Deafheaven Blurs Lines Between Metal and Indie Rock

(photo: Krisitn Cofer)

Sometimes an obscure underground metal band will spark the attention of hipsters and tastemakers and seemingly transform overnight from struggling headbangers to critics’ darlings. Such sudden success is overwhelming, even crippling for some, but for San Francisco quintet Deafheaven, the showers of praise they’ve received from seemingly diametrically opposite forces – black metal fans and indie rock adherents – have been both welcome and liberating.

“Ever since we decided to take this band seriously a few years ago, we agreed we would not be afraid of opportunity,” explains vocalist George Clarke, who shares equal passion for Slayer and Joy Division. “When people outside of the metal spectrum started paying attention to us and wanted to do interviews or invite us to play festivals, we always said yes, because it doesn’t matter where you come from as long as you enjoy the music.”

The vehicle for Deafheaven’s success was its second album, 2013’s Sunbather, a release full of rage, beauty, violence, and sadness, which blended the rapid-fire blast beats, churning riffs, and rapid tremolo picking of bands like Emperor and Marduk with the shimmery, celestial guitar warbling of Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine, and the Jesus and Mary Chain. As groundbreaking as the sound was for those unfamiliar with European cult metal, Deafheaven openly admit they were largely inspired by France’s Alcest and Germany’s Lantlos, who were experimenting with such elements more than 10 years ago.

“When we started out we said, ‘Let’s do our own interpretation of that kind of music,’” Clarke says on his cell phone as he strolls the streets around his new home of Los Angeles. “We loved all the sounds and emotions that went into those albums. But we never wanted to sound just like that; we wanted to put our own spin on it.”

Deafheaven did just that, planting its roots closer to its native land. If Sunbather was colored by the hazy dew of British ‘90s psychedelia, the band’s new album, New Bermuda, draws more from American indie rock and metal, without entirely excluding its European influences. The five songs – none under eight minutes in length – are less ethereal and more aggressive than those on Sunbather. Influences include Slayer, Metallica, and Xasthur, and the band tempers some of the chaos with the evocative, more heavy-hearted sounds of Low, Red House Painters, and Luna.

“Our main priority when we worked on these songs was to not write Sunbather II, Clarke says. “When Sunbather came out and all these people liked it and started calling it album of the year – and all this silliness – we thought, ‘Well, the easiest route here would be to write similar riffs and do the whole thing over again.’ But obviously we didn’t want to do that. So we worked really hard to retain our core sound, but access different influences and keep focusing in different directions. One thing I can say about this record is it’s not as spacey. And we wanted it to be more metal.”

For Clarke, the sense of disorientation and isolation that abounds through songs like “Brought to the Water” and “Come Back” came from experiences he has had between the time he decided to leave San Francisco and move to Los Angeles. When he and his girlfriend arrived in Hollywood, they discovered that the same personal problems and anxieties they faced in San Francisco traveled with them to their new home.

“I went into the situation with these grandiose hopes and quickly found out that nothing is as grandiose as it seems and nothing is quite what you envisioned,” Clarke says. “Everything is on a lower plane and when you expect more and have this idea of false promise, you can be disappointed. So a lot of this record for me has to deal with being in a transitional period. Transitioning can be frustrating and depressing. I decided to write about that because that’s what was most to me while we were working on the album.”

Clarke and Deafheaven co-founder, guitarist Kerry McCoy – who formed the band together in 2010 – wrote some parts for New Bermuda last year when Deafheaven was on the road. But the band first started mapping out full song structures last November. The two worked with guitarist Shiv Mehra, bassist Stephen Clark, and drummer Daniel Tracy – all of whom joined the band between 2012 and 2013 – and over a five-month period they constructed most of the album’s gale-force arrangements and atmospheric embellishments. But as their date to enter the studio approached, they were still fine-tuning some of the songs.

“It got really stressful because Kerry had a lot of ideas fleshed out, but there were still a lot to go and we were concerned we wouldn’t have all material ready by the time we needed to record it,” Clarke says. “We were practicing for eight hours a day and sometimes we were spinning our wheels. We’d be on these crazy deadlines and we’d actually have to step away from what we were doing to give our minds a rest. We wanted to keep going but we had to replenish, and that was hard because we needed to finish all of the songs before we started recording them.”

Deafheaven entered 25th Street Recording with producer Jack Shirley in April and recorded live as a full band, editing and overdubbing parts on tape until they were perfect. As many musical passages as they had to construct for New Bermuda, they were so prepared when they entered the studio that they tracked to entire album in nine days.

“We were up against the gun before we went into the studio, but having nine days to record was actually a luxury for us,” Clarke says. “We did Sunbather in four days. We like to be really well-prepared before we enter the studio so there’s a minimum of time spent changing things or figuring stuff out.”

With so many sounds coming from a wide range of amp settings, effect pedals, and studio wizardry, Deafheaven have created a rich, multi-layered album that should appeal to both extremes of their diverse fanbase. Now the greatest challenge for Deafheaven, who will tour the globe to support the record, is replicating the vast expanse of sound with just five guys.

“It’s always a struggle to make music that you can replicate live,” Clarke says. “On the one hand, you don’t want to go into the studio and be consciously thinking, ‘We have to be able to do this live.’ That can be really limiting and make you second-guess yourself. At the same time, I think it’s kind of lame when bands have too much programming, if any at all. So our whole attitude is, ‘Do whatever you want to do in the studio and figure it out afterwards. But you better be able to figure it out.’ And we can. We can play this album front to back. I’m confident of that.”