fire.

This Saturday, you can catch Teenage Joans headlining Volcom Women’s Unfiltered 4.0 in Port Macquarie. Now in its fourth edition, Unfiltered brings together women from across music, surfing, art and film for one big night, with live music, surf films, art and plenty more going down. This year also sees Jaleesa Vincent in the mix, bringing her wonderfully strange creative world to proceedings and teasing her upcoming Volcom capsule.

Check out our interview with Teenage Joans below and we’ll see you at Port!

How was the Violent Soho tour? What did you learn from touring with those Aussie music icons?

Tahlia: Yeah, the tour was sick. We played some venues that we hadn’t played before, like the Enmore in Sydney, which was awesome. We actually had some really good conversations with James Tidswell from Violent Soho. He’s just such a wise dude. He gives us the wisest conversations and is just full of inspiration.

‘Coming Up From Hell’ is all about the battles you’ve faced while forging your way in the industry. What’s something people wouldn’t expect to be a downside of your life?

Tahlia: We started out really young, and I think people doubted us purely based on age. We dealt with a lot of people misjudging us or doubting us straight away because of our age.

As we’ve progressed through the years, it really is just a game of figuring out who’s legit and who’s trying to get something from you, so you really have to use your intuition. I feel like we rely on each other a lot. We trust each other 100%, and if anything doesn’t feel right, we know what’s best for each other.

It’s also about being proud of what you’re making and not letting people have input who don’t need to have input. Just staying true to the music you’re making because, at the end of the day, that music is coming from you.

Have you had experiences where you’ve shown music to labels or industry people and they’ve told you which song you should release or what you should do with it?

Cahli: Yeah, we have this problem a lot. But at the end of the day, everything that goes ahead is what we say. Behind the scenes, we’re always fighting for what we feel is right for our project because, like Tahlia said, at the end of the day it’s got to feel right for us.

Ten years down the track, if our team completely changes, we’re going to be the ones that are still stuck with the music. So it’s got to feel right for us and not what some industry person who’s getting paid says.

Tahlia: We have this philosophy now because when we first started out, we were obviously just writing whatever, and there are a few songs that got pretty popular that we don’t like so much anymore. So our philosophy now when we write is: is this a song that we’re still going to be happy playing in 10 years or 20 years?

Obviously, longevity is at the forefront of our minds with everything we do. You hear of those overnight success artists, but a lot of those artists have been going for 10-plus years and we’re only hearing about them now.

In the ‘Coming Up From Hell’ video, there’s a little nod to Queen. Where did that idea come from?

Tahlia: I don’t even know. That video was so funny because with our last album, everything was so scripted down to the shot. This era, we just wanted to have fun with it. With that video, we had loose concepts for everything else, but I was just like, “No, we need this Queen bit.” It would just be funny for this one spot in the song.

If you were sitting in an empty room and there was one song playing on repeat for eternity, what song would be your personal hell?

Tahlia: I think this is actually a great song, but I’m just so sick of it: ‘Zombie’ by The Cranberries. Absolutely no hate to The Cranberries, but it’s one of those songs that everyone’s covered. I’ve heard it in 10 million different formats and I’m just so sick of it. Every time it comes on, I’m like, ‘No, enough.’ There’s always a cover.

I think ‘Linger’ is one of the best songs of all time, but ‘Zombie’ is just overplayed for me.

Coming up through the Adelaide scene, was it a nurturing space for two super-young female artists?

Tahlia: Yeah, definitely. At the time, I think I’d just turned 16 and Cahli was 17. We had bands like Bec Stevens, Colourblind and The Hard Aches. They really took us under their wing because we were so young.

They were just so welcoming to the space and got us on all their shows, and they’d even come to our shows as well, which was really nice. They just made it a super warm and welcoming place for us.

Are there any other pop tunes sitting on the Teenage Joans list that you’d potentially like to cover or completely turn around?

Tahlia: We were actually talking about this the other day. I don’t know if you’ve heard any of Audrey Hobert. She’s kind of blowing up on TikTok right now, and we were saying it’s very fun pop-girl vibes. We were like, ‘We could do a cool rock cover of this.’

But it’ll probably come down to when we get asked to do it again. Hopefully, if we get asked again, it’ll just come down to what we think at the time.

Do you guys surf, skate or snowboard? Which one would you choose?

Tahlia: I feel like we both had a bit of a skate era, but we don’t do any of those anymore.

Cahli: I feel like maybe I’d pick surfing because when you fall off, it’s the least painful.

If Jaleesa Vincent was going to teach you guys how to surf, which one of you would be standing up and catching a wave first?

Tahlia: It’d probably be you because I can’t swim, so I probably wouldn’t go surfing.

Cahli: Right, guess it’s me then.

What are your thoughts on Unfiltered and the importance of having spaces for female-led artists, musicians, surfers and filmmakers to showcase what they do?

Tahlia: We’re so excited for the show. It’s going to be so sick. I think it kind of comes back to what we said before. When we first started out, we were underestimated for a lot of reasons. Firstly, our age.

Cahli: I think a lot of it was because we were both girls. We’ve inspired a lot of people, and we’ve also been inspired by a lot of the women who came before us in music. I think it’s so important to have representation for young people, so they know they’re allowed to do this even if the people around them are doubting them for whatever reason.

What’s happening for the rest of 2026 and into 2027? Are we thinking album?

Tahlia: Yeah, it’s been a bit of a process because we’ve just been trying to get it completely perfect. Hopefully we’ll have a new single out by the end of the year, and then we are putting out an album next year. So we’re super excited.