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Deafening Silence.
 Although they've just released their debut album, 'Destruction Is Creation', Deafening Silence are a relatively new band on the Adelaide metal scene, at least in their current incarnation. "My brother Steve started the band, I came in after, and then Josh, one of the guitarists, came in," bassist Stew informs me. "Officially, I guess we started in 2004."
"2004's when our other guitarist, Mickey, joined," drummer Amanda elaborates. "We'd done a demo by then, so we already had quite a few songs, and when Mickey joined, he added his thing. From then, we started writing more material, improving and rearranging, so, yes, 2004 was when it all started to really happen."
Before joining Deafening Silence, a couple of the members were involved in other bands. Josh, the only member not present, was in an outfit called Strength And Adversity, for example, while Mickey was in various cover bands, as well as a number of high school ones. He doesn't really know if he's brought anything from those earlier bands to his current one, however. "My playing style is quite open, though," he tells me. "I don't just listen to heavy metal; I listen to a lot of jazz and blues, as well as a little bit of classical now and then, so I suppose that's the sort of stuff I bring to the group."
The other members also claim to have brought a diverse range of influences to the band: influences that range from classic metal bands such as Metallica and Pantera through to Euro-metal groups like In Flames, newer metal groups like Slipknot and Killswitch Engage, and rock bands like Soundgarden and Nirvana. "We've all got ideas that we put down, we all bring in our little bit," concludes Steve.
As the singer, Steve pens most of the lyrics, but says that he is always receptive to ideas and criticism from the other band members. "I try and write lyrics which have some sort of meaning," he says. "I don't write stuff along the lines of 'Kill, kill, kill', or 'I'm going to go and get some big booty tonight, baby!' though maybe I should! I try and put meaning into the lyrics because I feel that that makes them more powerful."
As for the meaning behind the album's title, Steve says, "The way I see it, when something's destroyed, something new is created. It happens with everything from relationships to whole civilizations; when you destroy one, you create another."
This concept ties in with the album's cover art, which the group produced themselves. "Steve, Stew and I were thinking of a yin and yang type of thing," Mickey tells me, "so I thought, 'How about we have a picture of a city where half of it's been destroyed and the other half's brand new? A phoenix-from-the-ashes type of thing.' I ended up driving around the city with my little brother; he had a digital camera, and was taking pictures of everything. The front cover's actually a picture of Grenfell Street; we took it, and got Josh to download it onto his computer, and use all these effects to alter it. It ended up having a black-and-white side, the destroyed side, and a coloured side that we made look really ultramodern. There's a lot of different ways you can look at it, but that's the general idea: break something down and you make something better."
While fairly deathly overall, some of the band's material is quite emotional as well: a couple of good examples being Into Hell, a song about war (ah, where would metal be without that particular topic?), and a piece called Tomorrow's Calling. "The second one was about imagining yourself in someone else's life," says Steve. "For example, the life of someone with cancer, or someone living in a place like Iraq where bombs are always going off. It's about all those moments when you look at someone else and think, 'Shit, if that was me right now...'"
During their existence, the band have played a lot of shows, and they make it clear that their live performances are something they put a lot of effort into. "We've got two set lists now which is good because it means that if you come to our shows, you're not going to hear the same songs over and over again," says Mickey. "Also, because we're writing new material all the time, there's going to be new songs coming out every couple of shows. We'll also chuck in a cover here and there, like we've done in the past. I think we really like to have variation, to keep it interesting: not just for ourselves, but for everyone else out there as well."
"We also want to make an impression and stand out a bit," adds Amanda. "I know I do!"
"And just have fun as well," concludes Steve. "We love playing together, and we've been lucky to have people come along and enjoy our stuff. There're all sorts of people coming along, liking our stuff, and wanting to help us out because of that. We've been lucky that way; everyone's got someone that can help out."
James Brazel
 | Deafening Silence launch 'Destruction Is Creation' at Earth on Fri 4 Nov with 21 Division, Officer Down, Diatribe and Tidal. |
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