Dead Poet Society Tickets

Putting music theory into practice, new-age alt-rockers Dead Poet Society deliver a knock-out punch with their ambitious combination of hard rock, hip-hop and alt-pop as they set sights on the big leagues.

Dead Poet Society claim their moniker isn’t a reference to the beloved 1989 film starring Robin Williams as a rogue, yet inspirational teacher in a stuffy private school. The band did happen to cross paths whilst in education, though. “We came up with the band name in college,” explains guitarist Jack Collins. “It was after a long night of partying, and it was a dumb idea.” The college in question was Berklee College Of Music in Boston, where Collins, frontman Jack Underkofler, bassist Dylan Brenner and drummer Will Goodroad formed a bond over music theory and breaking its many rules. In 2013, Dead Poet Society was born. 

Early influences wouldn’t necessarily pave the way for their sonic exploration, with Underkofler citing the likes of Bob Dylan, Coldplay, John Mayer, and Frank Sinatra as the artists that made the most significant impact on his younger self. Any sense of writing formulaic music with their Ivy League credentials was entirely off the cards however. Despite the classically trained foundations, Dead Poet Society was a force to be reckoned with on stage.

Once they’d completed their college degrees, the four band mates went west and relocated to California. Flexing their musical muscle and brazenly ignoring any genre tags, they steadily released a slew of singles which resulted in their debut EP, Weapons in 2013. As they ground away in Los Angeles, releasing two further self-released EPs in the process in 2015’s Axiom and 2016’s Dempsey, the four-piece’s industry didn’t go unnoticed.

Appreciating a band following nobody else’s lead – championing varying tempos, vocal registers and fretless guitars – Spinefarm Records secured the signature of a bonafide rock music outlier. The first taste of the band’s debut album would come two years before its release in 2019 single ‘.burymewhole.’, a blend of post-rock and hardcore that’d typify the impending record and indicate the band’s penchant for styling their songs with difficult-to-search titles. 

In 2021, Dead Poet Society unleashed their debut full-length album -!- (aka The Exclamation Album), a collage of sixteen muscle-bound tracks and sound clips recorded by Collins and his close-knit circle of friends and family. A decade of perseverance paid off, as the powerhouse live act were showered with accolades – with ‘.intoodeep.’ notching over 18 million streams on Spotify – and were snapped up for support slots with Biffy Clyro and Badflower.

Touring the world, playing to sweaty, sold-out shows each night deepened Dead Poet Society’s connection with listeners. On their 2024 album FISSION, the alt-rockers opened up old wounds with Underkofler dissecting the aftermath of a failed relationship for all to see. His candid songwriting combined with the band’s genre-bending prowess resonated, as Dead Poet Society returned to the UK for their biggest headline tour to date with shows at Leeds’ Brudenell Social Club, King Tuts Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow, and London’s Scala that year.