the deadly syndrome

3. The Deadly Syndrome

Radio FriendlyIssue #11 • 9 • 12

2 Contents

first heard The Deadly Syndrome in the film 'World's Greatest Dad'. It was 'I Hope I Become A Ghost' from their debut album 'The Ortolan'.The song captured my imagination, so I looked them up. By that time 'Nolens Volens' had been released, so I had two albums to listen to.WhatWhat I love about The Deadly Syndrome is their ability to surprise you. Firstly, you would be forgiven in thinking the name rubs off as a little metal sounding. But, from their debut album being folk-rock, they are not a band stuck to the genre sound of their name. As some bands are.

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The Deadly Syndrome's song writing skills are some of the best I have heard. As I said before, they will constantly surprise you, with every song going to new places you would not expect. They are songs which feel delicatelydelicately crafted, by loving hands. 'Party City' on 'Nolens Volens' is a perfect example of that. It comes in with a fantastic chord progression of rock guitars and loud drums. What sounds like an introduction to an exciting song is then ripped away from you like a rug under your feet. You are brought to your knees with a closing vocal harmony. It'sIt's risks like those that make The Deadly Syndrome such an extraordinary band to listen to. You never feel cheated or underwhelmed. They do this with each album too. The new is a noticeable jump from the last, but it never feels contrived. Very few bands can do this.

3 Artwork by Natasha Dillow • The Deadly Syndrome

4 The Deadly Syndrome

I still get excited when a band I like have new content to listen to. When I was younger, I used to rush out and get the latest album of one of my favourite bands, then put it into my jumpy CD-player and listen to it on good quality headphones. I opted with that listening method for 'All in Time', which has a flowing ambienceambience to it. The distorted guitars build a wall around you. This was a conscious decision for The Deadly Syndrome.

"We"We wanted more distortion. We wanted the record to be a bit more aggressive. I can't pin-point a particular inspiration other than wanting to play more songs that were "loud." But, of course, we are who we are, and still want to craft complete records with ups and downs, so it's not just 35 minutes of distorted guitars above 125BPM."

Their aim really comes across. 'Demons' – the Their aim really comes across. 'Demons' – the opening track – introduces you into their new world of music, immediately. It brings in the album with explosive measure, and the theme continues throughout.

The drums on 'Whatever Comes Our Way' are heavily effected and distorted. They sound like a vocanic eruption of snare drums and ride cymbals. The Deadly Syndrome chose to do this early in the writing process, they wrote.

...Mike,...Mike, our keyboardist/synthist/samplist/sound tweaker is also our producer. He didn't compress a single instrument on the way into the hard drive because he wanted as much freedom as possible during the post production process. He works in a cool way that is different than most engineers/producers. They want to capture everything right then and there. Well, he obviously wants to get vibe/masteredvibe/mastered takes, but he also wants the ability to have something extremely clean so he can make it sound like anything he wants.”

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‘Maine' draws that theme – of distorted guitars and explosive drums – to a close, but it is only the penultimate track. 'Won't be Me' concludes the album, and is a beautiful testament of their song-writing skills.The Deadly Syndrome's way of crafting a song feels very organic. They wrote.

"We split everything evenly, and we also allow "We split everything evenly, and we also allow everyone's voice to be heard when crafting a song."

You can certainly tell a lot of influence has been injected into each song. A section might come in, only to be taken away when you feel you have had your fair share.

"We"We allow the original song writer to steer the ship (unless they feel like a different direction is better and trust another one of us to handle it). Specifically this album brought up a new type of song crafting, which we accredit to GMail."

‘All in Time’ The Deadly Syndrome’s album art.

They take me through their process.

"A song would get emailed out as an mp3 demo. We would all then give our feed back and discuss aspects about it that are exciting or distracting. ThenThen the original author would send out the stems of that demo. Whoever had the most inspiration from the track would take a first stab at combining the original stems/demo idea with their own. If this lead to a demo that we all approved then we'd call it a day and use that version as the blueprint for the studio version. If the original author felt that there were some main "ideas" thatthat got cut, or buried, they would take it back and make another demo. That being said, it wasn't uncommon for a third or fourth demo to come out from other members of the band. This would lead to a discussion of combining all the versions, by highlighted like-minded ideas, and omitted the parts we felt didn't quite work from the individual demos."

The title track, 'All in Time' exhibits this very well. You can hear it has kept a lot of its original beauty, and it displays a merging of ideas. What starts as quite a dark, folk song, is gradually uplifted into a crescendo towards the end. I asked The Deadly Syndrome what 'All in Time' – also the album title – means to them.

"We've"We've been doing this for 6+ years. We had a lot of love out of the gate. We haven't stopped yet, we're hoping that all the struggle through countless hours will allow us to take this band (and our lives) to another level. So, really, the only factor that will see this through, or at least answer a lot of questions, is time."

5 The Deadly Syndrome

I admire their patience to keep their music alive. A clear love for music is abundant here. I was tentative about asking them with regards to the highs and the lows of doing everything independently. However, I felt in this instance it was suited to their shaping as a band.

"It's"It's hard to be in a band. because it's not really about making it, it's about fitting into the musical landscape that's going on right now. There is a landscape and it accepts movements of bands. It also accepts things that accepts movements of bands. It also accepts things that don't fit in at all, it's just a matter of getting placed in the jigsaw puzzle that makes up the landscape. Either way works perfectly once you find where you are supposed to fit in."

A great analogy of the current climate in music.

"Also,"Also, it is hard as hell to self release. There is no one but yourself to set deadlines and to push the album. We've been lucky and had our music in World's Greatest Dad, Gossip Girl, Jackass 3D & 3.5, along with some commercials and web videos. SoSo we've had a little bit of money to push the band, and buy recording equipment, but at the end of the day, we still need that one tastemaker, whether it's a website, an A&R guy, or the lead singer of some successful band to push us over the edge."

ItIt is sad to say that many bands share this story. But it is the ones that preserver who show their true love for music. They continue.“

Very clearly indeed. But with moving so far and fast within the latter part of a decade, what next for The Deadly Syndrome?

"We're"We're never sure what the future holds for The Deadly Syndrome. We all love making music so we're definitely going to keep doing that in one shape or another. We're really hoping that 'All in Time' gets some traction, and that will be able to determine what the next step for us will be."

For more information on The Deadly Syndrome visitFor more information on The Deadly Syndrome visitthedeadlysyndrome.com

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...We all have day jobs, we all have to make money to pay for our lives, because music doesn't. So as far as the question, "why we're in it." I think 3 albums in 6 years with little to no outside support answers that pretty clearly."