Dance Gavin Dance: Revitalised and Stronger Than ever

Sacramento's post-hardcore heroes, Dance Gavin Dance, return to Adelaide to perform at The Gov on Tuesday 10 November. They'll be accompanied by hardcore legends The Fall of Troy and Aussie core upcomers Galleons. The national tour is in celebration of their latest album Pantheon, which sees the band arrive in Australia with their reimagined lineup for the first time. They seem to have found their secret formula as long-term guitarist Andrew Wells has moved into the role of clean vocalist after the position continuously changed over the band's two-decade-plus history. 

"A lot of the core energy of the band is still very much intact, if not better now than it ever has been, energetically and morale-wise," explains Wells alongside drummer Matthew Mingus. They're both at home getting a well-deserved rest after closing out a hometown show at Sacramento's Aftershock Festival. 

"I've been with the band for about 10 years, so there's a lot of this same energy. There is a feeling of presenting a new version or new package to people. We love that; we love the opportunity to win people over and to show them how awesome this new version is and how happy we are to be there."

READ MORE: Stand Atlantic Step Forward With Fresh GODBREATH

Dance Gavin Dance have been diving deep into their discography at live shows. In 2026, they released the Tree City Sessions 3 album, which saw the band re-record historic tracks. Now they have even more of the back catalogue to explore. 

"A lot of those songs started to get really neglected over the years," Mingus recalls. 

"We try to stay in tune with our fans and what they like and what they want to hear. People were always asking to hear songs off of, like Downtown Battle Mountain, and we never played them. To finally get the opportunity to revisit these songs and play them, it's just added this new - even though they're old songs - energy to the live show." 

Speaking of how extensive their discography is, there are songs that the band have not only forgotten how to play, but forgotten even existed. 

"Not that long ago, one of the guys played one of our songs off Instant Gratification called 'Lost' and I asked, 'Who is this?' It was us, it was me, I was playing on it! I literally have zero recollection of ever writing or recording that song," Mingus recalls as they both laugh. 

Their latest release, Pantheon, saw the band conquer this new lineup transition and re-engage themselves and their fanbase. It felt like old times, similar to getting into the garage and jamming out songs. It was a fresh opportunity to experiment and try new things. This revitalised energy hasn't been lost and Dance Gavin Dance are already carrying it into the future. 

"There was that voice in the back of your head, 'Okay, how do you fill Tilian and Jonny and Kurt's shoes? Should I do this?' and making decisions with that in the back of my mind, there were a lot of opportunities to explore," Wells explains. 

"Whereas, the new, new record we're putting out next year is full throttle, so authentically Dance Gavin Dance. For me, as a vocalist, I shed the thought of trying to fill any shoes because we did it, we made the transition, it's been successful. Now's the time to step up and show all the things I'm capable of as a singer. It was so much fun to dive into that and really explore how balls-to-the-wall can we get with this. And Jon [Mess, unclean vocalist] even took that and ran with it too, like, 'Oh man, you're stepping it up, I've got to step it up, let's push it to 11 and try all this new stuff'." 

READ MORE: Northlane Are Redefining the Heavy Music Paradigm

Wells and Mingus can't contain their excitement for this new era of Dance Gavin Dance and have been mentioning this untitled new album at live shows, meet-and-greets, and in this interview candidly. So when will the world get an official announcement? 

"It's done, it's mixed, it's mastered. It's done," Wells reveals. 

"We're just waiting on artwork right now and to slot out a release date with a nice spring US tour. That's what we're working on right now."

This revitalised energy in the band is also attributed to each member's newfound sobriety. In 2022, Dance Gavin Dance's bassist Tim Feerick tragically passed; this became a wake-up call for the band to reprioritise what's important. 

"I think [sobriety] has been a complete game changer for the band," Mingus beams. 

"As far as all of us getting along, nobody does any absolutely insane shit and has to wake up in the morning and face the music of what they did the night before and apologise to everyone for making an ass out of themselves. We all just get along.

"Because we're all sober on stage, everyone is clear-headed and doing their job to the best of their ability at that time. It definitely, sort of fell to the wayside for me at the end of my drinking and drugging was like really heavily spilling into the live performance. I started to make the other bands suffer because of that because I started to play like shit because I was not sober."

"When it comes to writing and the creative process, I didn't know what that was going to look like," Mingus continues.

"I've written most of my stuff in Dance Gavin Dance like stoned out of my mind. So I was like, 'Oh man, is this going to affect my writing?' It did, but it made it so much better; thoughts and ideas flow so much quicker for me now."

"The stereotypical trope of sex, drugs and rock and roll is so easy to fall into when you're in a touring environment," Wells adds. “So when you have an entire band of sober guys that are dedicated to not drinking, not doing drugs, getting up clear-headed every day. It makes everything so much better."

Catch Dance Gavin Dance performing at The Gov on Tuesday 10 November. Tickets on sale at thegov.com.au.