Deepshade are turning heads with their new album Soul Divider, a blend of grungy, alternative psych rock with influences ranging from Nirvana and Soundgarden to Porcupine Tree. The band’s latest single, City Burns, is a “retaliation against the rise of terrorism, fascists, inequalities, climate change and the ongoing struggles the world faces,” bassist Tommy Doherty explained when we caught up recently. Read on to find out more about the single and the band’s accompanying lockdown video.
Can you give us your quick elevator pitch on this track? Why does this one standout for you as a band?
City Burns is an explosive groove/riff orientated track that has eastern harmony combined with western harmony. It has the ferocity of a heavyweight punch that leaves you hanging on the ropes.
It stands out to us as a band because at the time of writing there was lots of chaos around in the media and in the world, which brought about the hook of the lyrics “Let the city burn”. The content shows an anger and retaliation against the rise of terrorism, fascists, politics, inequalities, climate change and the ongoing struggles the world faces.
How did you tackle the writing process for the song? Was there anything unique about this track compared to your usual/previous approach?
Initially our bass player, Tommy D, brought the eastern riff to a jam session. We played around it a few times and then the verse materialised as easy as conversation can flow. Dave took the song away and penned the lyrics and came up with relentless riff and Hammond organ parts for the outro. It is a groove orientated song and the drum grooves also play a massive part in how the feeling and vibe is carried throughout the song.
The unique thing about this song is that it only came together fully when we went into the studio. We found that having the added pressure of knowing we had to get this track down really made us all capture the mood and vibe of everything we wanted the song to express.
Can you tell us how the song’s theme came about?
From one little eastern riff that sparked it to become what it became. Along with all the horrible stuff that was going on in the world. As a band we are constantly searching for that eternal riff and City Burns definitely delivers.
Tell us about the video, do the themes of the single transfer to the video?
We made the video whilst in lockdown, so it was not really our conventional way of making a video. We came up with the concept from the lyrical content and searched to find footage and imagery that conjured up these points and feelings we wanted to display. This is interspersed with footage that all three in the band had to make at home on phone cameras, plus slithers of live footage from gigs. On the whole the themes of City Burns do come across in the video. There is a Northern saying that goes “just have to make do” and this is literally what we did as we could not meet in person with anyone. The video came out pretty good considering the time frame and constraints.
Thanks goes out to Beckie from Nine7even artist management company for compiling all the imagery and band footage to make the video.
Do you have any behind the scenes stories from the video shoot?
Unfortunately, not as there was no behind the scenes for us on this one.
Anything else you’d like to add for our readers?
If you like what you have seen and heard so far we have a full album called Soul Divier out now and available HERE at a very reasonable price of £6.
To find more out about Deepshade please visit our website HERE where you can find all links to streaming platforms and social media pages. Once we are out of this lockdown and we can get gigging we would love to see you at a live show of ours, so keep your eyes on us for further updates. Until then get in deep and wig out to the riffage!!!!!
