Sonic Warfare

If you're yet to see fellow party-hard Brisbane two-piece Dune Rats' homage to DZ Deathrays' film clip for The Mess Up, do so sharpish. Whereas singer/guitarist Shane Parsons and his musical partner in crime, drummer Simon Ridley, sculled as many shots of Jägermeister as they could within their song's duration, Dune Rats substituted so-called “lavender and tobacco” bongs to punctuate their own Red Light Green Light. “I know those guys pretty well,” Parsons shares. “So they asked us if they could do it and I was just like, 'Yeah, man, but just don't die,' [laughs]. 'Don't get an asthma attack or something, 'cause that wouldn't be very nice'.” So does Parsons reckon the lads were actually smoking “lavender and tobacco”? “I don't think they were,” the frontman chuckles. 

DZ Deathrays are renowned for inciting moshpit mayhem and the band members themselves are also keen crowd-surfers. Parsons recalls an incident at a Brisbane show earlier in the year where he stacked onto “a little barrier right up against the stage”. “I just landed in this tiny gap. I had a big brown and yellow line, and some scrapes, that went all the way up my left side where my body hit the stage, haha.”

One could never accuse DZ Deathrays of saturating the local market. In fact, they seem to have graced more international stages than local ones in recent years. “We kind of miss that long time overseas,” Parsons admits. “It was hectic, but it was really awesome. You just had that job to get done, and that was to get to the next show and play a gig… We always tour-manage ourselves overseas. So it's in our hands to get to the shows, but it is that thing of: if we don't make the show, then we're fucked.” 

When asked whether there were times Parsons felt gross but was forced to adopt the old adage, 'The show must go on,' the singer/guitarist replies: “I fucked my back by lifting gear, the first tour we did. We were in Germany and I was carrying an amp up some stairs and it was, like, seven in the morning 'cause we went back and got our gear, and then I think we were going back to England. After sitting for so long in the van, we got to England and we had a show in Bristol and, by the time we got to loading out, I couldn't even lift any amps or anything.”

For subsequent OS touring stints, the duo have adopted a (slightly) more responsible attitude. “Most times when you're touring overseas you do a show every night and if you have a night off, to not go out and party that night – as good as it could be sometimes – sometimes it's better just to have that night off,” Parson recommends, “'cause then you literally get a good night's sleep and recover. When you're staying out 'til four every morning – and then you're up at sort of like nine/ten o'clock and driving every day, and then playing and then the same thing – you do that for, like, two weeks straight and then it starts to take its toll. I mean, that's what happened before we went in to do the album [Bloodstreams] in 2011.”

After a month-long European tour, Parsons tells that he started getting sick during DZ Deathrays' last show in London and wound up totally incapacitated after the long-haul flight home. “I think we had a week and a half off or something,” he remembers. “We were supposed to be rehearsing and getting ready to do the album in that week and a half. I couldn't do anything I was so sick.” Thinking a dose of fresh air would sort him out, Parsons headed for the coast. “I was walking along the beach and this guy behind me could hear me coughing and he was like, 'Dude, I've had asthma my whole life and what you've got is fuckin' bad. Go to the doctor!' And I got some street advice from some dude on the beach,” he laughs. “I went to the doctor, finally, after about a week of coughing my guts up, and went to the studio, started doing the record and the doctor called me and was like, 'Yeah, you've got whooping cough'. It was by far one of the worst things. I'd never wish that on anyone. I was coughing myself into passing out. I just woke up in the morning one day, I was like, 'Shit, the last I remember is coughing!' 

“It probably couldn't have happened at a worse time, but I think we learnt a bit, like, that's why we always take vitamins and [before] every show we look like dicks sitting out the back doing stretches. I'm hoping to be in 100% health for this next record.” 

Parsons reflects back on the songwriting process that generated material for DZ's debut set: “We were just writing it and then playing it, and we wouldn't really change it until we got to the studio. And Richard [Pike], who produced the record, was like, 'I think you should just have this bit as a sort of freak-out,' and we were like, 'Okay, let's just go for it,' and it was probably one of the funnest parts on the record, you know.   

“Doing the last record [was a] really big learning curve for us, and what we took away from it is actually that idea of looking at each section and saying, 'What's good and what's shit about it?' And sort of figuring out ways of making the song seem interesting the whole time… Some songs just come together really quickly and some take a little bit more time, but I think now, for every song, once we've got something down, we're thinking, 'Does it need to be changed?' And then we can make a decision from there.” 

Bloodstreams scored DZ a couple of trophies for the pool room last year (a Jägermeister Independent Music Award followed by an ARIA), but Parsons can't wait to get in the studio and apply what he's learned from the countless overseas bands they've shared stages with. “We've seen what they do and the songs that just come across really well live. You wanna have a lot of those songs that do cut through to the crowd, and people wanna feel connected to and get involved in the song.” He pauses and then chuckles before offering: “It's that fine line. You want it to be catchy, but not cheesy, and you want it to be energetic, but not all over the place…  I think that's another thing for us: we don't wanna be a polished band, but we do wanna have a level of cleanliness there, I guess, of, like, clarity – to really showcase the songs as pieces of work. That's hopefully what we're gonna go for on the second album.”

DZ Deathrays will be playing the following dates:

Thursday 4 April - Alhambra Lounge, Fortitude Valley QLD
Saturday 6 April - Good God Small Club, Sydney NSW
Friday 12 April - Rocket Bar, Adelaide SA
Saturday 13 April - Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne VIC
Thursday 25 April - Annandale Hotel, Sydney NSW
Friday 26 April - Annandale Hotel, Sydney NSW
Saturday 27 April - Groovin' The Moo, Maitland Showground NSW
Sunday 28 April - Groovin' The Moo, University Of Canberra ACT
Wednesday 1 May - Corner Hotel, Melbourne VIC
Thursday 2 May - Fowlers Live, Adelaide SA
Saturday 4 May - Groovin' The Moo, Prince Of Wales Showgrounds, Bendigo WA
Sunday 5 May - Groovin' The Moo, Murray Sports Complex, Townsville QLD
Tuesday 7 May - The Hi-Fi, Brisbane QLD
Friday 10 May - Capitol, Perth WA
Saturday 11 May - Groovin' The Moo, Hay Park, Bunbury WA