Project Reverb: What Writing Stadium Rock Without a Band Did to Let the Games Begin
Project Reverb Had No Band, so Let the Games Begin Came From Hired Parts
Arena rock is the one style that needs a room full of people. Project Reverb does not have one: Let the Games Begin is an arena record made by a songwriter with no band. Project Reverb is the working name of John Huggart, who lives on Sydney’s north shore. His own triple j Unearthed page calls him an unemployed CEO, whiskey lover and award winning songwriter. The track came out on 8 December 2022, and he does not sing a note on it.
Project Reverb’s music is in the playlist below, and the coverage so far is gathered on the Project Reverb profile. Let the Games Begin reached this desk through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news sites. Put it on, then carry on reading.
What Project Reverb Gave Up to Make Let the Games Begin
The constraint here is not money, and it is not a room. It is the absence of a band. For this genre, that is the expensive kind of absence.
Huggart writes, and then he finds people. His triple j Unearthed profile puts it plainly: he collaborates with producers, singers and musicians locally and globally. Here that meant handing the vocal to Atticus Jønes, the performing name of Scott Shepherd. Production went to Max Shepherd, who is Scott’s son and who also plays on the recording. All three share the writing credit. The streaming services bill it as Project Reverb and Atticus Jønes, not as a band. That is the honest description.
What you give up in that arrangement is the thing most rock records sell on. There is no line-up to photograph, no rehearsal-room history, no shared years to point at. A listener who wants a gang gets a credit list instead. This desk has looked at the same trade from the other end, at a label where one name sits in every credit.
What the Trade Buys Back
What you get is a voice the writer does not have.
That is the whole case for working this way. On this track it lands. The vocal is the most convincing thing on the recording, and it belongs to somebody hired to do exactly that. Brand New Tracks heard it too. Its review describes a vocal whose passion matches the pace of the song, over guitars and drums it called impactful.
The production sits close behind. Max Shepherd played on the track and then mixed it. A producer who has already performed a part knows what that part should do in the mix. It is a short feedback loop, and short loops tend to produce records that sound decided rather than assembled.
Where Let the Games Begin Puts Its Money
The song aims at a specific moment, and it is not a chorus.
It is the walk-out. Huggart has said he wanted to capture “the immersive anticipation, tension and thrills of the stadium concerts, which are mirrored in the biggest sporting events”. The arrangement follows that brief rather than a hook. The guitars arrive already loud. The bass, which Brand New Tracks called a steady and addictive groove, holds one forward motion for the whole track. It never moves with the vocal.
Huggart traces the idea to concerts he has attended. He names Bruce Springsteen and the Rolling Stones, then Australia’s own the Angels and AC/DC. That lineage explains the structure better than the genre tag does. Those bands all had to survive a stadium PA. That means low end that does not wander, and guitars that do not wait their turn.
From the BestRock.News curator team: “Let the Games Begin is arena rock made by somebody with no arena and no band. That forces every decision into the open. Huggart could not lean on a line-up, so he bought a voice and a producer and wrote to their strengths. Records made that way usually sound thin. This one does not.”
It has travelled on that basis. Beyond the Brand New Tracks review, the track picked up radio and playlist support in Spain, Brazil and Portugal. That is a long way from Sydney for a self-released single with no touring act behind it.
The Competitions Behind Project Reverb and Let the Games Begin
The catalogue explains the working method better than the single does.
Huggart’s 2021 song Faith, Hope & Love reached four competition finals. They were the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, the International Songwriting Competition, Australian Listen Up Music and the Australian Songwriting Association. Competitions reward the song rather than the act. That suits a writer who has no act.
Eternity: A Song for Sydney and Every Cloud sit either side of this one in the catalogue. A new single, Turn Around, arrived in March 2026, so the project is still running.
He also runs a YouTube channel called Indie, Over 50. It covers independent musicians over fifty who are still releasing original music. That is useful context for a record like this. It comes from someone who has thought hard about releasing without the apparatus a younger act assumes. Let the Games Begin is what that thinking sounds like pointed at a stadium.
Where to Hear Let the Games Begin by Project Reverb
Let the Games Begin is on Spotify, Apple Music and SoundCloud.
Follow Project Reverb on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
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