DEADLETTER: “Music only exists on the day that you write it”

From industrial rhythms to existential crises, DEADLETTER channel life’s tensions into their compelling debut ‘Hysterical Strength’.

Words: Jack Press.
Photos: Derek Bremner.

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Remember that scene in Twilight where Edward saves Bella from being crushed by a car? She might’ve guessed Edward was a vampire, but passersby chalked it up to a freakish display of hysterical strength. For Yorkshire-born art-punks DEADLETTER, it’s the title of their debut album — but it’s not as deep as you think it is. It’s not supernatural; it’s just life.

“I think the idea of hysterical strength, which is this physical manifestation of mental anguish, actually applies to most people’s daily lives,” posits frontman Zac Lawrence, slumped on his sofa with bassist and housemate George Ullyott. “I think it’s just a byproduct of observing what’s going on around you and responding to the society in which you live.”

‘Hysterical Strength’ then, as an album, is concerned with the struggles we face in everyday routines and the wars of attrition that take place either at home or in wider society. Whether it’s memorialising wrong ‘uns as moral citizens (‘Bygones’), accepting how much of a political mess Great Britain has become (‘Deus Ex Machina’), or just how far a parent will go for their children (‘Mother’), DEADLETTER stick you on a carousel of chaotic character studies and send you for a ride to find your own meaning.

Whether it’s the fact they’ve been working all day long as landscape gardeners or they’ve perfected the art of assuming a poker face, Zac and George remain reluctant to divulge the details for nearly an hour. If you’re looking for a starter for ten, you’ll get a smattering of bread crumbs.

“I always want people to take their own piece away, but if I was to sum it down to one succinct answer, I’d say what it is to be a human being,” Zac suggests. “It’s not the meaning of life — I don’t have the answer — but I think that’s the best that I can describe it as because that’s what’s informed my lyric writing process the most; it’s just humanity and observing and taking part in it.”

Most of us won’t be mining deep for philosophical nuggets. Few of us will shake the songs like a Magic 8-Ball for the answers. But don’t be fooled — every syllable Zac sings has its place.

“I never write lyrics just to write lyrics. I always write lyrics to try and get something across. Sometimes I write to try and understand something — something that I’m still torn on, something that I still haven’t made my own mind up about,” Zac states matter-of-factly, his sentences appearing as streams of consciousness, much like his polysyllabic lyrics. “I think that it can help me to come to my own conclusions by actually writing about something, and sometimes it can do the complete opposite.”

“We’ll be doing this whether the industry is getting behind us or not”

George Ullyott

Whether it’s writing out lyrics, tapping out drum beats, or humming melodies, the concept of something doing the complete opposite is synonymous with DEADLETTER’s songwriting process. They revel in harmonies, their use of gang vocals evoking the kind of happiness pigs find rolling around in mud — even if harmonies aren’t on-trend.

“Perhaps it’s ignorant of me to say so, but harmonies don’t seem to be as ubiquitous nowadays as they were at one time, whereas there are quite a few instances within the album where harmonies really make the track what it is. And I think putting a harmony against something which is already quite abrasive creates that juxtaposition that we’re forever honing in on.”

When it comes to juxtaposition, they’re the court jesters, lulling you into a false sense of security musically before jumping out at you lyrically or vice versa. In the battle for artistic integrity, juxtaposition is their weapon of choice.

“Juxtaposition can make a listener uncomfortable, which evokes a response, but I think sometimes it’s completely subconscious,” Zac says, as George chips in to suggest it’s not as black and white. “Musically, that comes from a place of different influences and different feelings when we’re walking in to write.”

“Maybe some of us have been at work, and some of us might have been sat on the sofa all day — I don’t know. We’re never trying to do anything specific; I think it always just comes after the groove and the lyrics. It always seems to be a jigsaw puzzle rather than ‘what style should we aim for?’”

A jigsaw puzzle is a simplistic way to describe the shape-shifting soundscapes DEADLETTER deliver on ‘Hysterical Strength’. On ‘A Haunting’, glimmering guitar tones and ceremonious saxophone wage war with picture-painting lyrics like “catches a glance in the glass of a florist, it just about fills his mouth up with vomit,” whereas the throbbing basslines and sax solos on ‘It Flies’ cascade into audible chaos. Every musical note played and every lyric sung serves a purpose to immerse you in its world.

‘Mother,’ a track inspired by Bong Joon-ho’s neo-noir thriller flick of the same name, does its best to send shivers down your spine with its shaded-grey sounds, just like the movie does. Until Zac bursts through your eardrums for its all-conquering sing-along chorus of “just forget it all and dance.” Listening to it, you’d think DEADLETTER spent days meticulously crafting this movie-mirroring climax — only none but Zac have seen it.

“It’s pretty amazing if musically we’ve managed that because, apart from Zac, none of us have seen it, so if we’ve managed that by not seeing it, that’s great,” beams George, as Zac adds, “the original chorus wasn’t ‘forget it all and dance’. I think George and Alf were just playing through that idea, and then I put the ‘Mother’ lyrics to it, and when I went away, I thought, ‘What’s quite a powerful but maybe not specific statement that could be introduced there as a chorus?’”

“Making an album is like a very, very, very hasty marriage which ultimately ends in divorce” 

Zac Lawrence

Whether it’s by design or not, ‘Hysterical Strength”s 12-track tour-de-force is a reflection of the past four years of DEADLETTER — completed by drummer Alfie Husband and guitarists Sam Jones and Will King. They’re not Oasis; there’s no master plan. Their debut album is merely a consequence of growth.

“I think what has happened in the way we sound and the way the album’s come together is it’s been an evolution as opposed to the final ticking off of the list of things to do,” considers Zac, who later suggests “it wasn’t some five-year plan.”

While they’ve been dealt some important life lessons in half a decade — “It’s definitely helped me to become more understanding of living with people and not really having a stable bed,” George laughs — the thought of a debut album flags up the less glamorous sides of rock’n’roll.

“It’s quite grounding to learn that your first album being around the corner doesn’t necessarily mean that everything’s sorted,” Zac considers after one of many moments of deep reflection. “What I mean by sorted is we still don’t have financial stability from music, and four years ago, I would’ve been under the assumption that by the time the first album was coming around, that would be the case, so we’ve learnt that it’s an uphill effort.”

Zac, George, and co. haven’t got a shopping list of milestones to rush through the aisles ticking off. They’re not soothsayers or tarot readers; they’re just a band content with strolling through the music industry shopping mall — “What makes us quite fortunate is the fact there’s always been a steady incline rather than a sudden rush up to space or a sudden plummet — hang on, let’s touch a bit of wood.” Although, to those of us outside their circle, it’s hard to see it as anything but a rapid rise.

Having gone from birthing the band in 2020 to releasing debut EP ‘Heat!’ in 2022, and now their debut album in 2024, it’s hard not to assume their stock isn’t rising at the speed of light. Like toxic relationships, though, it’s easier said than done to see it when you’re in it.

“I don’t think we’ve felt any hype per se,” Zac declares matter-of-factly. “We’ve played some really great shows and had some positive receptions to the stuff we’ve put out, but there’s never been that blow-up moment. We’ve never been the fucking NME poster boys and girl.”

“I feel like we’ll be doing this whether the industry is getting behind us or not, and I think we’ve been doing it for long enough that we’ve proven that to ourselves — that we’re going to be playing music in some capacity forever,” declares George, who’s clearly dreamt of being in a band his whole life. “You know, it might not always be DEADLETTER; it might always be DEADLETTER — we don’t know yet, but it comes from an enjoyment of playing music and being involved in it rather than a chase for popularity, and if that happens, that’s amazing ’cause then we can get paid for it.”

“We wrote all the song names down and cut them out, and then we all sat around the dinner table in an Airbnb in Newcastle and just had it out”

George Ullyott

While DEADLETTER didn’t have to deal with much external pressure from labels and managers, they did have to deal with their own heads. “I’ve wanted to make an album for 12 years, so it all comes from a place of wanting to get it right personally rather than for everyone else,” says George, before Zac deluges the conversation with his thoughts on debuts. “I don’t think we did anything contrived, and I don’t think we did anything out of the ordinary in the process leading up to this album. I suppose there is a factor of significance which plays on your conscience because it’s the debut album, you know?”

“Whether you’re a believer in the case of the debut album being the one that can define or not, I think that there is that pressure, even if you’re not conscious of it, that it’s a significant step in the career of a band to be putting out your first album.”

Although they stand resolute in the fact they didn’t “sit down and have a board meeting about how we’re going to get to Number 1,” they spent nearly a month in a studio in the North Essex medieval-market-come-commuter town of Saffron Walden with debut album super-producer Jim Abbiss.

Known for making career-defining records and Number 1 debuts — ‘Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not’ by Arctic Monkeys and ’19’ by Adele — Jim is notorious for making life difficult. Like the old saying goes, diamonds are made under pressure.

“I think the headbutts were inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. It wasn’t like every day was some kind of shouting match. Although I think there were some days when we particularly pissed off Jim, but that was part of the process, you know?” Zac admits coolly, not concerned by any clashes of character with their producer.

“There were times he’d suggest something, and we weren’t that keen on it, but we’d try it. And likewise, there were times we’d suggest something, and he wasn’t that keen on it. I can specifically remember his reaction when I said, ‘Have you got a glockenspiel for that one bit in ‘Relieved’?’ and I remember him looking at me through the glass like, ‘What the fuck is he about to do?’ and then I just went, ‘do do do do’, and he was like, ‘Yeah!’. It never felt like either party was trying to tug the other over the line.”

With or without Jim, DEADLETTER view album-making like they’re writers of a 90s rom-com starring Hugh Grant. “Making an album is like a very, very, very hasty marriage which ultimately ends in divorce,” Zac says, a single trace of a smile betraying the seriousness in his voice, as George continues, “It’s like having 10,000 kids that you then decide to give all of them away for 25 quid each.”

Now that ‘Hysterical Strength’ is alive and breathing, a baby they conceived nine months ago that has slowly stewed into being, it comes as a tangible sigh of relief rather than something that sends them hurtling to a particular place or time.

“It makes me super excited and super proud that we’ve finally got an album that somebody’s going to release for us. It’s like thank fuck, but at the same time, it just reruns all the decisions you’ve made, and it’s quite hard to listen to it objectively,” George exhales. “It’s always like, ‘Shit, did we do that right?’ I just want somebody to take on the responsibility and listen to it at this point, since we’ve been stewing over it for so long.”

“For me, it can take me to a state of reflection because it goes beyond just that month in the studio — you know, there were the hours in rehearsal rooms, and then before that, there were the hours of playing alone in my bedroom,” Zac ponders, the pair rolling up cigarettes as they consider their thoughts. “I don’t know if it takes me anywhere in terms of evoking emotion because I’m not listening to it as an objective listener — I already know the answers to everything, so unfortunately, I’m not afforded the luxury of being able to deduce my own takeaways.”

The idea that Zac or any member of DEADLETTER already knows the ins and outs of ‘Hysterical Strength’ suggests their songs started life out as questions to be answered. It’s a sentiment Zac and George share as they trace the album’s timeline. Take the industrial thrum of ‘Practise Whilst You Preach’ — whose sinister saxophone, throbbing basslines, and totalitarian vocal delivery explore the darker side of finding comfort in faith and making home in cult-like communities — predates ‘Hysterical Strength’.

“Musically, the verse existed for a long time, and originally, we had the ‘Degenerate Inanimate’ lyrics on it before that came around, but we just never found where to go with it, and finally one day we came up with a chorus,” George explains, working through a song they’ve spent hours trying to figure out. “It’s quite difficult to place a song like ‘Practise Whilst You Preach’ — it’s a difficult one to sell to a label, put it that way.”

“I seem to remember we were in a room with mirrors in Shepherd’s Bush, and there was something missing melodically,” says Zac, adding, “and then I hummed a melody, and then Tom, who was our sax player at the time, and [ex-guitarist] James hooked that melody and harmonised it like so,” before humming an entire melody and roaring, “Good luck writing that down!”

“It’s important to focus on the near future, and the near future for us is album two”

Zac Lawrence

As difficult as ‘Practise Whilst You Preach’ was to work out, it’s a pivotal song in their catalogue. It sends Zac spiralling down a rabbit hole of contemplation. Much like you imagine the void Van Gogh inhabited after every painting, Zac slips into a near-existential crisis that starts with looking back at its cryptic lyrics.

“I feel like whoever it was that wrote that then isn’t who I am now, and I think it’s quite important as a writer to not get hung up on trying to land yourself back in a place you’re not in anymore,” Zac sighs, letting that thought linger in the space between our screens. “I don’t know if I could sit down and write that now. It’s completely symbolic of the time at which it was written.”

Like a doctoral student and their thesis, Zac seems keen to study the disconnect a songwriter experiences with his art once it’s available for mass consumption — or even once it’s simply written down on paper and only mere seconds have passed since creating it.

“I believe that music only exists on the day that you write it, and I think that’s the same with lyrics. I find it very interesting, and it’s something that I’m still trying to get to the bottom of,” he considers his next move before asking openly, “You know, do lyrics exist before you’ve written them, or do they exist as a result of the time at which you’re writing them?

“If I’d have sat down an hour later, would it have been that? Probably not. I might have spilt a glass of water; I might not have been able to write — do you know what I mean? It makes me realise that those moments of creativity are actually precious; they’re worth cherishing.”

Considering several of them share a house together, creativity doesn’t seem to be the crux of their songwriting as much as pacing their songs and the album they collectively make. While George is mindful enough to say they were wary of the pace of songs, not wanting to have them work against each other like “the more melodic songs against the more angular ones”, the journey ‘Hysterical Strength’ takes you on was chosen like X Factor judges deciding on who makes it to boot camp.

“We wrote all the song names down and cut them out, and then we all sat around the dinner table in an Airbnb in Newcastle and just had it out over the whole thing, and everyone made their points,” George explains, suggesting the big debate was over in 40 minutes flat. “The flow of it feels right. Side A has a hard-hitting kind of pace, and then you get to go on a bit more of a psychedelic journey through the B side.”

The B-side of the album, which starts with the title-track, treads more unfamiliar terrain than some of Side A’s festival-ready sing-alongs. With vinyl their preferred way for listeners to experience the album, the A/B format allows a reset after the cacophonous explosion in your eardrum imploring you to “blow it up, blow it up, blow it up!” as George suggests, “When you listen to it, you’re ready for that new section — the next chapter in the book, if you will.”

‘Auntie Christ’, an audible tower standing stark and lonely in the distance of a monochromatic world, closes the album distinctly. Its rumbling riffs roll along like tumbleweed in the desert. As they build around the earworm-worthy line of “only when he’d fallen could he truly rise”, this tale of life and death becomes a fitting finale.

“First of all, the sonic element of it means that it does stand apart from the other tunes — it feels definite,” explains Zac, “but the lyrics concern the idea of someone rising up posthumously, which makes the most sense as an endpoint: death is the end, and this is the end of the album.”

Of course, ‘Auntie Christ’ is just the end of ‘Hysterical Strength’ and not DEADLETTER. They’re so sure of it that they’re already working on its sequel. “I think it’s important to focus on the near future, and the near future for us is album two,” declares Zac, who’s followed by George suggesting they’ll “hopefully write a better second album” before Zac backtracks to say “or just another album that we’re proud of.”

Until DEADLETTER return with more music, they’re simply concerned with racking up shows and playing their tunes to the masses. Without listeners, none of the ‘Hysterical Strength’ it takes for their sextet to exist would matter.

“You know, it’s like a book,” Zac suggests. “You could write 50 books, but if you never get anyone to read one, you’re probably a narcissist.”

Taken from the October 2024 issue of Dork. DEADLETTER’s debut album ‘Hysterical Strength’ is out now.