Interview: Dead Poets Society
Having just finishing touring with Scottish legends and Download headliners Biffy Clyro on their American tour, and just about to embark on their UK & EU headline tour, Friday 10th June saw us sit down with Boston-based Dead Poet Society vocalist Jack Underkofler to discuss punctuation, poetry, and planning a crowd-surf.
Hello Jack! Let’s start with an easy one – what’s it like being back in the UK?
It’s great, it’s fucking awesome. I love it over here. Maybe it’s something to do with genetics – I took a 23 & Me and I’m like 98% Irish-English – but I fucking love it here.
Did you expect that kind of reception for your set earlier?
No, fuck no. I was absolutely amazed. We’ve been doing this for so long and no one gave a shit, so now that people are actually showing up it’s unreal.
I don’t know if you could tell but the tent was rammed, spilling out!
Okay I was wondering! You can’t really tell if it’s packing or not from up on the stage.
What did it feel like being held aloft by everyone?
Hah, such a sick experience dude. You really don’t know… Everything’s happening so quick when you’re crowd-surfing that you don’t really know what the fuck’s happening and you can’t really tell what’s going on, but it feels like you’re floating
I’m always too scared to do it! I’m 6’4”, not the thinnest – I don’t want to ruin the night for anyone else!
6’4? Jesus christ dude. Just look for a group of… *men*. Whenever I crowd-surf I look for the most bro-y looking people that out of sheer ego aren’t going to let you down!
You were saying earlier about doing this for so long – how long have you guys been around?
We’ve been a band for ten years but it’s only started to pop off in the last couple.
I’ve got to ask – where’s the name from?
Okay, so it’s such an anticlimactic story but I’m going to tell it anyways. So, the band was around for about a year before I joined, a completely different line-up. There was one of our friends in college, the drummer – and they were going around the schools being the ‘worst band’ at the music school we went to. They were so bad that I convinced my friend, the drummer, to leave – and then I ended up joining six months later! The origin of the name came from my guitarist sitting with his friends, just being like “we need a fucking name. What about Dead Poets Society? It’s a movie.” They basically went “yeah whatever, let’s just drop the s and do that”. So they didthat, and I ended up joining the band going “guys we need to change the fucking name, it’s so bad”. But they’d already made the Facebook page – so alright, guess it’s sticking.
Speaking of poetry – why all the punctuation?
Interviews we’ve done, people are looking for a better answer than this but the way I feel about music, or art in general, the bottom line – the foundation of everything -- is that it needs to feel right. It needs to evoke an emotion. And someone accidentally wrote one of the song titles that way one time. We looked at it, and we all just kind of had that feeling, that’s a vibe and we like it so we just decided to do all of the songs like that – except a couple where it didn’t feel right.
What sort of emotions do you guys want to evoke?
I… all of them, I don’t know. We just write music that makes us feel something and find the people who also feel something.
Quick – battle of the B’s. Badflower [who were supported by Dead Poet Society in September] or Biffy?
[A long pause]
I’d say that’s impossible, they’re both incredible live.
How did that happen with Biffy?
SO we were put forward for the tour by our booking agent and apparently were on a list of like 70 bands. Our booking agent was straight forward: “You’re not going to get this tour”. But Simon, or Ben or James – somebody heard us. And they said “come”. When I heard that we got the tour I just went “what the fuck” – but yeah, it worked!
Speaking of tours, have you played France or Germany before?
Nope, this’ll be our first time. And I think the Paris show is going to sell out which is blowing my mind. London, we haven’t announced it yet but it’s sold out. We’ve never sold out a show before, it’s just an awesome experience. I can’t wait to go to the mainland and see what happens.
Got to say, O’Meara is a beautiful venue.
I’ve seen pictures of it, it looks sick!
A band called Cleopatrick played there a few years ago and said it was one of the best gigs.
We were supposed to go on tour with them but it got cancelled! I fucking love that band, I hope to God we get to tour with them some day.
Are you guys playing Bristol? There’s a place called Thekla where I chatted with them that’s just great.
Yeah I’ve played Thekla! I liked Thekla, though also fuck you, they wouldn’t send me my hoodie when I left it there, but also it’s a really dope venue and the people were really nice, but also fuck you, but also you’re really nice.
Two more questions – are there any bands over the weekend you’re particularly excited to see?
We only get to see today because we’re off to Glasgow tomorrow but A Day To Remember and Frank Carter! Those.
Final one, which I always love asking. Are there any bands you’d recommend that people wouldn’t know?
Yeah there’s a couple! They’re bigger than us but I’ve been really into Turnstile recently. Des Rocs, do you know him? He’s amazing. Cleopatrick obviously. Royal Blood, though they’re the biggest fucking rock band on Earth right now. Yeah those!
Dead Poet Society are Jack Underkofler, Jack Collins, Wil Goodroad and Dylan Brenner; they are currently in the midst of a UK and EU tour, with shows in Zaandam, Hamburg, Copenhagen and Ferropolis to come later in the month.
Feature by James O’Sullivan
