a dead poet Society daydream becoming reality

Digging back through my playlists and my memories, that are increasingly becoming one in the same, Dead Poet Society (the band, obviously, this is a music blog) entered my life in 2021. 

Specifically, I can remember listening to ‘American Blood’ on a death-defying repeat cycle, meaning, I listened to it until the words and sounds blended into a meaningless mush and I had to put it away for a little while. A little while ended up only being a few days, after which I added it to a playlist I had titled ‘angry little emo boys’, and continued on my merry way. I was working as a Student Librarian, getting paid well for doing very little and I adored every second of it. I was also, unfortunately, working minimal hours and needed to pay my rent, so I found myself back in the pits of hell that is liquor retail as my side-gig that consumed much more time than my ‘main gig’.

It’s around this time I stumbled across ‘.intoodeep.’, which felt deeply relatable, and was quickly added to the ‘angry little emo boys’ playlist. I don’t know how accurate that description is but the title is more of a sense, a feeling, a vibe from listening to their music rather than drawing from anything in reality. It’s a playlist full of songs that are linked by a sense of self-hatred, reckless abandon, something distinctly youthful and violent and self-destructive. 

It is very easy to drink too much whilst working in liquor retail. Understanding the product is half the job, being hungover whilst shelving and facing the demon that leads you down that path is the other, being stuck in it from ages 19-21 is the detonator. 

Dead Poet Society found me at a point in my life where I was studying to become a writer, realising writing is fucking miserable and not truly something that can be studied, and yet there’s nothing I’ve ever been better at and I wanted that stupid piece of paper. 

I was late to the game. Dead Poet Society formed in 2013, they confirmed their current line up in 2019. Vocalist and guitarist, Jack Underkofler; guitarist, Jack Collins; bassist, Dylan Brenner; and drummer, Will Goodroad make up the band that is Dead Poet Society today. The song that was algorithmically delivered to me in the good year of 2021, ‘American Blood’, was actually released in 2018 and had been quietly flourishing, waiting to be discovered by my hot little hands. 

From there, as most people do, I dig through their discography. I discovered there’s an album (their debut album ‘-!-‘, in 2021), and I fell head over heels with this heavy indie rock band that seem to blend an odd almost country-rock guitar style with truly thunderous bass, guitars so tuned down that it seems to drag on the floor, filthy and grimey, while the vocals soar through the ceiling. Like an angel from hell. 

My listening stop-stutters-starts again with the release of ‘Fission’ in January of 2024, their sophomore album. It’s an album that I can listen to all the way through, sing every word, and happily begin again without pause.

It’s heavy, it’s groovy, it’s gritty, it’s pop-y, it accidentally became the soundtrack for many car trips over the year to several major life-events ranging the spectrum of finally picking where my now husband and I were getting married to saying goodbye to my beautiful nana. 

My partner calls his car Zoidberg. He’s an older gentleman, red with weather-worn paint, peeling and patchy, like a lobster shedding its skin (hence Zoidberg). At that point in time the air conditioning did not work, the power-steering was temperamental, a headlight was out, and we later discovered the wheel bearings had failed, plus the engine mount was not mounting and allowed for a truly deafening roar accompanying every road trip. 

In 2024, we took many, many roadtrips, and ‘Fission’ accompanied us through most of them. The heavy, bass-y, growling tracks were perfectly suited to covering up the anxiety of not knowing if we’d make it down the Great Ocean Road safely, or through the winding pitch black country roads in one piece. It was a little less successful at drowning out the roar of an engine rattling loose around a bonnet but that’s an almost impossible feat. 

I wanted so badly to hear Dead Poet Society live. I mentioned it drunk at parties several times, crowded around a table, at that point in the evening where music videos were entertainment and conversations circular, making strangers and friends promise me that we will go see them together if they ever come to Australia. Several promises that I did not keep because I had never really expected they would make their way down here. I was making plans to eventually catch them in Europe, or their home country America. 

Yet, on December 3rd 2025, my husband and I made our way down those vicious Max Watts stairs and the impossible was realised, both in sound level (Zoidberg couldn’t hold a candle to the pure volume that is Max Watts), and in finally being able to see one of my favourite bands live, in the flesh, in Australia. 

I have a habit of daydreaming and in my daydreams I’d imagined moshing to ‘Lo Air’, the chaotic, bass-heavy, breakdown in the latter half where the music practically forces you to bend in two, to fling yourself sideways and collide with something, anything, just to feel. I’d imagined tilting my head back and screaming every word to ‘Hurt’, a song that feels like it nestles in the heart of any person chasing an unrealistic dream despite the world tearing you down every second. 

My daydreams became reality, to my relief, though less moshing as I’m chicken-shit at the best of times. 

Bassist Dylan Brenner brought an infectious energy, bounding around the stage, jumping high and often, at one stage bringing a box onstage to stand a little taller, and was beaming throughout, bright and effervescent with a sharp-edge. It’s a treat to see an artist so clearly love what they’re performing. As the first of the two co-headliners (Bad Nerves; a refreshing British modern punk band to follow) the crowd began slightly muted but were quick to meet Dead Poet Society, and Brenner, in energy. 

Typically with gig reviews I’ll dedicate some time to crowd-gazing. I love to watch people fall in love, to feel something new, to feel something old and painful and familiar, to feel nothing at all but simply relish in waves of sound. Such as later in the evening, when Bad Nerves reminded me why British Punk is so delicious. I watched new punks cautiously two-stepping in the back of the sunken pit, whilst dozens of grinning young people flung themselves against each other, creating a lively, whirling mosh. And again later still, when the same young people fought their way up to surf over the crowd, disappearing again with sweaty, beaming faces. Max Watts is one of very few venues who allow for a thriving mosh much to punters and my delight. 

However, I didn’t have time during Dead Poet Society. I was transfixed, enthralled, watching and listening to them perform songs I’ve deafened myself with for years. 

Each track that was announced by Jack Underkofler, or simply started with an iconic, memorable guitar riff, were greeted with raucous cheers. I blamed my hoarse voice the next morning on Underkofler playfully questioning if the audience knew ‘this song’, before playing the achingly familiar opening riff to ‘American Blood’. A song that felt so personal. A song I’d used to soothe angst-ridden evenings and long lonely days, times where it felt as though I was perhaps the most miserable person on the planet, was suddenly a song felt so broadly, so widely, that the idea of not knowing the song in that moment seemed ridiculous. 

The setlist was stacked, with only an hour to deliver, Dead Poet Society gave only the most popular tracks with a brief intermission for a heartfelt, bittersweet love song written for a past long term girlfriend's birthday and performed solo by Underkofler. A song that had previously been retired and only recently brought back into the setlist, because it’s a beautiful song, ‘and it’s easy to sing’, Underkofler joked. 

Underkofler didn’t need to worry about easy songs to sing, his vocals vibrant, powerful, and clear throughout. As a band they worked in a chaotic harmony, creating moments in which they could come together in a messy circle, hunched over their instruments and drawing out bone-rattling jams, passionate and heavy and perfect. Particularly enjoyable was hearing and seeing the drum solo of Will Goodroad. The drums of Dead Poet Society have always been steady, yet enticing, giving an energy to tracks that could otherwise drag and droop. It was a delight to see such a talent shine. 

Their set wrapped before I even realised the time had disappeared with ‘Hurt’, the song I’ll always return to. Especially over the holiday period, when those very questions begin to crop up loud and demanding, rattling to gatherings in our crusty steed Zoidberg, ‘Why the hell would you hurt yourself for this?’. I lifted my head high, knowing exactly why, and screamed every word.