Brisbane’s premier heavy music and dark arts event, the Dead of Winter Festival, is officially rising from the ashes. Dubbed The Resurrection, the festival is locked in for Saturday, 27 June 2026, marking its first return since 2019. Originally launched in 2009, the iconic gathering was forced into a multi-year hiatus following the pandemic.
For its grand comeback, the festival is shifting away from its former home at the Jubilee Hotel to a brand-new venue: the Mansfield Tavern in Brisbane’s southern suburbs. The highly anticipated 2026 edition promises a massive celebration of alternative culture, packing 34 live acts across multiple stages alongside performance art, horror cosplay, visual installations, and dark market stalls. Organisers have unleashed a diverse, genre-spanning lineup headlined by dance-punk and noise-rock heroes DZ Deathrays, alongside heavy hitters like Mammal, Toe To Toe, Beanflipper, and Slim Krusty. Tickets are available now via Oztix and the official Dead of Winter Festival Website.
With the festival fast approaching, HEAVY sent out some questions to all of the bands in order to get to know them better. Today, we chat with Captain Aegis of Space X Dragon while he was aboard the Starship Jarp-R.
Space X Dragon is an Australian space-rock band based out of the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales. Fronted by vocalist and guitarist Jamie Thomas, the outfit has carved a unique niche in the alternative music scene with their high-energy blend of sci-fi mythology, “zero-gravity grooves,” and cosmic rock showmanship.
Operating with a deeply theatrical and retro-futuristic concept, the band performs as the fictional Dragon Team from the year 3019. According to their elaborate lore, they travel through the infosphere on a mission ordered by Captain Krim to locate lost human refugees floating through space and guide them safely back to Space X Base.
HEAVY: DEAD OF WINTER FESTIVAL returns in 2026 after a seven-year hiatus. Why do you think DOW just HAD to return?
SXB: Because the venue is brilliant, the lineup is full of Australia’s most entertaining and eclectic artists, and the people putting it on are really good value. We here at Space X Dragon will be travelling through both space and time to go to this festival. As we come from the future, we know that:
a) The Festival is a great success
b) That some of the most important and influential humans on the planet attend and have a splendid time.
H: What does it mean to your band to be playing DOW?
SXB: We feel very privileged to be on the same bill as some real cracking talent. We know that Space X Dragon playing at DOW starts a chain of events that could shift this timeline into a more favourable position. We also know that the kinetic energy built up by a fevered mass of humanity at the Mansfield Tavern during the Dead of Winter festival will cause over 80 tons of plastic in the ocean to break down organically.
H: Have you ever been to DOW as a punter or playing, and if so, what are your best memories?
SXB: No, but I have seen The Neptune Power Federation, The Flangapanis, Toe to Toe, Mammal, Beanflipper and Pizza Death before, and I have done a little poo in my space suit knowing I’ll be sharing the stage with these legendary artists. There are many other acts I have heard really good things about and am looking forward to a cracking day.
H: It’s a long day of music. What will you be doing to make sure you will still be standing come your set time?
SXB: In the days leading up to the festival, the whole crew will be aggressively napping. Using advanced future neuroscience, we will also be eradicating all negative vibrations and inflaming everyone’s chakras.
H: Give me your Top 3 Festival survival tips.
SXB: Hydration & Slow-release sugars (Banana works well and can double as a laser blaster). Having a kit bag in a safe location that contains a towel, a spare t-shirt, condoms, a Mandarin phrase book, and the keys to your spacecraft. Having a close friend/artificial intelligence to be the designated pilot of your spacecraft if you decide to hit the Kalaxian Crystals.
H: Which band – other than yourself – do you think will get up to the most mischief on the day?
SXB: Mammal, based on memories of Ezekiel Ox from the early 00’s & Buried In The Sun as they are locals so won’t have far to crawl if things get weird.
H: Run us through your typical live show and what punters can expect.
SXB: Often, we encourage people onto our starship, the Jarp-R. From there, we transmit an intensity of information designed to let humanity understand the tragedy that has befallen our once proud home world REMEMBER EARTH.
We draw on the cultural zeitgeist of Punk, Rock, and Electro to make you move rhythmically in numbers divisible by 4 and sometimes 2. In the year 3018 Earth was under constant attack from Alien forces. A secret project was launched by Space X to combat these forces and keep the Earth safe!! Unfortunately something was not right, and our once proud homeworld has fallen REMEMBER EARTH!! Out into the inky blackness of space, the last scraps of humanity now fight to gain a foothold in an unforgiving universe. Thanks to our newfound connections to the Infosphere, we are able to travel both space and time. We use this ability to warn humanity of this calamity and to remember our once proud homeworld.
REMEMBER EARTH!!!!
H: If you could get one band on the line-up to cover one of your songs, who would it be and what song would they cover?
SXB: I would love to hear Neptune Power Federation play a song off our soon-to-be-released EP ACTION PACK called Truck of Karma because I think the High Priestess could do a sermon on how to “ride this Truck of karma into the halls of Valhalla.”
H: What’s your latest release?
SXB: Our latest EP ACTION PACK will be out on your timeline very soon. We have another album currently available within the infosphere called Launch Sequence.
H: Finally, what plans does your band have for the rest of 2026 into 2027?
SXB: We will be travelling back in time and space to other places along the East Coast of Australia, including Bellingen for Indie Fest on 18th July, and The Lush Parade in Lismore 20th June. We will be telling everyone to put their earholes into our new EP ACTION PACK because within this ep they may glean the confidence to survive humanity’s bleak future.
We, the crew of the Jarp-R, have also recently contemplated becoming evil, and like the rest of Space X high command, we are considering the benefits of extreme Fascism.
Remember Earth!!!
