Day Of Contempt Are Ready To Rock Froth & Fury

‘Expect what people would always expect from us and it’ll be heavy, it’ll be crushing. We’ve always, I guess at the risk of sounding like I’m pumping up my own tyres, but we’ve always been pretty hard on ourselves as making sure that we are tight live. Expect that we will be on point.’

Adelaide hardcore legends Day Of Contempt are back, with a first Adelaide show in over a decade at next month’s Froth & Fury Fest. Original member Tom Deverix discusses the comeback that started with a show in Melbourne last month.

‘We played one show at Kingpin Fest in Melbourne, so that was the first time we’d played in, I reckon eight years. The last show we’d played before that was in Melbourne as well. So yeah, we haven’t done anything in Adelaide since the 618 family reunion, which was 2011!’

Having not played for quite some time, to now be staring down the barrel of a huge hometown show would be dauting for some, however there’s a reason these guys are legends in these parts.

‘I’m pretty pumped to be playing to a home crowd again. It was a pretty nice offer from the Froth guys. It’s a bit of a funny story because we got offered Kingpin and we were all thinking, just chatting amongst ourselves ‘well this would be cool’. Then almost simultaneously Jason offered us Froth and it was just pure coincidence. If we’re going to do one, we we’ll do both for sure.’

For the uninitiated, Day Of Contempt broke ground in the burgeoning Adelaide hardcore scene at the turn of the millennium which brought luminaries such as I Killed The Prom Queen along. World tours followed and legends created before the band exited stage left just over a decade ago. It begs the question, why now?

‘Well, I think timing. We’ve grown up, married, kids, all that sort of stuff, but I guess the kids they’re a little bit older and it felt right. Everyone was into it. Vinny and I practiced probably the most together up until 2020 when the whole world kind of fell apart, we had a thing that we’d just get together once every couple of months and just bash out some tunes and whatever we wanted to play. We’ve always played together, we’ve always fit really well and known each other’s playing style. Vinny and I got together earlier in the year and we did quite a few jams, just the two of us. Then Josh came over for quite a few, Josh and I have always clicked as well. We know each other and we bounce off each other really, really well. Then Benny, he came over for one or two as well, and then we only had one jam in Adelaide as a full band before we did Melbourne. Yeah, it all went well!’

After the impending glorious phoenix-rising-from-the-ashes return at Froth & Fury, a reissued twenty five-year anniversary of Where Shadows Lie on vinyl, where does Tom see the band heading from there.

‘I’d like to do more personally, I’d like to do a few more shows. I feel like a headliner here or there would be cool. I don’t know exactly where everyone else stands on that, but the album felt good. It felt really good to be on stage. It felt good to play those songs again.’

The hardcore scene has been on resurgent path itself recently and as one of the originators in Adelaide’s’ chapter, how does he see the current landscape.

‘The turnouts at metal shows weren’t what they are now, and I reckon that’s also evident with the hardcore scene. I went to Bleeding Through a few weeks back and we know those guys, we toured with them extensively in America and they have a connection as Jona from Prom Queen played with them, so they’ve sort of gotten a bit of an affection to Adelaide. I was surprised, I was pleasantly surprised, at the turnout on a Sunday night for them. So I can definitely see that there is a little bit of a resurgence.’

Which brings us back to Froth & Fury Fest and the must-see bands on Tom’s list that day.

‘When the line up was announced, we were getting back to our youth. We were huge fans of all the Roadrunner stuff, so Fear Factory, even the Bodyjar ,we all loved Bodyjar. Ben and I went and saw them at the Brighton Footy Club, I think it was probably 1996 or something, so it was a long time ago. We’ve loved Fear Factory for a long time. We saw them at ‘Digimortal’ and ‘Obsolete’ tours and subsequent tours since then. So yeah, they’ve always stood out to us and inspired us’

Interview By Iain McCallum

Catch Day Of Contempt at Froth & Fury Festival at Harts Mill, Port Adelaide on Saturday November 9. Tickets from MoshTix…