DZ Deathrays celebrated ten years as a band with a national tour last year. Drummer Simon Ridley says the anniversary prompted them to reflect on how far they've come. "I think one of the main things we wanted to do when we were a band starting in Brisbane was to play at The Tivoli, so getting to play there on that ten-year anniversary tour was awesome – that was the first time we ever headlined there."

Ridley recalls DZ Deathrays' beginnings as a duo, before long-time touring musician Lachlan Ewbank joined the band officially in 2018: "We used to play tonnes of tiny little pool bars. There was one called Fat Louie's that us and Violent Soho used to play a lot back in the day. Worst load-in ever! I think it was about five flights of stairs to go up into a room the size of my lounge room, which could fit, you know, 20 people," he laughs. "That's the downfall of being a two-piece: you still have a lot of equipment, but no one to help [lug it around]. So that's also been a nice thing of having Lachy [Ewbank]." 

To start writing their upcoming fourth album, Positive Rising: Part 1 (Part 2 is on the boil: "We go into the studio next week to start recording... We're going back to The Grove, but this time with Miro [Mackie]"), the trio headed to Blackburn Homestead, an old 1895 mansion just outside of Yass in New South Wales. "It used to be a shearing station and they just rent it out for weddings and stuff now," Ridley tells. "I think maybe [producer] Burke Reid found it for The Drones or something like that, so a couple of bands have been through there. It was our second time out there; this time we brought Lach out to do some writing.

"It was really fun. It was just a week out there this time, in winter. I think we had about three fireplaces running at all times. It was real cold so we thought we were gonna write a real doomy record," he laughs. 

Rather than returning to The Grove with Reid as producer (their previous two albums, Bloody Lovely and 2014's Black Rat, were recorded in this way), DZ Deathrays "wanted to do something different and try to push [themselves] a bit" this time around, setting off for LA to record the album with producer Mackie. "It kind of feels like a rite of passage to be a band and go to LA and make a record, you know? It's just that cliched thing that you gotta do and we're all about cliches," Ridley chuckles.

While in LA, DZ Deathrays favoured Lime's electric scooter rentals as their mode of transport. "They put [the scooters] out everywhere and you just stumble across them and then you ditch them when you're done. It's pretty fun, especially when you don't have to worry about the helmets or anything like you do here, and it's really cheap.... We had this apartment block right near the studio, which is in North Hollywood, like, a ten-minute ride away and then at the end of the day we'd just ride back and go to a bar." 

Even though they didn't have any stacks, Ridley confesses, "There were a few close calls".

Year Of The Dog – a snarling beast of a single lifted from Positive Rising: Part 1 – features one of DZ Deathrays' musical heroes: The Bronx's Matt Caughthran. "When we first started DZ Deathrays, Shane [Parsons, frontman] and I wrote down a list of bands that we really loved and kind of wanted this band to be an amalgamation of, and The Bronx were up there on top of that list. And then to be able to tour with them later on and still remain friends with them, and then getting Matt to do that song is pretty nuts!

"It was such a surreal moment... We were all sitting in the control room and we got him into the booth, he did one run of it and nailed it! And we were all kinda looking at each other going, 'Woah, he's just driven, like, two hours [to get here], he's gotta do something. Tell him to do a couple more.' He was awesome."