It's striking how much Deafheaven have achieved in only ten years, since their early beginnings and their much notable first demo in June 2020. The band was planning to go out on tour to celebrate their 10-year anniversary before the world changed, yet, due to the circumstances they had to settle with the release of a live set, the same they had been scheduling to perform.
George Clarke explains in a statement: “Earlier this year we intended on celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Deafheaven demo released through Bandcamp on June 1, 2010 with a tour of North America with our friends Inter Arma, Greet Death and All Your Sisters. Unfortunately, we couldn’t fulfill that tour because of fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic. To rebound from the financial and morale hit, we put together an album of the set we intended to perform.
“Revisiting the songs in this studio sessions format with Jack Shirley at Atomic Garden reminded us of how important these years have been. I’m thankful we were able to give songs like Daedalus, the first we wrote, and other favorites like Vertigo and Kettle new power after so many years of playing them. They made me think of the people who played on them with us. For the first time we’ve included information on who played on what tracks and when they were originally released. We included thank you-s in the liner notes to these musicians who’ve spent time with this project, on tour or on record and all of the touring crew, label support and management support who have helped us this past decade.
“We're thankful we were able to do this project and that fans have stuck with us as we make new music for 2021. Thank you for helping us move forward and I hope you enjoy this record as a small interim in the Deafheaven story. We’ll see you soon.”
10 Years Gone comes out December 4th, 2020 through Sargent House.
Artist photo by Bobby Cochran