DEAF HAVANA RELEASE NEW SINGLE "TRACING LINES"
Accepting yourself is one of the most daunting, challenging and altering things you can do in this life. To see every asset of your being, the good and the bad, the wins and the failures, the lessons and the mistakes, all in the same light, and use the clarity uncovered to push you forward into ever greater things, it takes a lot of work. But when it all slots into place, you wonder why you didn't take the steps sooner.
James Veck-Gilodi has been confronting this for most of Deaf Havana's career. And it is only now, within the creation of their stunning seventh album, 'We're Never Getting Out' (out October 3rd via So Recordings/Civilians), that it has all started to make sense. The realisation that he has spent years swaying between extremes of existence, never genuinely finding contentment or happiness at either end. Forever feeling like every step of the band's journey to now – through Top 10 albums, sold-out tours, total breakdowns, and endless rebirths – has been to please someone else rather than himself. A constant battle of expectation, both inside his chest and on the turntable, that was always going to boil over at some point.
"I have always wanted to change myself," he explains. "But I've also never really owned up to and accepted my mistakes. I've just punished myself, told myself that I hated myself and ended up cosplaying as a completely different person instead. All it took was for me to take the best parts from everything I have done and apply them without actually trying to totally change who I am in the process. Maybe it's my age or mindset, but I accept who I am now and feel I know how to make myself a good person."
PHOTO CREDIT: SUEDE
Of new single, "Tracing Lines", James says, “it was the last song we wrote for the album. George (Glew, producer) felt like there was something missing and he was right, it ended up being one of my favourite songs on the record.”
“I think it perfectly sums up how I was feeling during that time period, embarrassed about my failed relationship and very aware of my ever increasing age. I found myself at 34 years old, single and living back at my family home with little to nothing to show for the past twenty years of my adult life. It’s really about feeling like you’ve wasted so many years of your life and wondering where they went. Whilst friends were building lives and careers for themselves, I’d just been fucking off and fucking up, never taking anything seriously enough. For me, this is the saddest song on the record, but it still has a little glimmer of hope and I think that translates through the music.”
The heart-on-sleeve directness that British rock music so perfectly embodies and still sits proudly within the band's foundations is very much present but with lashings of modern pop sensibility and outlandish structuring added, bringing it hurtling into the here and now. Like forcing the timeless passion of Bruce Springsteen and the warts and all unravelling of Weezer through the kaleidoscopic and intimate mesh of Bon Iver. Throw in exemplary performances from Ross McDonald of The 1975 on bass and Freddie Sheed, who has performed and recorded with everyone from Lewis Capaldi to Take That, on drums - "There are so many times where I wouldn't have asked either of them to play because I thought there was no reason for them to say yes," James remarks - and you have Deaf Havana as it has always meant to be. Vibrant, textured, daring andirresistibly catchy.
"Tracing Lines" is out now and streaming everywhere. 'We're Never Getting Out' will be available October 3 via So Recordings/Civilians.
