Interview With Jem Of "Dead" From Victoria, Australia

A 38 minute offering of powerful instrumental work broken into two massive movements.

A genre defying release spanning elements of everything from progressive and stoner rock, to doom and heavy psych.

An album created to process the band’s grief and to deal with the uncertainty and anguish of the years of pandemic lockdowns.

Message From Dead

This album is the first time we removed our tongues from our collective cheek for a moment. We used it to process our grief and to deal with the uncertainty and anguish of lockdowns. While writing it we lost friends and family to the virus, suicide and more. For the most part funerals or gatherings of any kind were not possible. I clung onto this music like a kid does to their teddy.

As a band who toured nonstop for 10 years it hit hard suddenly not being able to do what we love most. We were determined to make something positive from it.

The opening track is the oldest song we have – written some years before we formed DEAD. We decided to build an album around this song that would be one long form piece made up of smaller “scenes”. We pretended we had an orchestra.

We wrote the bulk of it in Alex’s barn/recording studio in Campbells Creek – masked up, at opposite ends of the room. We’ve never gone so long without hugging each other.

Our friend Mike Deslandes recorded it in that same barn – it felt significant to be able to do that. We did one take of each scene, in order and the warts are very much left in there for your benefit. The sounds you hear are the sounds of the instruments in that space.

I mixed the record with Mike at his house. I’m grateful we had him working with us. Every part of the process had a different kind of weight to it than before. I wanted it to be over and to never end at the same time. At some point I told Jace that I might have to never play these songs again.

So, like a million other bands this is our pandemic album.

Jem – Drummer

About the Album

Australia’s DEAD return with another album that refuses to be constrained by genre boundaries. This may be their most ambitious release to date.

An inability to play live and personal hardships served as the inspiration for the release. Breaking away from their previous work the duo created two massive pieces of music that consist of a number of smaller movements. The album is intended to be listened to in full.

The release spans multiple different genres and styles, drawing inspiration from each but not quite fitting into any. These elements are expertly woven into one another to create an ever flowing and changing stream of music. The band have constructed this in such a way that it never feels disjointed or forced in its blending either.

Given that this is the band’s first fully instrumental release it might be somewhat of a shock to long time fans. Only time will tell how it will be received, but for those who appreciate quality instrumental music this may be the band’s most impressive album to date.

Listen to The Laughing Shadow and immerse yourself in almost 40 minutes of outstanding musicianship and composition.

It was a great pleasure to have Jem on the Interview to talk on the new album and much more, Check out the amazing Jem on the below YouTube Coverage.