DETH bring Perth’s underground sound to the surface

DETH may look like an explicit warning in all caps, but the Boorloo five-piece are never merely heavy or loud. Their live sets move through angular punk, doom and industrial abrasion, intertwined with tension, dark humour and mutant groove. The lineup cuts across the city’s punk, experimental, noise and art-rock communities, including guitarists Matthew Bairstow (Smrts, Tactile AF and Injured Ninja) and Stefan Caramia (FAIM), bassist Dominic Pearce (Injured Ninja and Mood Punch), and drummer Mark Tabone (False Cobra and Dead Tooth Hottie). At the centre is Hayley Beth, whose voice can move from a dark croon to a serrated scream within the same song. With their self-titled EP out exclusively via Bandcamp ahead of its launch at The Bird this Saturday, August 22, Beth spoke with CAT LANDRO about DETH’s evolution, Jake Fry’s enduring presence, medical rage and sustaining musical community beyond broken digital platforms.

DETH brings together some familiar faces from different corners of Perth’s underground scene. How did this particular group come together, and what does each person bring that makes DETH “sound like DETH”?

It’s a silly story. We all admired each other and played on lineups together for years… typical Perth stuff. Then one night at Matt’s partner’s birthday party I was being an idiot and hijacked Happy Birthday by screaming a bit of the song like a madwoman. Dom was so impressed he insisted that we start a band. We’re a real mishmash with our influences, but all have foundations in the various iterations of punk music. It’s angry and driven, but it’s also kinda funky. It gets a bit Big Black and a bit B-52s. I don’t know, it just works.

Over the past year we’ve seen DETH at Strange Ball, RTRFM’s Dis-Order and Hidden Treasures—three very different spaces, bills and audiences—and the band has sounded noticeably different each time. I think the set at the North Freo Bowlo could possibly have been your loudest and most raucous! Have you had any particularly memorable gigs over this time? Do you feel the room or context changing the way you sound?

We played our first few shows at The Bird, which we love and chose for our launch, but it’s a tighter space and a small stage. I think I joked on stage the last time we played there that I like that it’s more acceptable to not have to run around and pull rock moves at The Bird, because I am a curvy woman and sports bras are expensive!

So it’s a different vibe playing bigger venues, especially Milk Bar for Dis-Order, which was so great getting to play with bands who have so many different takes on heavy music. Bowlo was a total wild card, with heaps of people that wouldn’t normally come to a DETH show. It was great energy. After our set the sound person said he enjoyed mixing us more than his last gig doing sound for The Living End at a pub in Kalgoorlie.

How do DETH songs tend to come together? Is there usually an idea someone brings in, or does the music emerge more collectively?

The EP has four songs on it, which we ramped up from my solo set. DETH gave the songs new life and made them a whole lot louder and complex, something I could never do alone. With the newer stuff, sometimes I’ll record an incomprehensible lo-fi riff on a keyboard at home, and the guys work their magic. Sometimes we’ll just jam, I’ll pick up a mood, and write the lyrics on the spot. I send a lot of lyrics to Dom (bassist) on WhatsApp and he helps me interpret them. But a lot of the time Matt will spontaneously play something completely unhinged on guitar and we’ll try to preserve it. Matt is actually a goblin.

What does DETH give you room to do vocally or lyrically compared to your previous music?

I don’t feel like I have to be perfect in this band, so I just go for it. Sometimes at gigs, I sing so hard that I feel it in my lower back. It’s intense and messy. I’m not trying to be pretty. I also use a couple of vocal pedals live that add distortion and delay, which allow me to stretch out those big notes and create a lot of feedback. It’s cheaper than therapy.

All Bleeding Stops is the first taste of the new DETH EP, and it’s also made a striking live opener. What does that song represent for you within DETH?

“All bleeding stops, eventually” is a line I picked up from Susan Sontag’s 1978 book, Illness as Metaphor, which she wrote about having cancer and the AIDS epidemic. It comes from a phrase used by surgeons in the past, but it’s something that resonated with me and our original guitarist, Jake.

Jake and I had a lot of rants about our experiences with medical mistreatment, gaslighting and just dealing with the epic failures of being dependent on the broken public health system. “All bleeding stops, eventually” is essentially the attitude we’d received from doctors who throw their hands up and don’t really give a shit if you live or die, no matter how bad your quality of life is.

The record was made in memory and celebration of your founding guitarist, Jacob Christopher Fry. What did Jacob bring to the beginnings of DETH, and what of him remains in the band now?

Every gig is for Jake. We didn’t know if we could continue without him when he died so suddenly, and it took time. But Dom introduced us to Jake’s best friend Stefan, who played with him in the band FAIM (with Noah Skape). Stefan is super talented, and to me, having him join us was the best way to start healing and honour Jake.

I’m also just really fucking angry that there’s even a tiny possibility that Jake’s death could have been prevented if he was a different person, had more money, lived in a different city, you know? It motivates me to keep putting all my energy into this.

You and Dominic created the EP’s cover art, which certainly gives anyone heading to Bandcamp something to investigate: bubblegum pink with a rather menacing object front and centre. Where did that idea come from? More broadly, with all the pink around DETH’s social media at the moment—and you wearing fluorescent yellow amid the black at Strange Ball—is playing against the usual punk or goth visual uniform something you enjoy?

The artwork was originally a photo I took on my phone at home, and Dom redesigned it to be higher resolution and more striking. The object is a cattle prod that my dad gave me after I experienced something traumatic and wasn’t feeling safe. It was his way of making me feel like I could take my power back after being violated. So the contrast with the sparkly pink is kind of a comment on female rage, femininity, and the way softness and strength can co-exist.

DETH have made a deliberate refusal of Spotify with this new release. Beyond what the platform does to musicians, there’s also AI slop, misattributed releases and a growing sense that listeners can’t necessarily trust what is being put in front of them. Is that loss of musical integrity—and the disrespect it shows listeners as well as artists—part of why you’d rather direct people to Bandcamp?

Not just Spotify, but all platforms currently, including using a digital aggregator like Distrokid or CD Baby. The entire digital business model is broken, devoid of consent, and almost exclusively owned and run by literal fascists. We’d rather explore new ways to connect directly with our audience and start more conversations about engaging with music outside of centralised digital systems and American social media platforms. Direct support from your local community to create spaces of sustainable culture is more important than ever.

With the EP arriving and a launch to celebrate it this Saturday at The Bird, where does DETH feel like it is now? Is this a document of what the band has become so far, or are you already hearing where it might go next?

We are already writing new material. We even might be giving a new track a go at the launch. But I think because we began playing those few songs that I’d written solo, now we’re really cementing our sound and the message we’re putting across. We’d like to put out a physical release if we can save up some funds, but mostly we’re just keen to write and play some cool gigs.

DETH’S self-titled EP is out now exclusively via Bandcamp. DETH launch the EP at The Bird this Saturday, August 22, 2026. Tickets are on sale now from facebook.com