DEADLETTER are for the living

It’s 8pm on a late-January evening. DEADLETTER’s vocalist Zac Lawrence has spent the day clearing ivy off someone’s house – as we all are at some point in the day – and is admittedly “knackered”. Without this double life, the Clark Kent-esque gardener-by-day-rock-star-by-night existence, he and the five others that make up the outfit wouldn’t have created their sprawling, synth-laden second record, ‘Existence Is Bliss’.

An album which thrives at the margins, playing at the fringes of synth-pop and 80s post-punk to poke fun at 21st Century existentialism, it represents a band who have shaken off the shackles of debut doubts and strode confidently into this new expanse of throbbing basslines, sardonic lyricism, and off-kilter, knocking flute and glockenspiel cameos.

Talking about the album’s title, one which finds itself branded across a melting ice cube on the album’s nihilistic artwork, Zac explains: “I think I had it flowing in my mind probably for a good six or seven months before we actually recorded the album.

“It all started as a joke at work. I would say to one of my co-workers, ‘Do you think we’re living today, or do you think we’re existing?’, every day, to the point where I started to really believe in it. What am I doing today? Am I living? If you look at humanity more widely, I think you can put everyone into one of those two categories: living or existing.”

That idea of living, of embracing opportunities and not simply going through the motions in a world seemingly determined to reduce everything to the daily grind, informed every decision the band made for this record. 

Off the back of their wondrous debut album, ‘Hysterical Strength’, and the subsequent tour of songs they’d been playing for upwards of three years nonstop, the sextet were desperate to try something new, to open up their minds to the furthest reaches of what DEADLETTER could be.

“I think once we had kind of knocked down this collective perception of what a DEADLETTER song is, the sky was the limit,” Zac states.

Guitarist Sam Jones agrees: “I think what we’ve really achieved here is a real sense of striving for something. It’s very chaotic, but I think you scratch the surface and there’s a real clarity beneath it.”

“You can put everyone into one of those two categories: living or existing”

‘Existence is Bliss’ certainly isn’t backwards in coming forwards. Opener ‘Purity I’ gives you a sense of what’s to come; ominous, brooding synths play down in the mire while Zac’s smooth, almost spoken word vocal spills out over the top. Tracks such as ‘Frosted Glass’ take over from where singles ‘To The Brim’ and ‘It Comes Creeping’ left off, creating a pulsating soundscape within which aspects are thrown to catch you off guard, whether it’s in the form of a screeching saxophone solo or the frantic delivery of lyrics like ‘Existence is potential’.

“One thing I really did strive to do with this with this LP that I was almost too nervous to do with the first one was actually utilise my ability to sing,” Zac recalls.

“With this album, from the minute we were starting to write the songs, I was really working on melody rather than these very rhythmical deliveries which wouldn’t strive too far beyond two notes. I was trying to home in on different melodies and implementing different melodies within the same song.”

Where so much pressure, so much expectation, is placed on creating the perfect debut album – as if such a thing exists – can often stifle a band’s creativity. While ‘Hysterical Strength’ was far from tame, ‘Existence is Bliss’ is yet another giant leap into an experimental way of working that ultimately pushes the boundary of what DEADLETTER can be.

Having spent years together on the road, in the studio, and just going through life together (on the days where they’re living, not existing, obviously) created the conditions within which they could test the waters unencumbered by the pressures of needing to make a grand entrance.

“I think having spent so long with one another, you do bleed into one another,” Sam ponders.

“We’re all reflections of ourselves, really. I think having toured ‘Hysterical Strength’ to the ground and spending so much time together in the rehearsal room, factors just combine. There’s a real sense that this record is shared between all of us. Everyone has their space.”

Zac nods: “I never want to talk negatively about something we’ve done as a collective, but my personal relationship with [‘Hysterical Strength’] is strained. But if you don’t feel that strain, then why would you ever produce anything else? If you get to a place where you’re like, ‘Oh, I really love this thing, and I’ll never love anything else as much’, it’s time to stop.”

He adds: “I struggle to look backwards; the second something’s done, I’m looking to the next thing, but that’s what keeps creativity alive.”

“We’re always trying to catch each other off guard”

There is an urgency to the record which permeates across every song, every textural and instrumental choice, adding to this sense that we’re all racing towards an inevitable end, but that we have the power to imbue every moment with joy rather than stress. The way that the album was recorded, with Zac frantically sifting through lyric books to find the right line at the right time, only added to this somewhat anxiety-inducing concept.

“We often get asked about the sort of ties between the lyrics and the music,” Zac says, “and what’s strange is that I decide on the lyrics when I’m in the room and everyone’s playing.

“I write the lyrics beforehand and then flick through when the song’s already playing, so I don’t really have much time to decide on what I’m going to say. The guys have been playing the song for hours, waiting for me to start singing, so I’m sitting there under so much fucking pressure!”

Sam smiles: “We’re always trying to catch each other off guard. Alfie [Husband] will get a drum beat going, he’s looking at George [Ullyot, bassist], so he knows it’s crunch time. It all builds to Zac, where he’s about to start singing something – it’s like this volcano about to erupt – and then he just doesn’t do anything.

Zac smirks: “It does happen; I’m sitting there like, ‘Guys this one might have to be instrumental, we’ve been here for two hours now!’”.

Part of this game of cat and mouse – one that it sounds like Zac might need some more practice at – feeds into a determination to focus on an album that is about creative endeavour rather than making songs purely to play live. DEADLETTER have played enough shows now to know what crowds like, but it wouldn’t be any fun if they stuck to their comfort zone now, would it?

“I didn’t really want to go in with any preconceived notions of what our album ought to be,” Zac states, “but I was much more comfortable with the idea of not really being concerned about the live show.

“That’s not to say you don’t have thoughts about how it’s going to translate, but with the first one I was really bothered about it being something that can be done really easily live. Perhaps there are moments [on ‘Existence is Bliss’] which we’ll do completely differently live, but I think it’s exciting to utilise other instruments to recreate that texture.”

Texture is something upon which the whole fabric of ‘Existence of Bliss’ is hinged. The warmer tones of Zac’s suave vocal clash deliciously with the sharper edges of Poppy Richler’s saxophone on ‘Among Us’, while the almost shoegaze-y drums on ‘Focal Point’ draws attention to the layering of swirling electronica and jazzy sparkle.

“I think because there’s six of us,” Sam thinks, “being considerate of different textures has really helped us in the moments where something else was needed to bring clarity or to get your ears’ attention because there’s so much going on.

“If you add something that hasn’t been announced yet as something that DEADLETTER do, you’re going to really hear it. That spontaneity where we’ve just picked up other instruments we otherwise wouldn’t have used was a means of finding some order in the chaos, and I think the album really benefits from that.”

What comes across most strongly from Zac and Sam, is that DEADLETTER are at their most confident ebb thus far. Unfurling a new layer of what the band can be, what they can do and where they can go, speaks to their unerring desire to never stand in one place too long for fear that they lose whatever magic it is that they’ve stumbled across.

“We can’t afford to stagnate,” Sam points out. “Things wouldn’t happen if we stagnated. Speaking for myself, I’ve certainly had moments over my lifetime where I’ve had no creative endeavour in me whatsoever. So, yeah, we just have to dive through every moment, I guess.”

“Every moment is a finite opportunity to savour life”

In that vein – and without getting too carried away, given we’re about a month away from this second album coming out – whatever comes next promises to be another strident jolt into the wilderness, but in a way that even the lads can’t quantify quite yet.

“Honestly, I have no idea what it’s going to look like,” Zac admits.

“All I’ll say is that I would rather not have any concrete suppositions.”

Sam adds: “I think you’ve really got to proceed with caution when you’re thinking ahead, but I’m sure when the time comes, we’ll write a great album.”

For the moment, though, they’re laser-focused on living the high life, not wallowing in the doldrums of existence. With a new tour on the horizon, one which sees them play the biggest shows of their career so far, what are the boys’ immediate thoughts for this next album cycle?

Sam pauses. “Every moment is a finite opportunity to savour life.”

Zac nods, as if inexplicably knowing what that means, before adding: “I just want to keep on living, you know? Stop that existing from peeling his pesky little head through the shutters!”

Sam laughs, then utters the line that succinctly and aptly adraws a close to our chat: “DEADLETTER is for the living; or the existing who just don’t know it yet.”

Taken from the March 2026 issue of Dork. DEADLETTER’s album ‘Existence Is Bliss’ is out 27th February.