Balu Brigada started as a four-piece in 2016 — brothers Henry and Pierre Beasley, their older brother Charles on drums, and a childhood friend on bass — before it shrank down to just Henry and Pierre, who took over multi-instrumentalist and dual-vocalist duties themselves. They grew up in an artistic Auckland household: a ballet-dancer father who played Bowie records, an actress mother who preferred the Beatles.
Portal, their debut album, came out in 2025 after two earlier EPs, and Twenty One Pilots tapped them for support the same year — a New Zealand band's first real shot at a headline audience outside their home country.