Dead Poet Society, courtesy.

Boston quartet Dead Poet Society isn’t your average modern rock band. Sure, the guitar riffs and the big hooks are there, but also slick musicality and a tight dynamic. The members come from sturdy roots, having met in 2013 at Berklee College of Music.

After years of work, Dead Poet Society is reaping the rewards with Fission. The band fuses rock and punk with a feisty melodic streak that separates it from similar acts. That unique sound starts with the frontman Jack Underkofler, who credits his vocal tonality to some divergent sources.

“The two biggest vocal influences for me were definitely Chris Martin from Coldplay and Myles Kennedy from Alter Bridge,” he said. “I heard Alter Bridge for the first time in sixth grade and couldn’t figure out how [Kennedy] sang that high; it was insane. So I kept trying to sing like him.”

Underkofler kept pushing his own voice higher and higher, even surprising himself that the results were coming. He found something different in Martin’s voice that also appealed to him.

“I love the airy texture of his voice, and his falsetto was actually where I learned to sing that style,” he said.

It wasn’t until the band’s third EP, 2015’s Axiom, that Underkofler felt like he found his own voice. That happened when guitarist Jack Collins introduced him to the music of U.K. duo Royal Blood, which was blowing up at the time. But it took a second evaluation before he decided he liked what the rock band which includes bassist Dylan Brenner and drummer Will Goodroad, was doing.

“When Jack first showed them to me, I hated them. Then I saw them live and realized they were my favorite band,” Underkofler said. “The thing I loved about it was [Royal Blood’s Mike Kerr] didn’t sing like a rock singer. … He didn’t sound like a tough guy or anything.”

That’s when Underkofler decided he didn’t want to sound like anyone else. He and Collins scoured through the songs they were writing and found the songs on which the unique qualities of the frontman’s voice stood out best.

The band’s latest single, a reworked version of its original song “Hurt,” featuring rock trio The Warning, was born from a chance meeting at Sacramento’s Aftershock Festival in October. Dead Poet Society invited The Warning drummer Paulina Villarreal on stage to play the song.

“I knew that she was a fan, so I just messaged the band on Instagram the day before and asked if any of them would like to sing ‘Hurt’ with us,” Underkofler said.

The results were impressive, and the response from fans in Sacramento was enough to convince both bands to record a studio version.

“We worked with the same producer in Anton DeLost, and I heard the song originally when we recording,” Paulina Villarreal said. “From being a fan of the song to be invited to sing with them was just so much fun.”

Collins said it took Dead Poet Society time to get accustomed to its success. One challenge was working within the music industry framework. That was new because the band members did everything themselves when they were starting out.

“It’s important that we’re the primary drivers, but we are definitely not DIY anymore. We have the machine behind us for sure,” Collins said. “It’s weird to grasp, but when we’re on the road, when we’re touring, we’re writing, we’re in control.”

The band will be playing some festivals in the new year and is planning a headlining tour as well, during which Underkofler and Collins plan to make time to write new songs.

One of the band’s memorable on-stage moments this year was during its Louder Than Life Festival set in Louisville, Ky. The two had tattooist Annie Miao join them to finish Underkofler’s ink mid-performance. The vocalist dropped his jeans and leaned over a small step stool while Miao went to work. Underkofler didn’t miss a beat of the song.

Miao is known for her work doing characters, sometimes in a retro 8-bit style.

“I asked her if she could tattoo BMO [from HBO’s ‘Adventure Time’] on my ass,” Underkofler said. “She had done the outline already, but it didn’t have any color, so we decided it would be funny to finish on stage.”

Follow writer Mike DeWald at mikedewald.bsky.social.