The Death Set hails from Baltimore, Maryland, by way of Gold Coast, Australia, where Johnny Siera met co-founding member Beau Velasco in 2005. Both drawn to each other’s reckless care of music, the duo united to write fleeting songs with lifelong hooks and overdriven melody. Hell-bent on recording and touring, The Death Set moved first to Sydney, quickly to Brooklyn, and finally to the meaner streets of Baltimore where their punk rock abandon could thrive. Read More...
The Death Set hails from Baltimore, Maryland, by way of Gold Coast, Australia, with love for Brooklyn, where Johnny Siera met co-founding member Beau Velasco in 2005. Drawn to one another’s reckless care of music, the duo united to write fleeting songs with lifelong hooks and overdriven melody. Hell-bent on recording and touring, The Death Set moved first to Sydney, quickly to Brooklyn, and finally to the meaner streets of Baltimore where they could thrive.
Buoyed by the DIY network they found there, the band recorded and released their first two EPs - To (2006, Rabbit Foot) and Rad Warehouses Bad Neighborhoods (2007, Morphius) - honing the noise of jury-rigged gear and overblown mics. The Death Set quickly became known for out-of-hand live shows, and carried that energy onto its first full-length recording, done at The Copy Cat in Baltimore, an artist warehouse studio where the band and many others played and lived at the time.
The Death Set’s debut album, Worldwide, on Ninja Tune’s Counter Records imprint, fully fills twenty-five minutes with eighteen relentless tracks. Produced, engineered and mixed by Siera at The Copy Cat, with further mixing by Rob Girardi at Lord Baltimore Studios, Worldwide boasts the endearing noise of unrefined creation. From the timeless call-to-upraise-arms of “Negative Thinking”, through the rallying cry of “Intermission”; the love-buzz of “Heard It All Before” along the serrated edge of “Cold Teeth”; through the wistful chime of “Had A Bird”, and the high-voiced androgyny of “Day In The Wife”; The Death Set exploits consonance to the fullest. “Around the World” enters enemy dancespace, while “Listen To This Collision” puts crowds on a crash course with each other.
Johnny cites that frenzied energy as The Death Set’s reason for being, and their tight-knit community as the fuel to keep going. As the band’s leader – since Velasco took a back seat from live efforts—Siera has entrenched The Death Set in a broadening family of artist friends. Shored up by the arrival of Jahphet Landis, the fast & heavy hands hitting the skins (all kinds), and fellow Aussie Daniel Walker adding Nine Lives on guitar and vocals, the band stays ablaze on the course of its whirlwind escapade. The trio finds itself tighter with every circuit of the Earth, as much a force on the floor as it is in the studio, as will soon be seen in their cover of Daedelus’ “Fair Weather Friends”, and The Death Set Reset remix-party platform.
Getting as many hands in on their DIY ethos as possible, The Death Set has found touring partners in Japanther, Best Fwends, Dan Deacon, Ponytail, Girl Talk, Bonde Do Role, Spank Rock, Ninjasonik, it goes on. While The Death Set’s sound is most like that of its punk influencers—Black Flag, Minor Threat, and Buzzcocks – it also bears the distinct mark of hip-hop and electronic styles in production, and as interludes in their raucous offstage outbursts.
Touted as “Best Live Band” by the Baltimore City Paper, and any who have shared their space, The Death Set jams blindsiding minute-songs into compact spaces. Bastions of every riotous warehouse party Charm City outward, the band plays on the floor and at crowd level. With breakneck fuzz atop lo-fi electronics, searing vocals over-scored by a lift of positivity, The Death Set redefine the space of the anthem, and take it Worldwide.
