No sooner had Deez Nuts departed on homeward bound flights after their impressive tour with Comeback kid had they decided to get right back to it again. Almost immediately they were headed back to support Suicide Silence on their current UK tour, and who are we to complain.
2017 is shaping up to be a pretty big year for the Australian/American hardcore band. Not only have they destroyed venue after venue on the two tours mentioned above, this year sees the release of new album, ‘Binge & Purgatory’.
We managed to grab a moment with bassist Sean Kennedy for a chat as he took a well-earned break back home in Melbourne to talk all things Deez Nuts, and what fans can expect from the new record.
“It’s nice to be back in the sun. The last leg of our tour was across Russia which was extremely cold to say the least,” says Kennedy, basking in warmer climates. The shows, however, were anything but cold, and left an impression on the band. Kennedy says, “That tour with Comeback Kid was absolutely incredible. For me, one of the best I’ve ever been on.”
We then get to talking about the upcoming album release. “For me it’s 110% a step up from the last album, man,” explains Kennedy. “We all sat down together once we’d heard the final mixes and discussed the whole process. We’d been through a lot, toured a lot and it’s been pretty extensive. So to get back in a room together, all in a great mind set certainly helped and we’re all very proud of this album.”
With the half the band in Australia and half in the states, you might think it’d be tough to write an album. Not for Deez Nuts. “We wrote the album together on Staten Island in New York which took us about a month,” he explains. “We then travelled to Cape Cod and worked with Shane Frisby at The Brick Hithouse who we’ve done the last 3 or 4 albums.”
The guys certainly put in the hard work,though, as Kennedy tells us “we just lock ourselves in a room for 12 hours straight which is very productive. I think we had 5 songs written in 2 or 3 days which was crazy! We were just pumping them out. And we were super proud of them, we just needed to fine tune them and we came out with some bangers.”
The album itself is some of the bands best work to date. You’ll just have to take our word for it until it’s release next month April. It’s the fifth studio album since Deez Nuts formed back in 2007. We asked Kennedy what’s changed over the last decade. “The first two albums were written and recorded solely by JJ. With the addition of Matthew Rogers on guitar and Alex Salinger on drums together they’re insane,” Kennedy obviously has a lot of respect for his fellow band members both technically and creatively. “They just added a new dynamic, it’s a lot more technical. You can get the two of them in a room together, smoke some weed and they’ll just go off into their own little worlds. It’s just organic, man.”
Having recorded the album and looking back on it once everything was finished we asked Kennedy if he had a track which was his personal favourite. “I do!,” he tells us “It’s kinda hard to choose, man. I’m very proud of them all but for ‘Discord’ which we’ve just released as a single and the short and sweet ‘Carried By Six’ are mine.”
Deez Nuts are a band heavily influenced by many genres and not just your typical hardcore outfit. There’s certainly more than a little hip hop influence thrown in there and we had to ask if Kennedy had heard of the current grime movement in the UK. “We all listen to different things man, but there’s definitely a lot of hip hop there for sure. I’ve been so busy touring that I’ve not had a lot of time to check out new stuff but I’ll certainly give Stormzy a listen.”
Touching on the bands influences we asked Kennedy what his own personal influences were growing up. “Well when I was younger I basically listened to whatever my older brother was listening to,” he says. “So bands like Korn, Limp Bizkit, NOFX and Lagwagon. I was very much a hardcore kid, and punk/pop-punk.”
We asked what Kennedy thought of the current music scene back home. “Obviously Parkway Drive are huge! But the scene is pumping. Bands like Hellions are kicking ass at the moment, their new album is incredible, man. There’s definitely a huge heavy music scene here,” he continues. “We just played UNIFY festival here which was huge. It sold out and had some great bands on the line up both domestic and from overseas with Alexisonfire headlining.”
With the guys having played two huge tours already this year you could forgive them for taking a break. But they’ve got no intention of doing so “We’ve got a lot going on this year man. After the Suicide Silence tour we’ve got a run of shows back home in Australia. We’ve then got some plans for European festivals, potentially South America and some things happening towards the end of the year but you’ll just have to wait to find out about those.”
Deez Nuts are currently on tour with Suicide Silence and their fantastic new album ‘Binge & Purgatory’ is out on 7th April.
We also have a competition running where you can design your own version of the ‘Binge & Purgatory’ artwork and win some Deez Nuts merch.