Dead Poet Society Is the Raw Rock Band You Need Right Now

The rock band Dead Poet Society formed suddenly, almost by accident, in 2013 when its members randomly booked a gig during a raucous night out, with just 48 hours before showtime. As guitarist Jack Collins recalls, the group rehearsed the next day before imbibing again to celebrate landing its first official show. Then it dawned on the merry Berklee music students: They still needed a name.

“We came up with the band name in college. It was after a long night of partying, and it was a dumb idea,” explains Collins, adding that the moniker is not a reference to the beloved 1989 film Dead Poets Society, starring Robin Williams. “It was a totally different band at the time. It was not thought about for more than a second or two, like ‘Oh, that could be a good name.’ It really has nothing to do with the movie; it’s more like, ‘It’s a cool name, let’s do that.’"

Self-deprecating and sarcastic, Collins goes so far as to say he wishes he could change it, but after a decade, Dead Poet Society’s chaotic beginnings seem fitting, given the spastic music the four-piece puts out.

After releasing a slew of singles and the four-song EP Weapons in 2013, Dead Poet Society unleashed its debut album, -!- (aka "The Exclamation Album"), in 2021. The sixteen songs on the record are a blend of post-rock and hardcore, complete with difficult-to-search song titles such as ".getawayfortheweekend." and "-gopi-," ss well as sound clips from recorded conversations between Collins and his family or friends (listen to how “-gopi-” leads into ".lovemelikeyoudo." for the best example of that).

“We really wanted to do as many things we could on that last album that would make us stick out. I don’t know if that’s a smart idea or a bad idea, but we did it,” Collins says. “We got so much pushback from our record label at the time, especially with the voice memos. They were telling us, ‘This isn’t a good idea. You shouldn’t do this.’ And that made us do it even more. The label knows now that the more they push back on us, the more we’re going to do what they don’t want us to do."

The deluxe edition, released in late 2021,  includes a live version of ".intoodeep." from a previous Denver show. And the band, which includes Collins, Jack Underkofler (vocals and guitar), Will Goodroad (drums) and Dylan Brenner (bass), is coming back to the Front Range for a show at the Aggie Theatre on Tuesday, May 30, with Public Theatre and Scuffed. The group will also play the Black Sheep in Colorado Springs the next night, Wednesday, May 31, with Public Theatre and Mindless Vitality.

The Los Angeles quartet will debut some new tunes on the current tour, as well, before recording and officially releasing some singles over the summer. Sharing songs before their release is a new approach for Dead Poet Society, but Collins explains that the band is taking a page from the playbook of groups the four members look up to, such as Catfish and the Bottlemen.

“We’re going to see how they vibe with the crowd and see if they’re as good as we think they are. It’s a pretty good indicator if we’re on the right track or not,” he adds. “We’re also sort of undecided on which one we want to put out first, so we’re going to be playing a few different ones this tour. Depending on the reaction, they’re going to play largely into our opinions of the songs, too. It’s a big test for us, and we’re really excited about it.”

Pulling influences from late-’90s and early-2000s rock, including pop punk, Dead Poet Society lands somewhere between metalcore masters Every Time I Die and more recent alt-rockers Badflower, which the four-piece has opened for. But Collins, who openly admits he’s probably not even the best guitarist in his own band, doesn’t get hung up on genre labels.

“We’re a rock band. We’re open about that. We know that our music is alternative rock. I like to think of it as any of the great rock bands that I like from the 2000s and ’90s — they don’t necessarily have a subgenre attached to them,” he says, referencing such groups as System of a Down and My Chemical Romance. “They’re all rock bands. If My Chemical Romance never got famous, it’d be tough to describe what they sound like, other than they’re just a rock band, maybe emo. But that still doesn’t describe what their music is or feels like.”

It might be easier to describe Dead Poet Society’s live shows, which maintain that shoot-from-the-hip energy the band first channeled in college.

“We like to pack ’em out, get sweaty and make it feel like a house show. That’s our vibe at the moment,” Collins says, adding that audiences can expect everything from “sing-alongs to mosh pits.”

“We’re pretty over-the-top energetic. We go absolutely crazy from the get-go," he promises. "There’s not a moment of dead space.”

Dead Poet Society, 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 30, Aggie Theatre, 204 South College Avenue, Fort Collins; and 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 31, the Black Sheep, 2106 East Platte Avenue, Colorado Springs. Tickets are $16-$20 for the Aggie show, $15 for the Black Sheep.