“Dead-Beat” details an altercation leading to a bloody nose over an uncomplicated four-chord progression, and ends with a slow breakdown for its outro. The track was released on September 14th 2011 as the second single for Willoughby’s Beach (released on October 21st 2011) and would prove to be successful with heavy rotation on Australian radio stations like Triple J, FBi, and PBS. It would even make it onto Beat’s “Best Australian Singles” list. The song’s success made it clear that they were capable of entering the industry, Eric saying to Upstart “our single, ‘Dead-Beat,’ getting playlisted for high rotation on Triple J and being booked for Meredith really early on whipped us into line.”
A music video for the song created by Syd Row Productions was released on October 19th, 2011. It shows the band playing the song on stage at two different venues with footage of the American wilderness and Native Americans interspersed.
The earliest known performance of “Dead-Beat” was on 2011-10-17 at PBS Studios in Naarm (Melbourne) during a full performance of Willoughby’s Beach. It would be played a few more times in 2011. Data on these early setlists is hard to come by, but the song was in rotation at least partially up until Glastonbury on 2015-06-27, after which it would take a three-year break with a small amount of footage appearing in the documentary BOOTLEG HOLIDAY FROM HELL. “Dead-Beat” returned for brief appearances in late 2018 on 2018-11-24 and 2018-12-01. Since then it has rarely been played, with only a couple of performances, such as on 2021-12-22 for “Garage Rock Night” at The Princess Theatre in Brisbane.