With Poetry, Dehd refuse to live a dead life

Lyrics in regards to the state of 1’s coronary heart have existed so long as songwriting itself. There isn’t any dearth of affection songs, or breakup songs for that matter. Throw a rock and also you’ll hit a band penning hooks about heartbreak — some to profitable ends, some not a lot. As listeners, we eat stated tracks in search of to narrate, join, and to really feel. I bask in them myself, most likely a couple of ought to — however I’ve discovered that almost all hit me like a sugar excessive, fast and addictive, candy till the style dissolves on my tongue and I’m crashing, weepy, and not sure if I would like one other mouthful, a lobotomy, or a protracted nap. 

This isn’t the case, nevertheless, in relation to Chicago indie-rock trio Dehd. Made up of ex-partners, now associates Emily Kempf (vocals, bass) and Jason Balla (guitar, vocals), alongside Eric McGrady at his revelatory stand-up drum package, the band have amassed a well-deserved viewers over seven years that’s grown effectively past the Windy Metropolis. Shiny however stripped-down, their distinctive lo-fi sound hinges on McGrady’s toothsome however easy snare and ground tom, the slippery snap of Balla’s guitar selecting because it meets bluesy overtone pedals, and Kempf’s highly effective vocal prowess, which incorporates yelping and, at instances, impromptu comedy mid-set. Fearlessly, they’ve taken on uneasy subject material with a stage of unseriousness that’s few and much between — as evidenced clearly by Water, the 2019 LP that bore lyrical and sonic witness to Balla and Kempf’s breakup — by some means unpacking essentially the most ravaged of feelings whereas hanging onto a hearty dose of hope. The saying goes, ache is inevitable — however struggling is non-compulsory. Dehd know this, and encourage you to bop about it. 

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After their final album, 2022’s Blue Skies, the band have been set on sourcing their subsequent inspiration away from dwelling. Collectively, they journeyed from Washington’s Bainbridge Island to Taos, New Mexico, the place Kempf now lives in an Earthship — a spherical, comfortable, and historic constructing approach she describes to me as “an off-grid kind of housing that is constructed with trash and adobe,” and options passive photo voltaic heating and cooling, with a cistern that catches rainwater to be reused by means of the home. Within the solitude and targeted togetherness, the threesome steeped in their very own feelings. And with writing as their sole “desert island” instrument, they put collectively Poetry. 

Zooming in from Chicago, I spoke with two-thirds of the band — first Balla joins, and as we anticipate Kempf, who’s working her different job as a tattoo artist in the present day, I determine to fill the world reserved for mild small discuss by blurting out, uncharacteristically, that my week has been chaos, who is aware of what’s occurring with my interpersonal life, and I’m positive one thing have to be in retrograde. After spending the final 24 hours listening to Poetry, I had been cracked open, and this band had develop into an ally. The album, mockingly, is actually enjoyable. It has a full, strident sound that carries weight with out dragging you down — a nice line to stroll with a tracklist that takes on self-doubt, relationships ending, questioning one’s sexuality, psychological collapse, trauma, and extra. It’s packed to the brim with shade and thoroughly positioned motifs, every music {a photograph} of an actual place, particular person, time — the revealing of a harbored crush, a lone pair of Gucci sun shades, the trembling of fingers round a lover. Slightly than claiming every story as their very own, Poetry’s intricacies are a humanizing power, and a grounding one — not not like McGrady’s two-piece package. Laid naked within the album bio, Dehd’s ethos was finest summed up by Bukowski — “You possibly can’t beat loss of life, however you possibly can beat loss of life in life.” 

The method for Poetry, I hear, concerned a wild highway journey.

JASON BALLA: We have at all times been a Chicago band, recording and writing in Chicago. This was the primary time since Emily had moved to New Mexico the place we had to determine how we would really get collectively. Initially, we have been going to Taos to arrange the place she lives, however once we have been leaving, we thought, “Let’s make this a bit extra of an journey — head up into Seattle and end it off again at dwelling.”

It’s humorous to consider a band hitting the highway willingly whereas not on tour.

BALLA: We realized that afterwards. Like, “Wow, we spend quite a lot of time within the automotive.” But it surely was manner sicker. Eric did all of the driving, Emily was bopping round to satisfy us, and whenever you’re not on a schedule, you possibly can actually admire the vastness and the fantastic thing about the zone. At one level, me and Eric acquired caught at this mountain cross, and we simply needed to anticipate an avalanche to be cleared. There was no turning again. It was an hour- or two-long detour, so we simply walked round within the snow to kill time. It was quite a lot of that.

EMILY KEMPF: You could not pay me. I flew to satisfy them at every cease.

You guys would write whenever you all met up?

BALLA: Yeah, I’ve constructed up a bit cell recording studio over time that may be moved round, so I threw it within the automotive, after which principally all over the place we’d go, we’d arrange. Emily lives on this Earthship — a comfortable, adobe, off-grid kind of housing — in New Mexico, and we have been there for 2 weeks and simply absolutely dug in. It was chilly and snowy in excessive desert, and I used to be freezing my ass off each night time beneath eight blankets. The one factor to do there in the course of nowhere was to simply write music. On the cabin on Bainbridge Island, it’s simply timber and water and our devices. It was simpler to be misplaced within the course of than at dwelling. We actually reside within the songs and undergo our personal emotions. It was a very useful strategy to course of all of the life occasions that had been taking place to us individually. On the market, you’re not in your regular comfy place, and you’ll have a look at issues a bit bit extra objectively.

So that you’re on this intense highway journey, spending concentrated time actually feeling issues. What was the method and dynamic like, between you three, throughout all of this?

BALLA: Slightly than the mentality of, “We now have to maintain taking part in guitar till the music is finished,” there was lot of time we have been simply fucking round. It was extra easygoing — you would possibly simply choose an instrument up and play. 

For one music, Eric was taking part in acoustic guitar, I used to be taking part in bass, and Emily was really doing chores — however when she got here in, she simply began singing. It was this factor the place somebody can be making one thing within the background, and if it sounded good, it will draw individuals from the opposite corners of the yard or the home. That is really one in every of these cosmic developments that I have been experiencing — we have been a band for seven years, but it surely felt very very like writing music from the start. Recent, joyful, and pure. It was playful as a result of there weren’t actually any guidelines.

Did you go into it with some kind of idea or theme for the album? Or was it a real reflection of what was occurring, in actual time?

BALLA: It simply discovered us. I had simply been by means of a breakup and, on the time, did not have anyplace to reside for seven or eight months. In the meantime, Emily and Eric have been concurrently going by means of crushing and courting land. So I’d be stewing in my one nook, and Eric and Emily can be on their telephones texting.

I do know that feeling. Would you say that your music and writing are totally private, or do you are feeling like there are altar egos, characters, or world-building concerned?

BALLA: It positively comes from processing actual stuff. For me, writing music is sort of a diary — understanding and processing your emotions.

That positively interprets within the stage of element on the album. The honesty is heard. And it’s a humorous paradox, as a result of it appears along with your work, by some means the extra realism and specificity there’s, the extra relatable it turns into — at the least to me as a listener. It represents true human expertise. That’s troublesome to attain, with out alienating the viewers.

BALLA: These sorts of issues — love or doubt or loneliness or no matter — it’s about placing all of it down in a manner that folks can acknowledge themselves in it. That is what I get out of music that I actually love. Solidarity in issues which are onerous to deal with, or really feel a lot that it appears nobody might ever know what you’re going by means of.

KEMPF: Particularly when it’s a bizarre feeling. One you didn’t take into consideration till this particular person sang about it or wrote a poem about it. I feel poetry — not our file, the topic — that is its job. To specific issues that languages fail.

Wow. When you needed to say what your band’s mission assertion can be, what would you say?

KEMPF: Make individuals really feel and relate. And now have enjoyable. We’re actually into having enjoyable — regardless of tragic, painful, bizarre life stuff. 

BALLA: We attempt to discuss issues truthfully, in a manner that acknowledges how sophisticated life is. There’s simply no black and white, and particularly with feelings and the best way that we undergo life. 

KEMPF: Select your journey. 

That is positively represented in what number of completely different tales and experiences are touched on simply throughout this album. Which fits again to that concept of providing an genuine human expertise.

BALLA: That is how the Bukowski poem got here into it — which we put in our bio. Life is about going forth and really residing. It isn’t all good, and also you should not attempt to provide yourself with protection so that you solely expertise good, cozy issues. Really feel the stuff that sucks; really feel the stuff that feels wonderful. The poem is principally nearly company in your life. Do not reside a useless life — comprehend it and personal it.

KEMPF: Do not reside a Dehd life.

BALLA: Oh shit. 

And there’s my headline. When you needed to describe your reside present to somebody who’d by no means seen you, how would you describe it?

KEMPF: Enjoyable, wild. Quite a lot of motion. We go in all places onstage. I check out my profession as a comic in a deranged manner as a result of everybody’s compelled to take heed to me. 

BALLA: Bodily, we’re just like the automotive lot inflatable man.

Which present are you most enthusiastic about on the tour?

BALLA: I don’t know. We’re positively extra well-liked now than we have ever been, and we’re taking part in rooms that I by no means would’ve actually imagined. But it surely’s nonetheless sick to simply go do the factor that’s unpaid and just a bit fucked up. So many individuals which are so fucking jaded and burnt out. This can be a enjoyable job! So we simply attempt to preserve having fun with it.

KEMPF: Fucked up and free for everybody is arguably extra enjoyable. That is how we got here up. The day I cease wanting that’s the day that I have to have a speaking to. For us, Dehd is definitely nearly making music.