A number of different bass guitarists have played alongside the permanent members, Andrew Wilson (guitar, vocals) and Michael Prain (drums).
While at Logan Park High School in Dunedin, Wilson and Prain were three-time Pepsismokefree Rockquest entrants – in 1999 with The Drummer Smells Nice, then twice with Carriage H. They won the national competition in 2001.
[1][2] With Wilson playing bass guitar, Prain on drums and the guitarist/vocalist Tim "Tiddy" Smith, Carriage H released one EP, Power of Grey Skull, in 2002 and disbanded shortly afterwards.
Along with the bass guitarist Ricky French, Wilson (who began playing guitar for the first time) and Prain then formed a short-lived Wellington-based group called Rawer.
Die!, Wilson, Prain and Oliver (who had been a member of So To Speak) started a new band – the latter pulling out of a Masters in Cultural Studies course to do so.
I always liked the name, people already knew the band, and they had recently received NZ On Air funding for a single which was still to be released, so, why start at the bottom of the hill again?"
[1] Oliver recalled that, "we played shows in every town in the country that would have us and eventually, tiny clubs and dive bars around the world.
[12] "The Austin Chronicle warned that you would lose all indie street cred if you missed them play, and influential UK industry mag MusicWeek ended up picking them as one of their ten highlights of SXSW.
"[13] Soon after South By Southwest, and fuelled at least in part by connections made at that festival, the band toured with Wolfmother and played in the UK, mainland Europe, and Japan.
The resulting six-track live recording, Part Time Punks, included two songs from the Die!
Shayne Carter (Straitjacket Fits, Dimmer) was invited to produce the record by Die!
The album saw the band move away from the more hardcore tendencies of their first record towards a more bass- and drum-heavy sound – partly due to the influence of the new bass guitarist Lachlan Anderson, but also because a broken hand limited Wilson's guitar-playing.
After writing and rehearsing, mainly at Chicks Hotel in Port Chalmers, they recorded Form over nine days in Auckland with producer Nick Roughan (Skeptics) in August 2009.
– Andrew Wilson, April 2010[10]Form was released in July 2010 during a 13-date tour of New Zealand, then shows in Australia, UK, Europe, and USA followed.
had signed with a "re-emerging" Flying Nun Records in 2010, the year after founder Roger Shepherd (with help from others) regained control by buying the label from Warner Music.
Before their next release the band abandoned these early songs and sessions, recorded something almost entirely different, disbanded, lost another bass guitarist, left Flying Nun, and found a new manager.
Harmony began to take shape in five days in May 2011 (during a European tour in support of Form), when Die!
and producer Chris Townsend completed most of the recording at Black Box, a studio on a French farm.
reformed in early 2012, Michael Logie (The Mint Chicks, F in Math), whom the band had already known for years, became the new bass guitarist.
"[20] The fourth album, Harmony, finally came out in New Zealand in August 2012 on the band's own label, Records Etcetera.
They played live shows, including a support slot for The Smashing Pumpkins at Auckland's Vector Arena, that month.
[29] The band played its fourth South By Southwest festival in 2013, as part of what Wilson described to the national broadcaster Radio New Zealand as "a pretty filthy tour, pretty full on" with pre-festival shows in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Antonio.
[32] "And through it all, the constant is Andrew and Mikey, two high school friends that have been making music together for nearly 20 years – an amazing feat for any act, let alone a band that has thrived on instability, uncertainty and unpredictability."
[1]Bass guitarist Mike Logie had reunited with his former Mint Chicks bandmate Kody Nielson in new band Opossum, so when Wilson and Prain decided to start playing together again they recruited Rory Attwell into the reformed Die!
[...] We had a bit of a break, got offered a couple of shows, did those, and then Rory’s always been a recording engineer and producer so that was a really good asset for us to be able to set up anywhere and do anything.
– Mikie Prain, 2018[1]In the latter half of 2016, at sessions that were originally intended as rehearsals for upcoming shows, the trio recorded the bulk of their sixth album, Charm.
They finished the year with shows in China (including the Concrete and Grass festival), Europe, and the UK before returning to New Zealand for a 10-date summer tour.
[37][39] Reflecting on the album's lyrics, Wilson said, "I have struggled a lot with my mental health over the years so I would be lying if I said that didn’t play a huge part in the making of this record.
"[40] In terms of musical style, Martin Pepperell wrote for Noisey (Vice) that the eclectic album is "a stylistic conversation between post-punk, noise pop, shoegaze, lo-fi, experimental electronica and punk rock".
toured with Franz Ferdinand, Slint, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Pixies and The Blood Brothers, and played at several major festivals around the world including spots at SXSW, Incubate, China Hardcore Music Festival and Concrete and Grass.