Jun 15 2026, 9.34am / Features
Dear Joey and Brooke, What a wild ride! I just wanted to write to express …
For almost a decade, DZ Deathrays have built a reputation for their wild live act consisting of only Simon Ridley drums and Shane Parsons on guitar and vocals.
The duo bonded over a shared love of Nirvana they’d both had since they’d hit puberty. “I used to be really into Nirvana back in primary school and whenever anyone hears the start of teen spirit, just the intro and the drum pattern is something that always sticks with you”, recalls Ridley.
Heavenly // Photo: Kane Hibberd
Their sound is a wild party featuring the grunt of the Black Keys, the grunge of Local H and the groove of Death From Above 1979. Where they are often labelled a ‘party band’, drummer Simon Ridley describes the song writing process for their upcoming album as a “controlled approach”.
“We think about tracks a lot more, we’re doing heaps of demos together and putting it together slowly so hopefully we can get to the studio a hundred per cent. We spent a week in the studio and we’ve never done that before”, admits Parsons. “It’s always just been that we’ve written stuff in a rehearsal space.” Instead, the duo crafted songs via email using material recorded at rehearsals. Once a song was ready, it was back to the rehearsal room. “Obviously, playing together in a room is different to just playing along to a track. The feel’s always different. Then we get (touring guitarist) Lachlan (Ewbank) in and we get him to play and we’ll feel if the song’s working”.
“Having that week to work out where we’re taking album number three is pretty important”, he adds. Often, their most recent music binge will inform the direction of any new songs. The singer and guitarist promises “a lot of nineties stuff, a bit of Blur, Beastie Boys, Beck.”
Rockin’ // Photo: Kane Hibberd
“I’ve just gone and revisited childhood and I’m loving it again”, he says. Nostalgic as that seems, DZ Deathrays haven’t shied from adding new elements to their sound. For his live set up, Parsons runs his guitar through three separate channels. “One straight to the pa, one’s the guitar amp, one’s the bass amp, so I’ve got three levels of tone. Each one of them has a DI on it so you get a blend of mic and DI,” he explains. “Our sound guy was really the one who pushed us to do all that stuff. It was just going to give me way more ability to go out the front and get that sub and all the different frequencies to make it monstrous.”
Ridley, on the other hand, keeps his set up even simpler and uses no more than a standard rock set up with only one tom-tom. This is partly out of necessity, as he maintains he “can’t afford a drum tech” despite being endorsed by Paiste and Yamaha. “Setting up drums sucks and the less you have to set up, the easier it is”, he says. A simple set-up was inspired by drummers like Dave Grohl (Nirvana) and Jimmy Chamberlin (Smashing Pumpkins). “I think if you keep the drum kit simple, the only way to go is through your technique”, Ridley says. “It’s a lot easier to carry around your technique than your drum kit.”
