Their last recording had a budget of about $300. Still, Toronto duo Death From Above managed to use that small sum to create an aural masterpiece that led to worldwide attention and a tour across the Great White North with Billy Talent andAlexisonfire. It was probably the best three bills the band ever spent.
And now they’ve got a solid grand – $1,000 – burning a hole in their pockets. You can just imagine how giddy bassistJesse F. Keeler and drummer/singer Sebastien Grainger must be as they gear up to record an 11-song full-length.
“Considering what we spent with the last album, we’re feeling pretty flush,” jokes Keeler. “But look at it realistically: $1,000 is the food budget for most albums. Because we don’t have a lot of money to mess around with, we’ll have everything ready to go for when we get into the studio. There isn’t much fucking around that goes on.”
But c’mon, Keeler – there are only two guys in the band. How hard can it be to lay down two instruments and bust out a few vocal tracks?
“Don’t kid yourself,” he warns. “Because there are only the two of us, our performances can’t be flawed in any way. I can’t mess up on a bass line because there aren’t any other instruments to cover it up. The same goes for the vocals, because there’s not much to layer around them.”
Still, listening to the crisp-yet-primal drive of tracks from their last two EPs (Romantic Rights and Heads Up!), it’s safe to say that the album won’t suffer from lack of any six-stringed beast clogging up the tracks.
How will the band capitalize on their momentum once the album is finished? A few showcases in New York will hopefully create a solid foundation south of the 49th parallel. Feeling that their roots at home are strong enough to merit “breaking out” of Canada, the duo are keen to get going.
“I think that focusing our efforts Stateside is important for the band right now,” Keeler says. “We’re working steadily on Canada and we’ll be going to Europe soon, so now it’s time for the band to focus. Sorry… it’s time for us to focus. We have this habit of referring to the band in the third person, as if it’s some separate entity we have nothing to do with. After spending all of this time busting our ass for the band, it’s still its own person.”
