On the way to see Déjà Vega play their first gig of the year – and their first ever in Halifax – the sad news was emerging that Damo Suzuki, singer in lauded ‘70s experimentalists Can, had passed away.
It was a major shock. Damo was a huge personality and a unique talent. He will forever be remembered as one of the most iconic figures in the history of psychedelia.
I don’t know if Damo Suzuki ever listened to Déjà Vega in his lifetime, quite possibly not, but Déjà Vega have certainly listened to Damo. And listened good. Can’s influence is plain to see, as it is throughout the last 50 years of innovative music the world over.
Plotting the Can lineage is no simple feat. They have touched the musical minds of many. Among their full-confessional devotees are such disparate souls as Brian Eno, John Lydon, Shaun Ryder, James Lavelle (UNKLE), Mark E Smith, The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Reid brothers, Talk Talk’s Mark Hollis and John Frusciante of Red Hot Chilli Peppers. But their quintessential avant-psych techniques came to bear most prominently in the eccentric and drone-based guitar bands of the ‘80s and ‘90s – the likes of Sonic Youth, Butthole Surfers, Spacemen 3 and Loop to name just a few.
A new generation has since picked up the baton. Déjà Vega, alongside bands like TVAM and The Lucid Dream, stay true to the primal, rhythmic blueprint – the ‘motorik’ 4/4 beat that underpins the Krautrock ethos – adding layers of mesmeric reverb and bombastic space-rock.
Déjà Vega’s singer-guitarist Jack Fearon, is quick to acknowledge the source: “The day we wrote The Test, we’d rented a rehearsal room on a Sunday. We were all hungover, knackered, but didn’t want the room to go to waste. We were just starting out and didn’t know what direction we wanted to go in, so we were just jamming in a haze and kept the pace of the song going for ages. Then all of sudden, it just clicked. I said: ‘This sounds like Neu! and Can. We should stick with this sound and work on it.’”
So what of the other musical shapes that have had an effect on the Déjà Vega mood board?
Jack: “Our main influences, and the music that sparked our friendship, were bands like Joy Division, The Bunnymen and The Beatles. I really like my American punk music as well. I’d say my guitar playing is inspired by bands like Hot Snakes, Drive Like Jehu and OFF!”
Deja Vega’s approach is, in its purest form, distinguishable by virtue of its raw, unfettered and ferocious noise. It cuts through, well, everything. To the floor of your being. It’s a unifying music, in an unspoken yet knowing kind of way. At tonight’s gig, in the cosy basement at The Grayston Unity, the room is very well connected. Ardent fans from Wigan and a bunch of locals, on the receiving end of their first Déjà Vega assault, bounce as one, loose-limbed, eyes-wide-shut.
The band, too, found their first Halifax experience to be nothing short of fantastic.
Jack: “It was our first time at The Grayston. We loved it. What an amazing venue with such ace staff. I loved the stage as well. When we walked in, we thought we were going to be playing on a set of Coronation Street. Ha! The whole Calder Valley scene is ace. We love The Golden Lion and everything about it. I’m a Twin Peaks fan as well so the setting of the live room there topped it for me. I’ve still yet to get to The Trades Club but I hope one day it will be a venue on a tour of ours.”
A full tour isn’t on the agenda right now but it’s perhaps not too far away. First things first though – there’s a new album in the offing.
Jack: “We’re currently writing the third album. We’ve been very busy in the practice room learning new instruments, different ways and styles of playing. We’ve been listening to lots of different music to get inspired. I don’t want to say too much, but we’re all really excited for these new songs.”
Déjà Vega generate such a walloping blitz of noise in a live setting, I can only imagine they’d strive to capture exactly that in the studio.
“There’s no better feeling than playing live and, since we’re a three-piece, we try to build our live sound to the best of our abilities. When we record, we always do it as a live band to try to capture that same feeling, with overdubs added later on. The overdubs, for me, are the fun part, where you can get really noisy and weird and capture the sonics of it all.”
Now there’s an idea. Getting ‘really noisy and weird’ is certainly one way to produce the goods. It’s a method that would, no doubt, have appealed immensely to the late, great Damo Suzuki. Had he caught a Déjà Vega gig before he died, I’m sure Damo would have been pleased to see his influence on full display.
In his own words: The philosophy of Damo Suzuki
“If you don’t have any information you can make many things.”
“My home is everywhere. I am a nomad of the 21st century.”
“My mother is the most respected person in my life, because I learned from her so many things.”
“I can’t sing so I use the voice as an instrument. I’m not much interested in anything in particular, that’s why I sing about nothing. I improvise melody and texture too. Sometimes it sounds like English, French or German, but really it is the language of the Stone Age.”
“For me, music is not that important. Music is simply a thing which I can immerse my imagination in, my fantasy, my art.”
“I’m not interested in hanging on to the past. I like to spend time in the now because there I can create something new, but in the past I cannot.”
“There is only one way. Always forward.”
“Improvisation always works! If it goes ‘wrong’, then it’s OK, because it’s improvisation. Nobody’s punishing you, because from the mistakes we get new impacts, new ideas and new creativity to go another way. This is a beautiful thing in a human society, supporting other people if they make mistakes. Accept that they made a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes.”
“If you think about the end, then it’s better not to start.”
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Listen to Déjà Vega on bandcamp and follow the band on Instagram.
Words: Stephen Desmond
