Alien Weaponry win best Rock / Metal artist at Aotearoa Music Awards

Alien Weaponry took out Best Rock / Metal Artist at the Aotearoa Music Awards last night (28 May) for their album Te Rā. How good.

The category was expanded from Best Rock to Best Rock / Metal in 2026 to reflect the growing metal scene in Aotearoa, so it feels pretty fitting that one of NZ’s biggest metal exports walked away with the Tūī. 

Not their first rodeo either, the trio previously won the Rock category back in 2018 and 2022.

The boys also ripped through an epic live performance on the night, bringing their signature blend of thrash metal and waiata reo Māori to The Civic stage. 

What makes Alien Weaponry even cooler is how far they’ve travelled outside of NZ. In a 2025 interview with Rolling Stone, bassist Tūranga Porowini Morgan-Edmonds said crowds overseas have fully embraced singing in te reo Māori.

“We’ve had 15,000 people in Spain singing our lyrics back to us,” he said. “That’s powerful. That’s something we bring home to Māori people who’ve been told their language and culture don’t matter. It helps them feel that pride again.”

He also spoke about proving Māori culture belongs on the world stage.

“We grew up in this country being told that nobody would care about your language, your people, your culture,” Tūranga said. “Now we’re taking it to the world and proving just how wrong that idea is.”

Marlon Williams, Lorde and 2025 People’s Choice Tūī winners Devilskin were also acknowledged with the first-ever Aotearoa Charts #1 awards, after all landing at #1 on the Official Top 40 in 2025. 

Other winners on the night included The Beths taking out Best Group for Straight Line Was A Lie, Fat Freddy’s Drop being named Aotearoa Charts Icon, and Stella Reid winning Best Music Video Content for Scared Old Men by Dick Move. 

Big old night for NZ music really.