Deafheaven’s George Clarke pulls no punches. He knows 2021’s ‘Infinite Granite’, which saw the blackgaze trailblazers abandon their black metal forest to swim solely in a pool of shoegaze, split opinion. Roaming around his Los Angeles home, he admits, “the one feeling not present was ‘surprise’.”
“I didn’t blame people for being upset with the album because they, at this point, so many years in, have a very strong expectation,” Clarke reflects, “even if it was objectively the best record ever written, there’d be a whole slew of people who were highly disappointed with it because they were holding an expectation.”
Heavy weighs the head that wears the crown. Deafheaven, completed by bassist Chris Johnson, drummer Daniel Tracy, and guitarists Kerry McCoy and Shiv Mehra, have felt the burden of expectation too many times. Having single-handedly taken a genre from its underground lair to the lofty heights of Coachella sets and Billboard chartings, Clarke and co. always feel the eyes of others burning into them.
Of course, it’s not about the size of the dog in the fight; it’s about the size of the fight in the dog. And Deafheaven aren’t a band to be bullied into a box. As far as Clarke’s concerned, they’ve got a mission statement. And they’re wearing it like hearts on their sleeves. “At the end of the day, Deafheaven does what Deafheaven wants because Deafheaven’s whole ethos is honesty, and being who we are, and not putting anything on and being very open about who we are.”
So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to learn that the follow-up to ‘Infinite Granite’, ‘Lonely People With Power’, is a synthesis of the five albums that have come before. As Clarke explains, they simply “wanted to make what we felt was a very definitive, very ultimate Deafheaven album.”
Think of ‘Lonely People With Power’ as the missing link between 2018’s ‘Ordinary Corrupt Human Love’ and ‘Infinite Granite’. Whilst early tracks like ‘Doberman’ and ‘Magnolia’ pierce your flesh with venomous fangs, later cuts like ‘Winona’ and ‘The Marvelous Orange Tree’ wash over you like the hangover-healing powers of a shower, cleansing you of the venom. That is to say, ‘Lonely People WIth Power’ takes the different shades of Deafheaven to evolve into their ultimate form.
To reach this creative peak, Clarke admits they had to make ‘Infinite Granite’. “We needed to take that side step in order to feel creatively fulfilled, in order to feel personally fulfilled, and in order, most importantly, in this moment to make this album, because this album would not have happened without Infinite Granite, because of the perspectives that we got, because of the songwriting improvements we went through, the gauntlet of trying to not fall into our old tropes and to explore different chords and different emotions and ways of song structuring.”
It wasn’t just a creative recalibration; it was a lyrical refinement, too. Throughout Deafheaven’s catalogue, there’s a recurring theme of breaking cycles and escaping destiny. As the band reach their 15th anniversary, are they breaking cycles or continuing one?
“It’s funny, I do feel like Deafheaven is going to continue to make music and be creative, but in terms of these touchstones of subject matter, I feel this might be the best that I’m going to be able to say it,” admits Clarke, “I feel like there are so many things in ‘Lonely People WIth Power’ that are addressed on ‘Roads To Judah’, and addressed on ‘Sunbather’, and on ‘Ordinary’, but on this one, it feels more concrete, it feels really sure of itself.”
Like ‘Roads To Judah’, ‘Sunbather’, and ‘Ordinary Corrupt Human Love’, ‘Lonely People With Power’ continues to explore the complex relationship between individuals and their environments, the influence of family members on their lives, and the search for meaning through personal struggle.
“It wasn’t something I wanted to run away from; I wanted instead to speak as poetically as I could about it”
Considering the political chokehold America’s climate is currently held in, you’d be forgiven for assuming Deafheaven have morphed into social commentators. Whilst Clarke admits that “the macro and the micro are certainly both held within the title”, it’s never been a black-and-white line of thought.
“I thought of the title as a way to describe people who seek influence, who want to wield power, and how I find that at the highest level of that seeking are people who are lacking in intimate relationships or who have a sense of anti-community about them, who are generally self-serving; I think that it’s a prerequisite to the lust that is required to reach such a high level of influence.”
The further he dug his way through those thoughts, the more he found them reflected in everyday life: “What’s interesting is that in their own ways, to different degrees, everyone possesses a similar thing, and I think everyone has a certain amount of power influence over people in their lives, and that it’s important to examine what that means, and how you choose to wield that responsibility.”
Like a palaeontologist on an archaeological expedition, Clarke’s examination of those themes left him digging “even deeper into the personal this time in order to show more of the universal”. However, ‘Lonely People With Power’ should come with a warning: it is not for the faint of heart.
“There is a lot of weird suicide things that come up throughout the record, and a lot of it is about battling those feelings or refusing to accept them,” notes Clarke, carefully arranging his line of thought. “The leaning in is to understand that these feelings don’t always go away, and it is okay to consider them, and to mine why I might romanticise it.”
As if he were holding up a mirror, seeing the realest version of himself for the first time, Clarke found himself wrestling with honesty. We don’t have to tell you who won, as Clarke explains. “In the way that you and I are speaking right now, I don’t find it romantic at all. In my normal day to day, I don’t find it to be any sort of answer but I would be lying to myself if there weren’t those smaller, darker periods where I do. It wasn’t something I wanted to run away from; I wanted instead to speak as poetically as I could about it.”
Much like the heavy crown weighing on their heads, Deafheaven’s position of power in music comes with great responsibility. How do you balance your own vulnerability with that of the thousands listening in?
“You can’t consider other people,” declares Clarke. “What you have to consider is just how understanding of the vulnerability you are. Are these feelings vulnerable, or are they selfish? Are they vulnerable, but are they empathetic? Are they vulnerable, but they’re forgiving?”
“And I think so long as I err on the side of empathy and forgiveness, and shy away from things feeling like a pity party, and as long as I felt like that was true to what I was writing, people will see that, and I don’t have to be cautious of how people will interpret this. I think the heart will show itself, and that’s what I do my best to lead with.”
While Clarke is certain “that if there’s a chance to develop new touchstones, and explore other subjects that are worthy of talking about, the next album might be a great opportunity to do so,” there’s a lingering fear that people may take their time to find the truth in ‘Lonely People With Power’.
“It’s funny, you know, when you write about something so personal, because there’s a fear there that it’s so internal that no one’s going to understand it, and yet I’m always surprised at how much the major ideas behind the details tend to shine through,” admits Clarke. “Even if you don’t know what Winona is, or you don’t know where the Sacred Heart Catholic Church is that’s referenced in ‘Magnolia’, the greater ideas will come through, and I don’t always know how, but I trust that they will.”
It’s the trust they’ve built between them as a creative unit and their listeners that defines Deafheaven at this stage in their careers. Like Marmite sandwiches, you either love them or hate them, but no matter what, they’ll always remain true to themselves.
Deafheaven’s album ‘Lonely People With Power’ is out now.
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