A tangle of airy piano ambience drips across open space, sounding like the last sputtering glimpse of a romance about to implode. This moment, the opening notes from Death From Above 1979’s You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine is quickly shattered by Jesse Keeler’s screeching distorted bass and Sebastien Grainger’s unstoppable driving beats. The rest of the album’s opener, “Turn It Out” blazes by in a furious incitement of lovelorn losers and the baggage they carry.
You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine is bathed in squelching noise, danceable dead disco drumming and an odd moog blast here and there. Lyrically it is a dense examination of the relationships that revolve around a certain moment.
“Our songs have always been about relationships,” says bassist/keyboardist Keeler. “They are kinda what being a human is all about.”
On “Romantic Rights” Grainger warps his voice around Keeler’s pulsing electroclash bassline, crooning about “what girls want” (“Come here, baby/ I love your company/ We could do it, start a family/ She was living alone unhappily/ We could do it, it’s right romantically”). But Grainger’s plea for a simple family life are quickly stripped down to confused betrayals as he belts out, “I don’t need you/ I want you.”
“Sebastien sings about what he knows,” Keeler says. “I wouldn’t be comfortable with it any other way and neither would he. That’s what was going on in his life at the time. So many weird relationships were happening all around us and it came out in the music. The record seriously should have a “best before” date. The stuff that we put on there was relevant at the time. I don’t know how much of it is still relevant in our lives today.”
Death From Above 1979’s songs not only celebrate pop music’s favorite theme, but hidden just beneath a wash of distortion and dissonance is a keenly devoted pop duo.
“Our band is basically a pop band and it doesn’t come across like that, but we are a pop band in wolf’s clothing. The effort was both to allow our band to be as loud and ridiculous as we are, but also not record a record where people won’t hear the popness,” Keeler says.
And while “pop” might be a dirty word throughout America’s independent and underground music scenes, Keeler doesn’t see popular music as an enemy and condemns the elitist hip kids that oftentimes covet new music simply for the sake of it not being popular.
“If someone has a problem with that whole concept of pop music or making a record that a lot of people will like, then I don’t care for them to be a fan of our band. There are some kids that are like, ‘You guys are getting too popular now and I don’t want you to be like that. I want to keep you like a little secret for myself.’ I’m like that’s f–king cool for you. Please don’t be a fan of our band. I’ve got to eat and that kind of attitude doesn’t help. If you want to be part of a secret club become a mason.”
Fortunately, Death From Above 1979’s lionization of noise rock, big slabs of bass riffing and reflective lyrical themes (monogamous relationships, refraining from drugs and loving your mother [Freud would have a field day analyzing “Going Steady”] aren’t the usual raunchy rock fare) are finally catching the ears of America after making a huge impact in England, Japan, Australia and the band’s home country, Canada.
“All those places I feel like we’ve got them more or less locked up. And things are just building. We’ve got a solid enough base that we could probably continue at this level we’re at right now, just do that for a long time. But we haven’t really broken so much in America yet. So it’s not like I go into a room with any sort of confidence or expectation,” says Keeler.
The group’s eclectic mix of Steely Dan, Black Sabbath, !!! and early Foo Fighters comes off perfectly for American kids looking for a bombastic leg sweep to radio rock. And Death From Above 1979 is ready to swarm the States. Keeler’s ambitions are just short of complete domination as he blurts out the band’s finely tuned plan for a successful career: “It’s still building to the point where we’re starting to fill room. And I can’t wait for Spring of next year. That’s our goal. I think it’ll be pretty out of hand by then. Especially by the fall of next year, if things continue at this rate, it’ll really be what we’re hoping for.”
“I want our shows to be like our shows in Canada,” he continues. “Basically full, kids are coming to have a good time and it makes it enjoyable for us. I love to play for a room full of people that want to have fun and want to enjoy themselves and know what they’re coming to hear. And I’d like to be able to have that everywhere. When you’re playing shows like that, all the hardships of the road don’t seem as difficult. Eating horrible food and not ever getting to really sleep. And spending all day in a fucking van. All of the things that go with basically being a nomad sort of melt away when you get to play those great shows. And we’re at the point where when we play Canada, it’s like that every time. The same thing with England or the U.K. We can play in Scotland and it’s like we’re playing down the street from my house. I look forward to that being the case in America.”
From the discotheque-ready “Sexy Results” to the sex romp metal massacre of “Pull Out,” Death From Above 1979’s varied styles are continually entrancing. And the band attributes its diversity to its hometown music scene in Toronto, for which Keeler has a hard time hiding his adoration.
“It’s just like a New York or a Chicago or a Los Angeles where there’s so many different things happening. I don’t think American’s generally have a sense of how important the music in our city is.” He gets kicks out of bringing American bands up North for shows, because “the kids are just interested in music in general. They’re not interested in what type of music.”
“There’s places like Providence, Rhode Island where there’s such an amazing music scene, but there’s a feel to the music that comes out of there. Then you come to Toronto and there’s no kind of style that’s coming out of the city. Its sort of overall everyone is just trying something different. No one’s really churning out the same shit. That kind of stuff doesn’t fly in the city. People want to see people taking chances and trying new things. There’s no way of doing things in Toronto. There’s no style to things coming out of Toronto.”
Throughout the intricate musical interplay and electric screams about evaporating romantic promises, You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine retains a familiar, heartfelt tone. It has an emotional quality so far removed from the contrived, teary-eyed insincerities of emo and proto-punk on MTV and the malevolent thick-headedness of modern rock radio giants, that DFA1979 sound entirely fresh. Metalheads and indie kids alike will find the disc building connections rapidly. And the band has a rabid fanbase to prove it.
“People do seem to connect with our band in a weird way, that is wonderful, but I would have never thought that it could have worked out so well,” says Keeler. “When you have an idea, you feel a certain way about things and maybe don’t feel like anyone else agrees with you, but it’s funny how you make a record singing about that stuff and those people find you. You end up connecting.”
