Deaf Club, the new band featuring vocalist Justin Pearson (The Locust, Dead Cross, Three One G Records), along with Brian Amalfitano (guitar, ACxDC), Scott Osment (drums, Weak Flesh), Jason Klein (bass, Run With The Hunted), and Tommy Meehan (guitar, The Manx, Chum Out!), have released their debut full-length, Productive Disruption, to a world mired in strife.
The new full-length is a complete blast to the status quo, using hardcore, powerviolence, straight up noise, along with witty, incivisive lyrics to take straight aim at the issues of the day.
“It’s strange to consider the lyrical content for a larger piece of work. I think song by song, I tend to have an agenda, a vibe, or a specific message,” Pearson says. “But over the course of say, months, as an album is being written, my mood changes, and the messages I want to convey aren’t as cohesive as things would be on an album that is specifically written thematically. At times, I tend to find most of the lyrics I write to be seemingly negative in tone, and I trip out on that aspect. As much as I think the opposite of love is not hate, that it’s apathy, I try to say something in a positive manner whenever I can or see fit.”
While being positive, Pearson also frames his lyrics as continuing a tradition of protest music passed down through the decades.
“Either way, it almost always comes down to some form of protest. I mean, most of what we do is typically viewed as protest music, and when you love something, you fight for it. Let’s consider the world of lyrics in music, and I try to avoid all kinds of shit. I unfortunately can’t write love songs. It’s not that I don’t want to, or that I am not in love, but I think with the sheer absurdity, and tension brought by the music of Deaf Club, the voice should mirror that,” Pearson says. “It must be nice for those people who write lyrics about peaceful things. Or arbitrary non-descript stuff, like musical fluff. Even if we were an instrumental band, and I wasn’t the vocalist, I’d listen to the sounds and hear a message. Perhaps it wouldn’t be as clear with words, but to me, it reflects the world that the players live in. Let’s face it, we aren’t aiming to get our music in a car commercial. We can leave the capitalist endeavors to real musicians and the artists can fuck with the rest of the world and it’s many issues.”
In addition, the Productive Disruption, was recorded on the same day that the right wing insurrection at the U.S. Capitol took place last year. While some bands might see this as merely a coincidence, Pearson doesn’t think so.
“I think the world we live in is reflected in the art we create. If Right-Wing-Neo-Fascist-Christians who are partially stupid, partially misled, and who all may completely lack empathy took it upon themselves to engage and create a situation like the insurrection, well that is on them. They certainly helped write our album,” Pearson says. “I’m not sure it’s that easy to say that we had anger and that it affected aspects of our album per say, but more so a multifaceted array of emotion such as depression, sorrow, anxiety, and yeah, anger, which were all present. I suppose I was just left trying to figure out if police lives matter to them or not.”
In addition, the lyrics reflect the society that is currently right outside our doors. Pearson doesn’t believe that he should be turning a blind eye to what is going on in the world.
“If the problems exist, we should be addressing those issues. Sure, we are just a band, but we are communicating with the listeners through the tool that we have created. Even if they hate it, we at least know they heard what we have to say,” he says. “And that might not even be just about the lyrical content. I hope someone like Jake Angeli would hate our band right out of the gates, before he could even grasp what I’m singing about. I mean, the dude compared himself to Jesus Christ and then cried to his mother about not having organic meals in prison, a grown man did that. Yes, it’s important to address the topics we bring up in our music, very important.”
It’s also important to keep a sense of humor, while dealing with these heavy subjects. In fact, Pearson thinks this is a key ingredient to the music he creates, whether with Deaf Club or with one of his other bands.
“One thing I learned at an early age is humor wins. My first band, Struggle, was overly political. There was no room for jokes, which was fine, we were fifteen and sixteen and very pissed off. But I think if you are performing to the opposition, the only way you can grab their attention is by being clever and to use wit whenever possible,” Pearson says. “And if you are performing to your community you’d hope and assume they are already on the same page. Either way, humor is a decent tool to have in your back pocket, and that tool can reach a bit further out than without it. Wait till you see our EP that comes out after this LP, it’s basically a comedy album, from the cover art to the song titles to the music.”
Hopefully soon, he’ll be taking that wit, along with the raging noise Deaf Club creates on tour. That all depends on how things go in this country in the next few months.
“We’d like to tour, even with all things considered. But it doesn’t seem to be financially viable for a new band to try to get out there as much as we’d all like to. The pandemic certainly jacked up a lot of our lives in many ways. So, a full tour of this planet may take a little longer than we’d like, but we plan to do it as soon as we can,” Pearson says.
If that doesn’t work out, they have a back-up plan.
“There is an EP in production which has three new songs and a Pixies cover. We’ve also written new material past that as well as toyed around with the idea of covering a very influential band’s album. So, there is a lot in the pipeline for Deaf Club. We paid our membership dues and are not going away,” Pearson says.
Watch the video for “Planet Bombing” here:
For more from Deaf Club, find them on Facebook and Instagram.
Photo courtesy of Deaf Club and Beck DiGiglio
