James Veck-Gilodi is contemplating the differences between All These Countless Nights, the imminent new album from Deaf Havana, and the previous records by this most-treasured of UK rock bands.
There’s much to consider. There’s the expansion of the band’s sound, of course, which sees them create the most eclectic, envelope-pushing album of their 11-year career. And there’s the renewed confidence in his own creative ability that saw Veck-Gilodi reject his former, rigorously self-imposed songwriting rules in favour of a freewheeling, anything-goes approach.
But the most crucial difference concerns James himself. Because, if previous Deaf Havana albums have been preoccupied with the person he used to be, All These Countless Nights is all about who he actually is. And the end result is Deaf Havana’s most brutally honest and bruisingly emotional album yet.
“It all came from me needing to discover myself, find my feet and realise who I am,” he says. “I’m trying to be a real person. I didn’t really feel like one before.”
So, while 2011’s Fools And Worthless Liars found Veck-Gilodi struggling with his frontman role and “feeling weird” and 2013’s Old Souls saw him “spent 99% of my time under the influence of something, usually booze”, the recording process for All These Countless Nights was “the least hazy, most positive recording experience we’ve ever had”.
As well as Veck-Gilodi’s new-found self-assurance, the entire band -- multi-instrumentalist Max Britton, bassist Lee Wilson, drummer Tom Ogden and Veck-Gilodi’s guitarist brother, Matthew – embrace the breath-taking possibilities opening up before them, with every song expanded and enhanced from the original demos to the finished versions.
The brilliant album that emerged from these energised, focused sessions, seems all the remarkable for the fact that, at one point not so long ago, it looked like the band that made it might cease to exist.
Old Souls had successfully catapulted Deaf Havana into the UK rock big league, crashing into the Top 10 of the Albums Chart and seeing the band sell out ever-bigger venues but, behind the scenes, financial problems and a lack of internal communication almost broke them.
“I was very close to quitting,” says Veck-Gilodi, who even launched an acoustic solo career in conjunction with Britton as a back-up plan. “Basically, I didn’t want to be in the band anymore.”
Veck-Gilodi originally planned to use the band’s 2014 Reading & Leeds performance to pay off the band’s debts and act as its swansong. But some sideshows reminded him of how much he – and Deaf Havana’s still-burgeoning fanbase – enjoyed his band. A sudden burst of inspired songwriting followed and helped the band boldly strike out for new sonic territory.
So the album opener, Ashes, Ashes, is according to Veck-Gilodi, “the first song on the record but it’s also the last song, it’s laying to rest the old me”. Lead single Sing takes all of Deaf Havana’s traditional qualities – soaring melodies, witty lyrics, an uncanny ability to make an emotional connection with rock’s heartland audience – and bolts on an absolute monster of a riff to create the heaviest Deaf Havana song ever.
Beautiful acoustic ballad Happiness, meanwhile, is “the saddest and most honest” song Veck-Gilodi’s ever written, a stark examination of how his anxiety can affect his relationships (“It’s difficult to live with me,” he smiles). Seething alt-rocker Trigger examines a volatile previous relationship with forensic candour; the contemplative Seattle is a love song to faraway England, written in the depths of a depressing, winter tour of the US when Veck-Gilodi “went mad about five times”; and the brooding L.O.V.E infuses one lust-fuelled on-the-road encounter with guilt rather than bravado, and an ironic nod to Motley Crue’s The Dirt (“That’s when I realised I’m definitely not meant to be in a rock’n’roll band,” he smiles, “I can’t handle it”).
It’s an album, in short, that holds nothing back, emotionally or musically. A record that, Veck-Gilodi says, chronicles him moving “from a not particularly fun place to somewhere much better”. He’s now on top of his anxiety and his drinking and is confident All These Countless Nights will also take his band to a better place.
“This album needs to take us to a higher level,” asserts Veck-Gilodi. “Not necessarily in terms of chart positions, because I don’t care about that. I just can’t wait for people to hear the album. We appreciate the fact that everyone’s waited this out with us. It’s going to be great.”
Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. The real James Veck-Gilodi and the real Deaf Havana just stood up to be counted.
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