a chinwag with shane parsons of dz deathrays

What started off as a few mates mucking around and creating tunes for their mates at house parties, has evolved into critically-acclaimed albums, a worldwide fanbase captivated by their punk vitality and accolades such as their multiple ARIA awards; proof of their monumental success as a band. 

DZ Deathrays remains one of the most recognisable acts in the contemporary Australian rock world and have recently released their sixth album, R.I.F.F. – their most innovative and immediately resonant record yet. After more than ten years of creating and sharing music with the world, the band continues to possess a modest artistic authenticity, fervor, and ambition to continue touring and creating music their fanbase will love. 

Ahead of their upcoming tour Australian tour, we sat down with Shane Parsons lead singer and guitarist of DZ Deathrays. 

Tell us a bit about how you started the band. Simon (the drummer) and I grew up together in Bundaberg and when we started University, we both moved in together and just decided to start the band. Initially, we formed a party band to play at house parties, so we just started coming up with party music and it sorta just took off from there. Lachie (guitarist/vocals) joined the band in 2014 and we met him when we were touring with a band called Children Collide. His band was opening the show and that’s how we became friends and he decided to eventually join us. This year, Luke joined the band, he was previously playing with Violent Soho. They’ve hung up their boots for a while and we really wanted a bass player and he just so happened to be available. We also went way back and knew him from before we even started the band!

Now Simon and I have performed over a thousand shows in our 14 years as DZ Deathrays. Around the 10-year mark, we debated continuing, but we were enjoying it so much. We keep it fresh all the time so we enjoy getting back out to shows and recording albums together. 

What has influenced the sound of your latest album R.I.F.F.? We always want to progress from where we started. On this new record, what we actually did was we went back and looked at some of our older music from say 2012 and thought about what inspired us back then and got back into that. Also, if there are any new rock bands that come out, that is always inspiring. But, over the years, for this album and everything we’ve created – influence and inspiration come from everywhere. I must say travelling does inspire our sound, especially meeting bands overseas and fans. Not only does it influence our music, but it is one of the biggest motivators for us to continue what we’ve been doing. 

What do you want people to take away from your music? Our main goal has always been to make people have fun at gigs and give them a place to let loose a bit and feel like they can go a little crazy and wild. When I think about our records, I always think of people listening to them on their commute, say on the bus, during workouts, going for a run or at pre-drinks before going out.  We always try to do different styles and add different influences that thread themselves throughout the songs so we’re not always doing the exact same thing and that also is to keep it fresh for us as well. 

When you’re not making music what do you like to do? Honestly, most of the time I’m making music, but now I’m a dad of an almost two-year-old, so my favourite thing to do is to be hanging out with him these days. But, to be honest, music is everything, it’s pretty much everything we do. I don’t mind getting out on my mountain bike and being in nature, but even in my spare time, I’m always thinking about writing new music.

What are some of your career highlights? A standout moment in our career actually happened quite early on. We were the opening act for a festival in Italy in a small town called Villefranche. Each day four bands played Temper Trap there and a few other amazing bands. The coolest thing was it was in a castle – the whole show and location were just amazing. 

Another epic experience was definitely opening for The Foo Fighters on their Australian tour and also just some of the international locations we’ve just been able to go to. We toured South Africa which was awesome and we met some really amazing people there. We also toured South America and that was crazy and lots of interesting things happened, but I never thought I’d ever get to go to all these places, but the band got to take me there.  

If you weren’t a musician what would you be doing? This is so hard to know, but maybe doing something with my hands like building something. I’ve enjoyed electronics as well so maybe something in that world, but it’s really hard to know because as soon as I could play guitar, all I wanted was to play in a band and I started playing when I was 13. 

Lastly, what’s next for you? We’re currently on tour. We just played some shows in Queensland – we did Gold Coast, Brisbane, and the Sunshine Coast and then we’re heading down to Victoria to do a few regional shows. After that, we’re heading back up to North Queensland and then we’ll be heading back to Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra. This tour is 20 shows and it’s all about our new album and it’s going really really well and has been amazing. 

Grab all the ticket info you need right over here.