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Sunday 4 January 2015

Interview: Deaf Havana

14th December 2014
Blackburn King George's Hall
Support: Verses, Lonely the Brave.

Formed in 2005 in Norfolk, Deaf Havana have had a whirlwind few years that have seen them release three studio albums, open for none other than Bruce Springsteen and play sold out headline tours. The band  have had their downsides such as the cancellation of this year’s European tour. Nevertheless this has not held them back from doing what they do best - thriving in the UK rock scene.

Towards the last leg of the 2014 UK tour, I found myself in Blackburn’s King Georges Hall for the evening.  There, I spoke to Matthew Veck-Gilodi (backing vocals and guitar) and Chris Pennells (guitar) about their biggest gigs, songwriting and Deaf Havana’s future.

How is it going touring with Lonely the Brave and Verses so far?

Matthew: Really good. They’re a great bunch of people as well as great bands so it is always a good laugh to have them around. We are all really enjoying it actually.

Chris: It’s very fun.

Matthew: It is, everyone gets on and there are no big egos about.

I saw that you had the set list competition just before you set out on your current tour. Was it hard to put the control of the set list into someone else’s hands, even though they’re your fans?  

Chris: Yeah, I guess. When we first put it out we were obviously quite worried that we would get some suggestions that wouldn’t fit in or flow well and that we could do logistically.

Matthew: And craft a show out of it as well. That’s the thing, I mean; we don’t just specifically play the songs that we want to play. Normally you get a feel for it and you learn how some songs go together really well and that can create something that would be an hour and twenty minutes long.

Chris: But luckily enough we did find a few that worked quite well.

Matthew: Yes, we had some really good suggestions actually. I mean, some people had produced some amazing ones, looks wise as well. People had made them against great art work and stuff like that.

Chris: Oliver Beresford’s set list was the best, we felt. So we picked that.

Did you have any weird requests or people not taking it seriously?

Chris: We had a lot of strange cover suggestions.

Why did you decide to do the competition and has the set list been receiving good feedback so far on tour? 

Chris: I think it was more that we’ve always just picked sets for us essentially. It was nice to have a change. The whole point in us doing this tour was the fact we have always stuck to major cities. The whole point in the tour was, rather than expecting people to come to the music, taking the music to the people. At the same time, in keeping with that ethos it was about getting a fan to choose our set list for it as well.

You mention in your documentary English Hearts that you started off playing such small venues around the local areas and sleeping in your van. Now that you are playing on a larger scale have there been any moments where it has sunk in that you have really made it? 

Matthew: There have been a couple of surreal ones. For me, one was when we supported Muse in Germany. That was a band that I loved as a kid. So, that was just a really odd one. Like ‘oh shit.’

The other was with Bruce Springsteen as well because the guy is like sixty odd and has been doing music for such a long time and so consistently at such a high level. To share the same stage as him, that was a moment when I was like ‘Christ yeah, this is going somewhere.’

Can you see yourselves doing that for the rest of your life? Do you want to be doing music until you’re about sixty odd?

Both: Yeah.

Matthew: If I look as half as good as he does at thirty, but as he does at sixty, I’ll be impressed.

Chris: I feel sixty.

Matthew: I think I am (laughs).

Chris: Logically, your innards probably are.

How do you feel about the British rock scene becoming more accessible and entering the mainstream scene? A few years ago I would never hear bands like Yma6, Deaf Havana or Bring Me the Horizon being played on Radio One, let alone appearing high up in the charts.

Chris: I think it is great, especially with Radio 1 playing such a varied stuff.

Mathew: I mean radio stations do still play a lot of bollocks.

Chris: Yeah there’s been a lot of EDM lately. It’s not even music really.

Matthew: Disclosure are alright but that’s clever house music. The problem is with house music, you hear a bit that’s pretty good and then there’s just five minutes that is just noise for people on ketamine.

Chris: But yeah, obviously it is not only just our kind of music, there has been an uprising in music like indie as well on Radio One and other stations. I think it is good.

Matthew: It’s healthy to have diversity. You don’t get people turning on the radio and just hearing the same song over and over again.

Are there any plans to reschedule the European tour that you cancelled or is it too early to tell? 

Chris: It is still too early to tell.

Matthew: We haven’t made any solid plans yet.

Chris: Yeah, it needs to make sense when we go back.

Matthew: We will be back; it should be next year as well. It’s just such a shame that we couldn’t do it. We were all gutted about it because it sold really well in some of the venues. It’s always good to go around Europe. Everyone has been very understanding, so that’s one thing I’m really pleased about because it’s easy to become bitter and jaded and be like, ‘fuck this band.’

How do you feel about the future of touring for bands and do you have any advice for people wanting to start bands?

Chris: I’d say just play as many shows as you can. I think that’s where and certainly how we’ve got to where we are today and where the main bulk of the work is. It is put into touring and playing your music on the road. There’s obviously a lot of other stuff that happens doesn’t include that but the bulk of it lies in working your arse off on tour.

Is that due to album sales nowadays? 

Both: Yes

Matthew: To earn money and be viable business it’s horrible to have to talk about music like that but yeah, you draw it in from touring and merchandise.

Chris: Bands did used to see more money out of records. They used to tour to support an album release but it’s almost like now that you’re releasing an album just for an excuse to be able to go and tour. So it has completely flipped on its head over the past few years.

Matthew: Yeah, I mean, look at 1975. They have rocketed right up and they have played 195 shows this year or something like that. It’s mad.

You are a band well known for your personal lyrics across your albums, be it about growing up, losing friends and alcohol fuelled touring. What song is most sentimental to you and why?

Matthew: Well mine will always be 'Mildred' because I wrote that one with James but all the lyrics are mine. It is about my best friend and when I thought I was never going to see him again, for various reasons. Luckily we are all still best mates now and hang out all the time. So, that song will always be very special to me.

Chris: One that always hits home for me is ‘Times Change’, which we actually play on this tour. It’s about Ryan leaving the band.

The band has changed its sound quite a bit since Ryan Mellor left post ‘Meet Me Halfway, At Least’. Was it hard to change the live sound when performing at gigs? Why did you decide to make the decision to not get another singer? 

Chris: When it happened we could have easily gone one way and we did have a discussion with another guy about him joining the band.

Matthew: We had some professional photos done as well with him.

Chris: James had written a couple of songs that we just put out as demos. We decided it would probably be a better way to go forward. The song writing was a lot better that way. The lyric that James was coming out with…it was just a no brainer really. We do still play a couple of the old songs.

Matthew: I think it took a while to get to that point. Once I and Max got added to the band I think that helped a bit. We could just flesh out songs where there would have been little gaps. We just took a different approach to it all.

In 2013 you did an unplugged acoustic tour. In terms of live performances and atmosphere is there much difference between electric sets and acoustic sets? Do you have a preference?

Matthew: There’s a huge difference yeah. They’re so different I don’t know if I can choose. Actually I definitely prefer when we play full electric sets because there’s more energy.
Chris: It was REALLY good to change it up.

Matthew: I loved it because it was so quiet and everyone was so respectful. It was really nice to do something that different actually.

Can we expect any new music from the band in the near future? Are there any new projects on the horizon?

Chris: James and Max have got their tour in January and then we are just writing.

Matthew: Yes, solidly working on writing. We probably won’t tour again until this time next year.

Chris: This is basically it for now for ‘Old Souls.’ 

Matthew: Fans probably have a long time to wait unfortunately. But, I mean once we have things in place we will get singles out as soon as we can.



You can read this interview and plenty of other interesting music news at  http://figure8magazine.co.uk/default/category/interviews/