Lyrics concerning 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 mentioned tracks searching for to narrate, join, and to really feel. I bask in them myself, most likely a couple of ought to — however I’ve discovered that the majority 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 want one other mouthful, a lobotomy, or a protracted nap.
This isn’t the case, nevertheless, with regards 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 equipment, the band have amassed a well-deserved viewers over seven years that’s grown nicely past the Windy Metropolis. Brilliant 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 — one way or the other 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 bounce 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, delicate, and historical constructing method she describes to me as “an off-grid sort 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 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 await Kempf, who’s working her different job as a tattoo artist immediately, I resolve 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 certain 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 turn into an ally. The album, paradoxically, is really enjoyable. It has a full, strident sound that carries weight with out dragging you down — a positive 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, individual, time — the disclosing of a harbored crush, a lone pair of Gucci sun shades, the trembling of arms round a lover. Reasonably than claiming every story as their very own, Poetry’s intricacies are a humanizing pressure, and a grounding one — not in contrast to McGrady’s two-piece equipment. Laid naked within the album bio, Dehd’s ethos was greatest summed up by Bukowski — “You’ll be able to’t beat demise, however you may beat demise in life.”
The method for Poetry, I hear, concerned a wild street 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 might 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 street willingly whereas not on tour.
BALLA: We realized that afterwards. Like, “Wow, we spend loads of time within the automobile.” However it was method sicker. Eric did all of the driving, Emily was bopping round to satisfy us, and once you’re not on a schedule, you may actually respect the vastness and the fantastic thing about the zone. At one level, me and Eric received caught at this mountain move, and we simply needed to await 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 loads of that.
EMILY KEMPF: You could not pay me. I flew to satisfy them at every cease.
You guys would write once you all met up?
BALLA: Yeah, I’ve constructed up just a little cellular recording studio over time that may be moved round, so I threw it within the automobile, after which mainly in all places we’d go, we’d arrange. Emily lives on this Earthship — a comfy, adobe, off-grid sort 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 underneath eight blankets. The one factor to do there in the midst of nowhere was to only write music. On the cabin on Bainbridge Island, it’s simply bushes and water and our devices. It was simpler to be misplaced within the course of than at dwelling. We actually stay within the songs and undergo our personal emotions. It was a extremely useful approach to course of all of the life occasions that had been occurring to us individually. On the market, you’re not in your regular snug place, and you’ll have a look at issues just a little bit extra objectively.
So that you’re on this intense street journey, spending concentrated time actually feeling issues. What was the method and dynamic like, between you three, throughout all of this?
BALLA: Reasonably than the mentality of, “We now have to maintain enjoying guitar till the music is completed,” 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 enjoying acoustic guitar, I used to be enjoying 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 folks from the opposite corners of the yard or the home. That is really certainly one of these cosmic traits that I have been experiencing — we have been a band for seven years, however it 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 form 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 a breakup and, on the time, did not have anyplace to stay for seven or eight months. In the meantime, Emily and Eric have been concurrently going by crushing and courting land. So I might 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 fully private, or do you’re 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, one way or the other the extra realism and specificity there may be, the extra relatable it turns into — not less than to me as a listener. It represents true human expertise. That’s tough 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 method that folks can acknowledge themselves in it. That is what I get out of music that I actually love. Solidarity in issues which are laborious to deal with, or really feel a lot that it appears nobody may ever know what you’re going by.
KEMPF: Particularly when it’s a bizarre feeling. One you didn’t take into consideration till this individual sang about it or wrote a poem about it. I feel poetry — not our document, 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 folks really feel and relate. And still have enjoyable. We’re actually into having enjoyable — regardless of tragic, painful, bizarre life stuff.
BALLA: We attempt to speak about issues truthfully, in a method that acknowledges how sophisticated life is. There’s simply no black and white, and particularly with feelings and the way in which 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 matches 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 truly dwelling. It is not 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 superb. The poem is mainly nearly company in your life. Do not stay a useless life — understand it and personal it.
KEMPF: Do not stay a Dehd life.
BALLA: Oh shit.
And there’s my headline. When you needed to describe your stay present to somebody who’d by no means seen you, how would you describe it?
KEMPF: Enjoyable, wild. Loads of motion. We go everywhere onstage. I check out my profession as a comic in a deranged method as a result of everybody’s pressured to hearken to me.
BALLA: Bodily, we’re just like the automobile lot inflatable man.
Which present are you most enthusiastic about on the tour?
BALLA: I don’t know. We’re positively extra common now than we have ever been, and we’re enjoying rooms that I by no means would’ve actually imagined. However it’s nonetheless sick to only go do the factor that’s unpaid and just a bit fucked up. So many individuals which are so fucking jaded and burnt out. It is 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.
