Deafheaven on Major Label Black Metal, Not Being Called Posers

In this interview, Deafheaven open up on major label black metal, shedding the poser branding that followed them for years and more.

Deafheaven have always been blasphemous, daring to challenge a genre gatekept by mystery and darkness by never being afraid to show themselves to the world.

Since forming in 2010, the band has been a magnet for conversation, making a name for themselves with the lush, beautiful 2013 album Sunbather, where their penchant for pulling from bands such as Weakling and My Bloody Valentine in equal measure was put on full display. Almost overnight, heads immediately dug in their feet: Deafheaven was either a sign of the endtimes or a look into what the future has to offer. Now, 15 years in, the latter seems to have worked out for the band.

Having previously released albums through labels Sargent House, Deathwish and Anti-, Lonely People With Power is the band's major label debut through Roadrunner Records. It's a rarity for any black metal band to sign with a major, but if any band in the U.S. was bound to do it, it would be Deafheaven. From the jump, the band has always had to grind hard, playing as many shows as possible, eschewing the typical black metal anonymity in favor of an approach far more fitting of a hardcore band.

"I think embedded in the DNA of the band is a bit of a poverty mindset," guitarist Kerry McCoy says. "We were both in bands for years that we worked so hard on and nobody cared about. So deeply embedded in this band's DNA is overwork — you're not working hard enough unless everything feels perfect, and even then it might not work out. It feels like we're playing with house money, like we shouldn't even really be here, so it would be disrespectful to the universe not to make the absolute most out of it."

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Though there was no label intervention, no manager demanding them to write songs for the radio, the band's natural inclination has led them to write some of the most compact, concise black metal tracks ever. Lead single "Magnolia" delivers one of the most punishing tracks the band has ever produced, giving just enough Deafheaven twinkle in the form of background melody. Still, heaviness has come back in a major way in just four minutes and singer George Clarke's magnetism feels real, ascending him to a true frontman in this kind of music. When the band does decide to go longer, like on penultimate track "Winona," space is used intelligently, heaviness is beautiful, melody is haunting, the two halves fusing into one.

In some ways, Lonely People With Power feels like a crowning moment for the band. Every decision, from shocking all of metal for daring to use the color pink on the Sunbather cover, to eschewing metal almost entirely on their previous record Infinite Granite feels like steps that have led the band to this moment. It's a big record, proof that black metal, despite its intrinsic darkness, has an opportunity to shine on numerous new listeners.

John: I grew up in San Francisco and got to see you guys right at the beginning, playing constantly. I'm curious, looking back, what were those early days like for you guys around 2010?

George: They were a lot of fun, very exciting and kind of frivolous in a way, in terms of how we saw the band. We really wanted to be part of the experimental black metal scene happening in San Francisco that we loved.

Kerry and I had done the demo on our own without even having a band. We wanted to play shows but didn't really know how to go about it. It was mostly just figuring things out, having a good time, working our shitty jobs and partying as much as possible. [Laughs] There wasn't a whole lot of intent necessarily.

I remember the only thing we really wanted was to make steady income at a grocery store and play venues like Thee Parkside or Gilman. It's fun to reflect on that compared to how things are now.

John: Do you remember there being a point where you realized this was becoming serious, that you really had to do this band for real?

Kerry: Yeah, it was really early on when we signed with Deathwish. They had an in-house agent at the time, so suddenly we had a label people actually recognized. It happened really fast, around our 10th show. Max Montez put us on what I think was the first Nails show in the Bay Area.

When Tre [McCarthy] and Jake [Bannon] [from Deathwish] bought our demo after that show, I was working at Ben & Jerry's on Haight and Ashbury and George called me. I took a 10-minute break and he was like, "They just bought it and I'm talking to this guy Tre on the phone and I think they want to sign us." It was so fast.

Honestly, every single thing that's happened since then has just been us saying yes to things.

George: With opportunity came bigger adventure. It also became a way out. Kerry and I came from the Central Valley, a smaller town where everyone just wanted to make it out. Our families weren't in positions where we would ever travel the country or go to Europe on our own. These were really far away dreams to us, and we saw that if we could rise to the occasion with these labels and tours, those things could become reality.

We always chased that and it's still exciting to us.

John: I've heard the record and I genuinely feel like it's the band's strongest work. It feels like the culmination of all these different pieces coming together - the increased focus on harmonies and softer shades of music from Great Mass of Color, the heavier end from New Bermuda and even what seemed like Kerry getting into Oasis influencing Ordinary Corrupt Human Love. Now it's all coming together in a cohesive record with big, earned rock moments.

Kerry: Yeah, with Ordinary you can definitely hear this man burning himself out on Oasis and Radiohead. [Laughs] With the DNA of the band, every record is just like "I think it's good" but we really have no idea. I feel like it's definitely my favorite record that we've made right now, though I can't wait for a couple years down the line when I'll be like, "We should change that" or "next time don't do this."

There's that fear of, "I think it's good and I hope they like it," but there's also the feeling that when we do certain things, nobody does them the way the five of us in a room can. So there are moments where I think, "This is an amazing song," and it's nice to hear that from other people.

John: I think that mentality has to exist, otherwise why put anything out in the world if you don't believe you've accomplished something people should hear?

Kerry: Exactly. My job is not to make loud noise in a room full of people staring at me because I think it's bad.

John: Ffrom the outside, it seems like Deafheaven have become the American black metal band. You've found a way to make music that's intricate and complex but also really catchy and instantly interesting. Not a lot of black metal bands sign to major labels. I'm curious if you're aware that you have this bigger platform now and if that impacts your approach.

George: I don't think so. Kerry and the guys did a phenomenal job taking a lot of ideas, maintaining emotional impact but not exceeding the 8-10 minute mark like we classically did. That aim happened prior to the Roadrunner deal — it was one of the big objectives of Infinite Granite, which made us better songwriters and taught us how to be economical and condense without losing impact.

Kerry: With each record, we get to be fresh with it. A lot of that thinking informs the writing. You mentioned Oasis and Radiohead — there are bits on "Ordinary" where I'm like, "Yeah, that's almost that riff, but it's cool because we're putting it through this filter."

With this one, part of it was rediscovering our love for heaviness — that feeling when you're hanging out with an old friend and you're like, "You heard this?" and they go, "Oh yeah, fuck yeah, this rocks" and it's something not a lot of people know about. I felt like we had gotten away from that energy that started the band — taking our little corner of black metal and putting our spin on it.

And honestly, some of it was practical — I want to be able to play a bunch of these songs live. I know that every show we've got to hit at least 3-4 songs that each take up 7-10 minutes, so what if we made some that were shorter and more economical so we could cram more in?

John: Is a five-minute-long black metal song harder to write than a 10-minute one?

Kerry: The 10-minute long songs can hard because of the standard we hold ourselves to. Each riff has to pass through the gauntlet of these four guys who are fucking snobs. [Laughs] If it's not good, you'll hear about it - either from Shiv being like "What is that, some fucking emo chords?" or George saying "It's good, I think maybe we work on it a little more."

When a 10-minute song passes that gauntlet and all the pieces fall into place, it's incredible. The five-minute song is harder because a track like "Magnolia" has no clean part, no build — it's literally just second-wave black metal influence with some Mellotron thrown on. You have to stop yourself — the painting is done, let go of it. That can be hard.

John: You mentioned rediscovering heavier records. What were some that you returned to?

Kerry: A lot of them I'm going to gatekeep for their own sake [Laughs]. There was a moment where I was rediscovering the greater Woe universe. People have mentioned Spectral Wound when hearing some of our new songs and they're not wrong, but I think it's more that the bands Spectral Wound likes, we also like. Just a lot of the staples — Darkthrone, Emperor obviously with the keys and bells, a little bit of Immortal.

Then there's a whole universe of bands influenced by that. There was some war metal in there too. If you listen to "Revelator," the thing behind some of those riffs was like, "What if you could take Dead Congregation and put more Portishead chords in there?"

I don't want to bum out the Nuclear War Now! forums, so I'll leave most unnamed. [Laughs]

John: I mean, it's funny. People wanted to call you guys posers for years, but that seems to have disappeared from the conversation. Does it feel that way from inside the band?

George: It does. I think both champions and haters of our band have all agreed and shaken hands on the fact that it's just a tired conversation. We've been around long enough where even people who loathe us are like, "Yeah, cool, they got a new record, whatever."

What helps is that metal is having, and has had for a few years now, such a huge moment. So many great bands are easily accessible, touring, and putting on great shows all the time that there's just other things to put your energy toward. I think we're all better for it.

John: I always felt like the criticism was because you guys were an uncomfortable reflection of who's actually listening to black metal. The cave-dwelling, uber-kvlt black metal people sort of exists, but in my experience there are way more people that look like Google engineers who are into it. I remember when that was at its peak, it was often from people who looked like Deafheaven, which was the weirdest part.

George: I think we've always just been ourselves and I try not to front. I like what I like.

As much as I love this music and have spent my entire life loving it — I'm indebted to it and love the culture, and many of my friends are from this culture — I like other things too. It's just a facet of my interests, so I don't feel the need to defend my tastes. It's just a thing I do among other things.

Maybe if you have an insecurity about that, you're more argumentative. But yeah, that's a funny observation — having a guy who looks like me telling me I'm not supposed to be here.

Kerry: The other thing about that whole situation when we were living through it was that it never came from anybody who I regarded as having the credentials to say anything like that to us.

We toured with Godflesh — Justin Broadrick never did anything but show love. My ex-girlfriend's best friend is in Black Twilight Circle bands and if I saw him today, we'd hug. I wouldn't want to go toe-to-toe on war metal with any of these people, but it's like, "You're into that, I'm into this, it's cool."

I think most of the hate back then came from people who felt insecure. We hate in others what we see in ourselves. You hit the nail on the head where it was a bunch of, "What is false? If you're false, then I'm false and I can't have this exist in the world."

John: Do you feel like you've become the American black metal band? I don't know if there's a bigger band playing this kind of music.

George: That's tough, only because I don't really see us as "Deafheaven is a black metal band." But to be perceived in such a way is a high honor.

Regardless of what we might label ourselves today or be labeled by others, we come from that world and a lot of those bands are phenomenal players with phenomenal albums. To be looked at with such praise is really cool and very generous — I'm happy to take the compliment if that's what it is.

John: Closing things out, what do you think the future of heavy music and metal in general is?

George: Right now, the future feels bright. I think people are interested in being challenged and in interesting ideas.

We see it all the time, not just in the music of newer artists but the ideas behind the music, a lot of which feels fresh or challenging. You have bands like Chat Pile, Blood Incantation, Full of Hell — so many different bands who all have their own identity, who are all moving something forward, who all come from an underground and make quite underground music.

To see these things breach the surface because people are interested in the interesting is very cool, and I think it bodes well for a brighter future. I'm very excited to be part of that future.

Kerry: Despite all odds, there are people making important art and making a living at it. The doomer in me thinks that we're going to see the gap between local band and arena-filler get even wider and I think that's just music in general. The long tail of the pandemic is going to affect a lot of people, much like going from the CD era to now — there's less money and it's more concentrated in fewer hands.

But in terms of the underground and people making exciting art because they don't know what else to do, I think that's never going away and that's a beautiful thing. If I have any say in it, George and I and the band will do our part to try and challenge people and take important, exciting artists out with us and make fun packages.

As we watch the shell of the empire get hollowed out, we'll at least all have some sense of community together. That's worth something. I'm excited to see what happens.

John: Appreciate chatting. Kerry, I genuinely look at you as responsible, in a butterfly effect way, for the Oasis reunion by wearing vintage Oasis T-shirts on stage almost exclusively in 2016 and the chain-reaction of other people rocking a lot of Oasis merch. So I thank you for that also.

Kerry: Hey man, I did my part, I'm doing my part. [Laughs]

George: This man needs his 5 percent!

Kerry: Where's my guarantee at?

Follow Deafheaven on Instagram, Facebook and X and get your copy of 'Lonely People With Power' at the band's website.