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', 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.
New single and the first taste of the album, ‘Lawn Tennis’, is a song about not wanting “the normal life” just yet, with a trademark Veck-Gilodi tongue-in-cheek reference to “losing friends to a perfect lawn, like there’s nothing more to life”, for good measure.
Until the Summer of 2023, James felt like he was sleepwalking into another edition of this cycle. But over the next twelve months, he would make two decisions that would ignite something different inside of him and would lead him towards ‘We’re Never Getting Out’.
In choosing to no longer just coast, to remember that making music should be a pleasure and not a hindrance and to realise that you only mask desolation for so long, he grasped onto the notion that he was the one in control of his life, his trajectory and his future. Nobody else.
Alone, such an undertaking would crush the spirit of many of us, but thankfully, he had George Glew to help. A producer who has worked on pop opuses with the likes of Keir, Hanniou and Scout, he was also staying in James' spare room whilst in-between houses when all this change started to manifest. What went from broken-bodied diary entries turned into hours of playful musical experimentation between the two. Having never co-written with anyone before, no longer solely bearing the weight of the creative load opened up a whole new world for James and the potential for what Deaf Havana could be. Rather than retracing the same lines that offered some sort of familiar security, he was able to push towards a sound that he realised he had been trying to harness for a decade and a half. It was a shining light in a truly dark moment.
“It’s excitement I feel now and not dread,” James smiles broadly. “I used to dread going on stage and on tour. I used to dread releasing albums and talking about them because I didn’t know what I was doing. Now, I’ve never been clearer about what this all is. I know I can back myself enough to know I will put everything I have into this. And I am so proud of these songs because we worked so hard on them. This is the best Deaf Havana album and the best thing I have ever been a part of writing.”
“I feel like this is a true fresh start.”
Eileen Carpio
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', 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.
New single and the first taste of the album, ‘Lawn Tennis’, is a song about not wanting “the normal life” just yet, with a trademark Veck-Gilodi tongue-in-cheek reference to “losing friends to a perfect lawn, like there’s nothing more to life”, for good measure.
Until the Summer of 2023, James felt like he was sleepwalking into another edition of this cycle. But over the next twelve months, he would make two decisions that would ignite something different inside of him and would lead him towards ‘We’re Never Getting Out’.
In choosing to no longer just coast, to remember that making music should be a pleasure and not a hindrance and to realise that you only mask desolation for so long, he grasped onto the notion that he was the one in control of his life, his trajectory and his future. Nobody else.
Alone, such an undertaking would crush the spirit of many of us, but thankfully, he had George Glew to help. A producer who has worked on pop opuses with the likes of Keir, Hanniou and Scout, he was also staying in James' spare room whilst in-between houses when all this change started to manifest. What went from broken-bodied diary entries turned into hours of playful musical experimentation between the two. Having never co-written with anyone before, no longer solely bearing the weight of the creative load opened up a whole new world for James and the potential for what Deaf Havana could be. Rather than retracing the same lines that offered some sort of familiar security, he was able to push towards a sound that he realised he had been trying to harness for a decade and a half. It was a shining light in a truly dark moment.
“It’s excitement I feel now and not dread,” James smiles broadly. “I used to dread going on stage and on tour. I used to dread releasing albums and talking about them because I didn’t know what I was doing. Now, I’ve never been clearer about what this all is. I know I can back myself enough to know I will put everything I have into this. And I am so proud of these songs because we worked so hard on them. This is the best Deaf Havana album and the best thing I have ever been a part of writing.”
“I feel like this is a true fresh start.”
Eileen Carpio
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