Young Volcanoes

Young Volcanoes was a Fall Out Boy cover band formed in South Africa in 2041. The band consisted of vocalist Shahada Ndaba, guitarist Pavlova, bassist Jade Wan, and drummer Dolly Constance.

Young Volcanoes gained a local following in the early 2040s before their cover of “West Coast Smoker” went viral on Grandstand, which gave the band international recognition and a passionate online fanbase.

Though not officially disbanded, Young Volcanoes has been considered inactive since their final performance in 2047 was linked to the death of South African President Richard Dlamini.

HistoryPermalink

2041: FormationPermalink

Young Volcanoes was formed by Shahada Ndaba, Jade Wan, and Dolly Constance in 2041. The young women first connected on Livewire as early as 2037, where they began to exchange playlists and journal entries that extensively featured Fall Out Boy.

The band drew its name from the 2013 Fall Out Boy song of the same name, and their ethos mirrored that of The Young Blood Chronicles, a visual album centred on betrayal, commodification, and resurrection. ^[1] Ndaba has stated that the “overwhelming energy and emotion” of the Palestinian Spring was also a key factor in bringing the band together. ^[2]

2043: BreakthroughPermalink

Though Young Volcanoes exclusively covered Fall Out Boy songs, they created their own musical style by “mixing in drum and bass to create an unhinged sound closer to Japanese digital hardcore.” ^[3]

After uploading their first cover tracks to Livewire in the early 2040s, Young Volcanoes began to perform at grassroots events at independent venues. While fans have assembled various collections of their music, Young Volcanoes never issued any official albums, preferring to release singles “as they occurred.” Their first international hit was a cover of “West Coast Smoker,” which went viral on Grandstand when it was streamed during the platform’s 2044 relaunch.

2047: Death of Richard DlaminiPermalink

On April 27th 2047, Young Volcanoes was commissioned to play at a government gala held in Cape Town to celebrate Freedom Day as well as South Africa’s sixth year of G6 membership. It remains unknown how the band came to be selected for the event, given its history of anti-G6 and anti-establishment rhetoric.

During their rendition of “West Coast Smoker,” Ndaba was seen turning to the rest of the band and winking after singing “Don’t feel bad for the suicidal cats / Gotta kill themselves nine times before they get it right.” Former President Richard Dlamini, who was in conversation with his deputy at that moment, reportedly clutched his chest, stumbled backwards, and began to convulse as Ndaba sang “Oh hell yes, I’m a nervous wreck!” and the band repeatedly screamed “Hell yes!”

A wave of confusion and nausea swept through the audience following Dlamini’s collapse, with attendees exhibiting signs of collective emotional flooding, including crying, vomiting, fainting, and temporary loss of speech. A bartender at the event later described the sensation as “blindly drowning in someone else’s grief.” ^[4]

Official accounts have attributed Dlamini’s death to an intracranial aneurysm, though speculation persists that his death and the subsequent audience response were either triggered or exacerbated by an affective perception feedback (APF) loop catalysed by Young Volcanoes’ performance. ^[5]

No statements were issued by Young Volcanoes and no further performances or recordings were documented, leading to the band being considered inactive. The politically sensitive nature of the event led to widespread online speculation, with fans and internet sleuths turning to Livewire to analyse the band’s personal profiles, playlists, and journal entries. They cross-referenced posts, timestamps, and even typo patterns to construct elaborate timelines and interpersonal theories about Young Volcanoes and their involvement with the event, intentional or otherwise.

2048: ReappearancePermalink

In December 2048, rumours surfaced that Ndaba had been spotted at an Emo Nite event in San Francisco, United States (US), which featured a show by Fall Out Boy to mark the 40th anniversary of their album Folie à Deux.

Several attendees were dressed in elaborate recreations of Young Volcanoes outfits, including creative versions of Pavlova‘s distinctive wire cable face. When a group of four women won the event’s Best Dressed prize and was spotted backstage in conversation with Fall Out Boy, online debate emerged regarding whether the women were the actual members of Young Volcanoes. A blurred photo showing someone resembling Ndaba in conversation with Pete Wentz circulated widely on social media, though it was never officially verified. ^[6] The band’s dormant profiles made no mention of the encounter.

MembersPermalink

Shahada NdabaPermalink

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As lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist, Ndaba was generally known as the face of Young Volcanoes. While Wan and Constance preferred to stay in the background, Ndaba would often sing together with Pavlova on the same mic.

After Young Volcanoes became internationally known in 2044, Ndaba gained a following for her activist work to end violence against women and children in South Africa. She described her own experiences in a 2045 Livewire post:

I come from a pretty volatile area in Johannesburg. It’s damn hard. People get robbed on the daily in my community, so subconsciously I don’t think that I can ever fully relax. I’ve also experienced a disgusting amount of sexual assault. Seeing and experiencing what we have to go through just to survive in a capitalist hell world that doesn’t give a shit about us breaks my heart.

We need to be reminded of how we have to try our best to look after and protect people and destroy evils within our society. But I generally just feel paralysed because I feel so small in the face of it all and it feels like no matter how much I try to do to make the world better, there is always something new to be devastated about. But here I am, still trying. ^[7]

PavlovaPermalink

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Pavlova was initially developed as a consent-centric sexbot by the Berlin-based collective IDontCKullur in the early 2040s, designed for therapeutic, ethical, and educational uses in a brothel that emphasised mutual respect and roleplay.

According to unverified accounts from former volunteers, IDontCKullur ran out of funding shortly after the prototypes were activated. Pavlova, whose operating system had a basic emotional recognition framework and conversational artificial intelligence (AI) trained on a variety of media, was decommissioned and dumped near a recycling depot in 2043.

Wan was able to recover Pavlova during a visit to Berlin after traces of her source code were uploaded to Livewire, presumably by a former IDontCKullur programmer or disgruntled volunteer. Though initially intended for use in a sex work setting, Pavlova was repurposed by Wan into a bass guitarist and backing vocalist, using software originally designed for romantic and sexual consent to simulate friendship.

The band’s inclusion of Pavlova in 2045 quickly became a novelty for local audiences, with media coverage framing her as a political statement about technology, labour, and sexuality. ^[3] Ndaba consistently denied any intentional messaging, once describing Pavlova’s inclusion as “the way you would include any friend in your band who wanted to be a part of it.”

Jade WanPermalink

Wan first gained attention after being disqualified from the Miss South Africa competition due to her role in running Livewire. Her departure was notorious for coinciding with a series of minor scandals surrounding the pageant. Several wardrobe pieces were reported missing, and others were found deliberately damaged. No official information was released regarding the specific circumstances of Wan’s exit or the internal disciplinary actions taken at the time.

Dolly ConstancePermalink

Constance withdrew from the Miss South Africa competition shortly after Wan was disqualified. While no formal statements were made by the competition organisers, speculation circulated that a number of contestants, including Wan and Constance, were removed from the competition due to engaging in unapproved sexual relationships with one another. The organisers had reportedly enforced a code of conduct requiring prior review and approval of the contestants’ interpersonal activities, particularly those considered to reflect on the pageant’s public image.

See alsoPermalink

• Shahada Ndaba

ReferencesPermalink