The Melbourne heat is hitting a particular peak when Rory Rodriguez joins us in a marquee a stone’s throw from Flemington Racecourse. The first weekend of the Australian summer is already showing our international guests what it can do (and the rest of Good Things 2025 will prove in Sydney and Brisbane that it can always get hotter).
We meet the Dayseeker frontman off the back of a blistering headline show at the Corner Hotel, as well as a dynamic festival performance earlier in the day.
“It is a bit of a brutal trip, only because it takes, what, fifteen hours to get here?” Rodriguez admits. “I feel like we’ve invested a lot of time in coming back here and it’s cool to see we’ve got our own little fanbase outside the States, in Australia.”
Returning with their acclaimed new album, Creature in the Black Night, Dayseeker’s Australian shows are some of the first of the album’s cycle.
The record, arguably one of the band’s most comprehensive and engaging to date, is primed for this type of environment. Conjuring deep swells of emotion and offering moments of pure euphoric catharsis, Creature in yhe Black Night has bred some of Dayseeker’s most heightened creative moments to date.
Rodriguez shares his thoughts on how the new music is manifesting live, their show at the Corner Hotel acting as a test run for new additions to the Dayseeker set.
“We’re lucky, honestly,” he says. “Especially the new music, it feels like people are really gravitating towards it. We threw a few new songs into the show that we haven’t played before… we’re always going to be a little nervous to do that.
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“Anything else in our catalogue that we’ve been playing for years, it feels very comfortable and easy. With this one, that show we did at the Corner was our first time really diving into the new album. I was pleasantly surprised! I felt like the crowd knew our new music just as much as they knew our older stuff.
“We’re excited, because we’ll be headlining a decent amount next year and we’re planning to introduce a lot of our new album into our show. This has been a nice test to see if it’s going to go over well live, we’re so thankful.”
Plotting out the next 12 months with Dayseeker has meant Rodiguez has been able to expand his imagination when it comes to how the stage show will also grow for the California band.
The theatrical nature of Creature in the Black Night already lends itself to darker, horror-adjacent themes. With numerous headline tours in the pipeline, he’s excited to bring the ideas the band have been ruminating on to life.
Swinging big with their next creative venture is one thing, but Dayseeker’s members also look forward to achieving balance in life off road; young families and partner dynamics are just as important as the evolution of any record or stage show.
Right now feels like a calm before the storm for the band, and Rodriguez is keen to take some time to ground himself before embarking on the next chapter of chaos.
“I just want to hang out with my kid and enjoy Christmas, try to relax,” he says. “I have a gap in the middle of next year where I’m not touring for four or five months, but we’re going out on the road with Motionless in White in February for a month. I have a month and a half off and then we have our headline tour. It’s a busy season for us, so I feel like we all really appreciate the chances we get to be home with our families and kids.”
With an Australian return fitting its way into Dayseeker’s plans, Rodriguez reflects on the elements of his own artistry that have changed since the band’s debut over ten years ago.
“Right now, everybody in our band cares a lot about our show and performing well,” he says. “Sometimes, you play with people and it feels like they like the idea of being in a band, but they don’t actually like the work that comes with it, or the dedication that it takes to hone your craft and put on a good show.
“If I look back on when we first started, I didn’t do very well. I wasn’t a fantastic singer or performer; also outside of shows, I didn’t think about what I was doing. I didn’t do vocal rest, I would smoke weed… I don’t smoke anything now, I don’t drink before we play; I warm up and I have a nebuliser for my voice. It turned into a job that we realised we needed to take seriously.”
“We see how people will wait months and months,” he adds. “They’ll spend their money to see us play. We don’t want to show up and give them a subpar experience. I’m proud that we’ve continued to put on a good show for people.”
Check out Dayseeker’s upcoming tour dates here.
