RONKER Are Becoming One of Belgium’s Fastest-Rising Heavy Bands

Belgium’s heavy underground has rarely lacked interesting bands, but right now RONKER are moving noticeably faster than most. After a sold-out Ancienne Belgique show and appearances at Jera On Air, Dynamo Metal Fest and ArcTanGent, the Belgian speed noise outfit added another major festival to their increasingly impressive run this month: Pukkelpop.

Even Pukkelpop itself is taking notice. The festival describes RONKER as one of the fastest-rising acts in Belgium’s thriving heavy music scene, a claim that feels increasingly difficult to argue with.

Formed in 2020, the band have developed a sound they call speed noise, combining noise rock, hardcore riffing and flashes of 90s emo into something that doesn’t fit comfortably into any single corner of the alternative scene.

More importantly, RONKER are proving that sound can travel.

From the underground to major festival stages

RONKER’s trajectory over the past two years has been remarkably quick.

Their 2024 debut album Fear Is a Funny Thing, Now Smile Like a Big Boy established the band’s abrasive identity, but the period since has seen them expand well beyond their initial Belgian underground following.

Extensive touring at home and abroad followed, before second album Respect The Hustle, I Won’t Be Your Dog Forever arrived in early 2026.

The band presented that record at Brussels’ Ancienne Belgique in February. Rather than looking out of place as the rooms became bigger, RONKER appeared to thrive on it. The AB show demonstrated how comfortably the intensity of their early material could survive the transition towards larger stages.

The festival season has pushed that development further.

Jera On Air placed RONKER directly inside one of Europe’s most important punk and hardcore environments. Dynamo Metal Fest and ArcTanGent exposed the band to different sections of the heavy and experimental audience. Pukkelpop then provided another step up, putting them in front of one of Belgium’s broadest festival crowds.

RONKER turn Pukkelpop into a hardcore show

At Pukkelpop, RONKER played the Backyard on Sunday afternoon. An early festival slot could easily have become another name buried somewhere in a huge weekend schedule.

That isn’t what happened.

The band’s set became another demonstration of why their reputation has grown so quickly. With frontman Jasper De Petter driving the crowd and the band operating at full intensity behind him, songs including “Tall Stories,” “Kennedy,” “MJ,” “Clear The Air” and “No Sweat” turned the Backyard into something closer to a hardcore show than a conventional afternoon festival performance.

Belgian outlet Enola described virtually every element of the band as clicking into place, from De Petter’s commanding presence to the sheer momentum of the music.

That response follows a similar story from Jera On Air earlier this summer.

There, RONKER actively called for the audience to turn their set into a hardcore show. Stagedivers quickly followed, while the band delivered what Dansende Beren ultimately considered one of the most impressive performances of the entire festival weekend.

For a band still making its way through the European festival hierarchy, those are important reactions.

Speed noise without the boundaries

Part of RONKER’s appeal is that they can move between scenes without sounding as if they were designed specifically for any of them.

Pukkelpop categorises the band across rock, punk and hardcore, while RONKER’s self-created speed noise label perhaps does a better job of explaining what happens when those elements collide.

There is hardcore in the riffs and physicality of their live shows. There is the abrasion and unpredictability of noise rock. Elsewhere, elements of emo and alternative rock push through the distortion.

That flexibility explains why RONKER can make sense at Jera On Air and Dynamo Metal Fest while also fitting onto more adventurous alternative festivals such as ArcTanGent and the much broader Pukkelpop.

It also gives the band something increasingly valuable as they move beyond Belgium: an identity that is recognisably theirs.

Belgium has another heavy export in the making

Calling any band the “next big thing” usually says more about hype than where that band actually stands. With RONKER, there is something much more tangible to measure.

The rooms are getting bigger. The festival names are getting bigger. The geographic reach is expanding. And audiences unfamiliar with the band appear to be responding once they encounter them live.

The jump from Belgian underground favourite to established European heavy act isn’t complete yet, but RONKER increasingly look like a band in the middle of making it.

Pukkelpop calling them one of Belgium’s fastest-rising heavy acts isn’t simply good festival biography copy anymore.

At this point, it looks like a fair assessment.

RONKER’s second album, Respect The Hustle, I Won’t Be Your Dog Forever, is out now.