\"You just got to grab it and go for it in that moment.\" — Jackson Van Issum, Beddy Rays
Beddy Rays are four best mates from Redland Bay, Queensland who have been inseparable since they met on a school oval at age six. Their debut album hit #1 on the ARIA Vinyl chart and #2 on the Australian Albums chart. They've appeared in the triple j Hottest 100 multiple times. They won the Rock Award at the 2024 Queensland Music Awards. And they play like a band who never forgot why they started.
Harley Breen sits down with vocalist Jacko (Jackson Van Issum) and lead guitarist Lewy (Lewis McKenna) on the afternoon of their first-ever Woodford Folk Festival performance — a headline slot at the Amphigrande, the festival's biggest stage — to talk about how they got here.
The conversation covers the full origin story: four primary school kids bonding over Green Day and The Offspring on a school oval, eventually picking up instruments because someone had to play the drums and their mate Benny turned out to be frighteningly good at Guitar Hero. The house party at Jacko's place while his parents were away that became their first gig. The years of playing venues around Fortitude Valley without a manager, without a plan, and without quite understanding how the music industry worked — until they got one and realised how much they'd been figuring out the hard way.
They also talk about the creative process — how Jacko writes from the centre of the song outward, why he tries to finish an idea the moment it arrives, and what it feels like to sit down to write and think: have I forgotten how to do this? (He hasn't. Neither has Harley.)
And they talk about what it means to play a folk festival when your sound is breezy coastal punk rock — and why, once you understand that folk is the precursor to punk, to hip hop, to protest music, it makes complete sense.
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Key topics: Beddy Rays, Jacko Van Issum, Lewy McKenna, Queensland punk, Australian indie rock, Woodford Folk Festival, songwriting, coastal punk rock, music origin stories, Australian music
To come to the Woodford Folk Festival this year visit: https://woodfordfolkfestival.com/
FOR MORE:
Harley Breen: https://www.harleybreen.com.au
Beddy Rays: https://linktr.ee/beddyrays
CREDITS: Host: Harley Breen | Guests: Jackson Van Issum and Lewis McKenna of Beddy Rays | Executive Producer: Benny Wallington, Bree Hickson-Jamieson | Producers: Cameron Scurrah, Georgia Shaw, Amelie Barham, Benjamin 'Tofty' Toft | Video Editing: Nick Haddow | Sound Editing: Kieron Atkinson | Music by: The East Pointers | Recorded on Jinibara Country | Recorded December 2025