News Deaf Club: ‘You Become Very Vulnerable Listening To Your Own Music’

“I used to hate listening to any music that I made,” admits Polly Mackey, in conversation with DIY on one of the most beautiful mornings of the year so far. “You suddenly become very vulnerable.” This vulnerability has gradually eroded, ever since Deaf Club put their EP up for free online in June last year. ‘Hana’, the opening track, is the standout and as a result it’s gaining affection from radio DJs and music bloggers alike. “I’d never written a song before that I’d been 100% happy with, one that I enjoy listening to myself; that was the first song that I’d gotten an immense sense of pride out of.”

Polly and the other members of Deaf Club had meddled in previous projects for many years. As close friends, there was always an awareness that the band could form on a whim, with the potential of being a success: “We always kind of knew that we could all, at some stage, play together in the exact way we’d want to.” When the moment came, “it all happened really naturally,” says Mackey. After a gradual process of going into the studio together once every two weeks, they emerged with one final product. Because it was made on a budget of zero pence, the band saw no need to charge and therefore put it on Bandcamp for free. The events that followed were anything but anticipated.

“It was kind of bad timing because I’d just moved to London and all the others were just about to move and scatter across the country with university,” Mackey tells us. “So we didn’t push it and do loads of gigs, we just put it up for free. It was crazy - it was getting around 50 downloads a day. We didn’t understand how or why.” Perhaps the group are closer to finding out, considering a recent cassette release on the Transgressive label’s imprint Kissability sold out in no time at all.

It must be rewarding to see the initial demand received from the EP sustaining itself. “Exactly, when you come to release something, it’s like when you do a show; you’re always scared that people won’t turn up. For it to then sell out, it completely blows you away, especially because people are used to us giving stuff away for free!” The band have little reason to be nervous when backing up their wonderful EP with such a stunning debut single, but it’s easy to empathise with such tensions.

It’s just as easy to gather where the appeal stems from. Deaf Club harbour an intense, pitch-black darkness within their songs. Guitars are drenched in layer upon layer of sinking reverb effects (Mackey is keen to heap praise on the band’s guitarist, Jac: “I play guitar but I still watch him in wonder. I find the way he plays fascinating”), while Polly’s voice stays relatively bare, like a determined, solitary figure who refuses to get swept away in the heady instrumentation. The darkness is “something that we can’t really avoid,” says Polly. “Since I was fifteen, I’ve written songs of a dark style. It’s not emo or depressive, it just resonates with a minor chord.”

Polly has stated her adoration for PJ Harvey in several interviews, citing debut ‘Dry’ as her favourite album (“There’s just something about it, it’s so raw”). We go on to discuss ‘White Chalk’ and ‘Let England Shake’, the latter of which is an album that Mackey went to see performed in its entirety, in typically dark circumstances, at the Royal Albert Hall last Halloween. “It was one of the most mindblowing gigs ever. It really helped me make sense of the album.”

Perhaps if she’s spent every year of songwriting comparing her works to the likes of PJ Harvey, it’s understandable when Polly states a vulnerability when listening to her own music. But ‘Hana’, its respective EP and the following ‘Sunday’ / ‘Mirror’ single, all seem like formidable first steps for an emerging act to make. Maybe in a few year’s time Mackey’s record collection will solely consist of her own band’s recordings, as fresh young talents state how intimidated they are by Deaf Club’s achievements. The band’s current trajectory hints at such a possibility.

Deaf Club’s new single ‘Sunday’ / ‘Mirrors’ is out now via White On White.

Taken from the May 2012 issue of DIY, available now. For more details click here.