Deafheaven: An Overwhelming Sound Experience

Deafheaven continues their upward climb in the world of black metal, shoegaze and post-rock positioning themselves among the top of the best new bands to come out in the last half decade. Their second studio album Sunbather was well received by many publications and the album successfully made it onto the Billboard Charts in 2013. Their live performance combines beautiful guitar melodies with aggressive lyrics and lots of raw energy providing their audience an overwhelming sound experience. We caught up with George Clarke after Deafheaven’s performance at Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, TX, and asked him a few quick questions about his music and influences.

What is your first memory of music?

My mom, she’s a fan also. I was really into the cover of Michael Jackson’s Dangerous and listening to that with her. That and Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World” and jumping on the couch, and listening to The Fragile with my mom because she’s a big Nine Inch Nails fan.

Have any of those memories and albums influenced Deafheaven’s music today?

Yeah, I would say so. Definitely Duran Duran, everyone in our band is a really big fan of theirs—maybe not directly but certainly in the back of our heads. We carry a lot of influence from the 80s or the 90s.

What does music mean to you?

It means a lot; I’ve never really thought of it too much because it’s just kinda there. It’s gonna sound really cheesy, but it’s the same thing as eating food or drinking water, it’s just there. It’s always been there, it’s very much integrated into my life since day one. I consider it more of a necessity than anything else.

You wrote Sunbather with Kerry McCoy, it’s a little different from your first album. Can you tell me about the differences between Roads to Judah and Sunbather? 

I think we always had an idea what we wanted to accomplish sonically. I think we were always looking for our sound. I think Roads to Judah, we had been a band for 6 months maybe, when we wrote that record figuring things out still. Someone gave us a chance, Tre and Jay from Deathwish, to put out the record and that was crazy. So, Sunbather is more realized. I think we’ve just matured and grown as musicians. It’s just a natural progression. I think we took all the themes we had on Roads to Judah and refined them and made them a little more fluid and hopefully a little more interesting.

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TXT, PHOTO, VIDEO: Alex Duran @Jam_Bi