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 PIZZA DEATH.
Pizza Death is a fast, furious, and fiercely hilarious crossover thrash and hardcore punk band based in Melbourne, Australia.
Formed in 2020 by seasoned veterans of the local underground metal and punk scenes (featuring members of Wolfpack, Hailgun, and Pissrash), the band dedicates 100% of their material to three core pillars: pizza, death, and death-by-pizza. They take the high-octane “pizza thrash” subgenre quite literally, crafting short, blazingly fast songs packed with blistering guitar riffs, aggressive 80s-style hardcore breakdowns, and absurd, cheese-fueled humour.
Q & A
HEAVY: DEAD OF WINTER FESTIVAL returns in 2026 after a seven-year hiatus. Why do you think DOW just HAD to return?
PIZZA DEATH: DOW’s reputation as one of Queensland’s best and longest-running alternative music festivals is known all over Australia, we need DOW to return once again!
H: What does it mean to your band to be playing DOW?
We are super excited to be playing DOW! The lineup is stacked and diverse, we love Brisbane as we are always made to feel so welcome, and the Mansfield Tavern is the perfect venue for the festival, so it’s gonna be a big one!
H: Have you ever been to DOW as a punter or playing?
Being from Melbourne, this will be our first time attending DOW, but that just means we are extra excited for our first time!
H: If so, best memories of the day.
N/A
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?
Our secret weapons are our melted cheese intravenous drips, which we hook directly into our veins. This gives us the ability to endure the many hours of good times ahead of us at DOW!
H: Give me your Top 3 Festival survival tips.
1. Eat
2. More
3. Pizza
H: Which band – other than yourself – do you think will get up to the most mischief on the day?
Flangipanis will be as wild and fun as always! Sadly, they are calling it a day later this year, so I suspect that their set at DOW may be even more unruly than usual!
H: Run us through your typical live show and what punters can expect.
Our set will be full of cheesy chaos, pizza props and high energy. You can expect your face to be melted off with shredding riffs and blasting drums. Hopefully, you will also laugh at our highbrow humour, and if you’re lucky, you might just get a slice of pizza
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?
Jay and Lindsey from Frenzal Rhomb doing an acoustic cover of our song Napalm Cheese would be delightful.
H: What’s your latest release?
Our recently released third album World Doughmination is out now on vinyl and CD through our own newly created Red Sauce Records label.
H: Finally, what plans does your band have for the rest of 2026 into 2027?
We are touring Europe in June 2026 to promote our new album and will be hitting Germany, Netherlands and Belgium. Then we are taking a few months of gigs after playing DOW to start writing our 4th album. Stay cheesy 🤘🍕🤘
