Who are they?
Dead and Divine, a Burlington-based quartet who spew convulsive post-hardcore spiked with enough venom, melody and rhythmic pliability to intoxicate the masses. Their potent sophomore full-length, The Machines We Are, comes out on Aug. 4 on Distort, and was produced by the legendary GGGarth Richardson (Rage Against The Machine, Rise Against) and Eric Ratz (Billy Talent, Cancer Bats), the latter of whom also mixed and engineered the record.
So they’re a screamo band, right?
Oh no, you didn’t. The boys grumble they are incorrectly labelled as screamo all the time, even though singer and frontman Matt Tobin’s half-guttural, half-clean vocals lack the nasal whininess associated with the genre.
“It’s just annoying,” he says. “I think even the whole term emo is annoying. If what it means is ‘emotional,’ then every band or artist in the entire world can be called emo — you write songs about things that happen in your life that are good and that suck.”
Though their sound draws comparisons to metalcore vets Poison the Well, guitarist Chris LeMasters believes their music is just as indebted to several alt-rock acts who dominated radio in the ’90s.
“A lot of the chord progressions in certain songs are totally Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, Deftones kinda shit.”
Just how divine are they?
You’d be surprised. While recording The Machines We Are, their studio was perennially littered with nudie cards and midget porn, but they blame it all on GGGarth. “Every day he would jokingly rag on us for being a rock band but never bringing in any girls,” says LeMasters. “So one day he brought in a full deck of porno cards and said, ‘The fat, stuttering record producer has to bring in some pussy for all of you.’ He’d also make us watch all this midget porn.
“The coolest thing about GGGarth was he wanted to make everyone super-comfortable and wanted to be your bro. He wasn’t as scary as I thought he’d be. He was more of a wiener, and I mean that in a nice, endearing way.”
Perhaps these misguided souls need a Benny Hinn faith healing?
That won’t work too well. Dead and Divine have serious beef with religious zealots. “Neon Jesus” was inspired by the hypocrisy the band observed while touring the Bible belt in the US last year. “We played this one venue…. There were signs everywhere warning people not to swear because it was a Christian community centre for kids,” says Tobin. “We ended up staying at the venue’s green room…. Everyone there was smoking and getting completely hammered. The pastor who owned the venue was just hanging out, getting drunk and swearing while a 14-year-old girl was getting finger-banged beside him. I was, like, ‘This is such a joke. It’s all a front [for] money.’”
What else grinds their gears?
“The Machines We Are is about how I find a lot of people are cold nowadays,” explains Tobin.
“Everyone has that American Psycho–era, ’80s mentality.
Lemasters elaborates: “All you, all for yourself, fuck having real friends, fuck doing anything for anybody unless it benefits you. I honestly feel like it’s a new trend. It’s cool to be an asshole.”
Originally appeared in Eye Weekly
No comments:
Post a Comment