Deadletter are the latest up-and-comers on the British post-punk scene. Hailing from Yorkshire and London, the band are seemingly shooting up in popularity, and with their combination of John Cooper Clarke-esque lyrics and Yard Act sound, it’s not hard to see why.
Last Tuesday, just before their gig at Sidney&Matilda, we were able to sit down with Deadletter and talk to them about their tour, what it’s been like for them as a band and some hints at their new album.
Hi guys! Thanks for agreeing to speak with us today. So obviously this is your first headline tour- how are you finding it?
Yeah it’s been good! Really fun! We played Blackpool on Sunday evening and that was good, it was a really good turn out! It was probably the most daunting looking gig we had, just in terms of the venue- there’s not many venues in Blackpool, so it meant we went straight into playing what was quite a big venue. By no means was it full but it wasn’t horribly empty, so for a Sunday evening in Blackpool it was quite decent.
Is there anywhere on this tour you’ve been particularly excited to play?
Glasgow definitely.
Anytime we ask this question the answer always seems to be Glasgow! How come, what is it about it that you guys love?
There’s just a great energy there, people are willing to go properly nuts and get stuck in. I don’t know why I just think Scottish people are less self-conscious about looking at what the person next to them is doing. I think they’re just in their own space when they’re at a gig and they just think “I’m gonna go for it”.
Do you guys feed off that energy then? Are you very much the sort of band who wants the crowd going at it?
Definitely. I think it’s like a 50/50 split- the energy on stage depends on the energy in the crowd, as much as the energy in the crowd depends upon the energy on stage. You need that sort of balance, to feed off each other.
That makes sense- the first time I saw you guys was at the Get Together festival at the Student Union here in Sheffield, and you guys drew a really large and active crowd, even though it was the first set of the festival, in the morning, in a side room. It was really impressive.
Yeah it was a good gig that. We had a really quick turn around though, like the quickest we’ve had at a gig.
One of the biggest things that first stuck out, to me, about your music is the clear influence from John Cooper Clarke which, apart from Arctic Monkeys, you don’t really see much- would you say he has been a big influence on you?
Yeah definitely, for me personally [Lead Singer Zac Lawrence], after getting really into him when I was like 15/16, I became obsessed with the idea of creating something which was both funny and quite brutal, not only in it’s delivery but in it’s tone and content, and I actually, when I was 16, spent a few days in my bedroom learning “Twat” off-by-heart, just because I thought it would be a good thing to know.
Have you got much planned after this tour?
Yeah we have a new EP coming out! It’s coming out in November and, I mean, I don’t think there’s any harm in saying we want to do an album after that so we’re just getting the tracks together for that, we’ve been playing a lot of new tunes on this tour just to see how they’re gonna be received by an audience who hasn’t encountered them. Yeah, I mean, we’re going to Europe as well in October but yeah just going to start getting the demos down for this new album.
Thanks for talking with us guys, and good luck on the rest of the tour!
Deadletter’s newest single ‘Weights’ is out today, and is available on all major streaming services, including Spotify.
Deadletter will be releasing their first EP, ‘Heat!’, on 18th November.