Interview: Deaf Havana’s Tom Ogden discusses new album, Springsteen, and Mark Kozelek

In the decade of their existence, UK alternative rock band Deaf Havana have gone through changes that would sink lesser bands – from losing a vocalist in their first few years, to completely revamping their sound, to almost breaking up recently – but the band is still surging in popularity, especially given their high chart placements with their new record, All These Countless Nights. The album contains some of the biggest songs of Deaf Havana’s career, including “Sing”, and possibly the best chorus the band has ever written on “Fever”.

Drummer Tom Ogden stopped by to discuss the new album, performing with Bruce Springsteen, and his love of Mark Kozelek (Sun Kil Moon/Red House Painters). Check out the interview below, and stay tuned for incoming tour dates as well. Tom’s answers are italicized.

It’s been almost 4 years since Old Souls was released. What have you been up to since then? Do you feel the new album will ultimately be worth the wait?

I hope so!! I think it will. We’ve had 4 years to discover what we want as a band and as individuals. It’s definitely our best work, lyrically and musically.

What was it like when you performed w/Bruce Springsteen? What sorts of emotions were running through your head?

To play a show on the same stage as The Boss himself was great. We’d never really played on a stage that big before, so I was kind of nervous, scared and excited mixed together.

You guys are continuing a long line of British rock greats. What do you feel some of the most important British rock albums of the last 20-25 years are? Do any of them influence you?

I’d say bands like The Rolling Stones, and The Beatles really made the bluprint for what is now considered Rock and Pop music. If those bands didn’t exist, then neither would the music we hear today. As for more recent albums that I feel are important, I’d say Nirvanas Nevermind is one of the most important rock albums, even though its a little older than 25 years. Bruce Springsteens Born in the USA has also been very influential to a lot of artists, including ourselves with Old Souls. For a more modern, massively influential rock albums like, I’d say Oasis’ Whats the Story Morning Glory, or The Stone Roses’ first album.

Premier League action is really heating up now – are you guys supporters of any particularly clubs?

I’m not. Lee is a big Arsenal fan & Max is a bit Manchester United fan. To be honest I don’t really follow football.

It’s been 8 years since you released debut full-length Meet Me Halfway, At Least. Obviously that album was very different than anything you’ve done – do you still get fans clamoring for you to play really old material?

Sometimes people ask us to play songs from MMHWAL but Deaf Havana was a completely different band back then. To be honest, we should have changed our name before releasing Fools and Worthless Liars.

We’re less than a couple weeks away from the album release – what new tracks have you been playing live?

We’ve played Fever, Trigger, L.O.V.E., Like a Ghost, Seattle, and St Pauls, I think. We’ve played quite a few to be honest. We went out to Europe at the end of last year to support Placebo and Jimmy Eat World and we thought it would be a good opportunity to road test some new songs.

You guys have overcome a lot of financial problems and other struggles the past few years. Signed to a new label now, how are you all feeling now that these issues seem to be squared away?

Everyone is feeling great. Everyone is supper happy with the album and how things are going right now. Our new label are great to work with and it’s great to have a team of people that are so passionate on board.

One of my favourite tracks of yours is “I’m a Bore, Mostly”. It’s a track I can personally relate to strongly – I know caffeine fuels my days. Is that a song you feel very strongly about overall? How did the songwriting for that song come about?

I agree, I think this song sticks out because it was the first song people heard from FAWL and it was the first song that really showcased James’s storytelling lyrical abilities. In my opinion, our songwriting ability has improved enormously since then, but the release of this song was a definite turning point for us,. Plus it was the first time we had really connected with our audiences feelings.

You’re on a desert island and can only choose 5 albums to listen to forever. What are they, and why?

Brand New – The Devil and God Are Raging Inside M. Brand New are probably my favourite band, I absolutely loved them growing up and I have so many memories associated with this album.

Nirvana – Nevermind. This is the album that got me into drumming. My Dad bought me it one year for christmas and I just played Smells Like Teen Sprit over and over again so I could hear that drum fill at the start. I also think this is the most important and interesting Rock records ever made.

The Rolling Stones – Let It Bleed. If I’m honest, I’m a bit of a late comer to The Rolling Stones, but this album just has everything for me. Its catchy, its interesting, it flows perfectly. I’d say its the best Rolling Stones album. I listened to this a lot when we recorded Old Souls and it reminds me of that period of my life.

Mark Kozelek & Jimmy Lavalle – Perils From The Sea. I’d never head of this until Matty showed me it a few weeks ago and I haven’t stopped listening since. I think Mark Kozeleks lyrics are incredible, and he has a great ability to tell stories. If I was stuck on a desert Island I’d definitely need this album to keep me sane.

Bruce Springsteen – Born In The USA

On All These Countless Nights, what new styles or songwriting techniques did you try, if any?

Previously James has written all of the songs and the rest of the band just play a long to how he had written them. With ATCN we approached it a bit differently, we all wrote our own parts and played them our way. The main bulk of the songs are always written by James, but it was great to have some time to work out what would work best with each track. I think the main difference between this album and previous albums is we had time to play around with ideas, and we had time to play the songs through as a band before recording them.

Outside of the band, what are some of your hobbies? What do you do in your free time?

I try and be as creative as possible outside of the band. I still play drums every day, write songs on my home studio, I draw, paint etc etc. I just try and keep my brain as busy as possible. I hate doing nothing, so when I have some time off from touring I still try to keep myself as busy as possible.

When you were recording Fools And Worthless Liars, obviously you guys had a massive change in style coming off your debut album. What emotions were running through your head when recording it? Did you have confidence in your abilities, knowing the genre change would be so massive?

As I’ve mentioned before, I think we should have changed the band name at that point. When we started writing for FAWL our attitudes changed. We started caring about our songs, we started caring about lyrics and instrumentation, whereas before all we wanted to do was go on tour and have a good time. It was scary, because we didn’t know what people would think, in fact we were pretty certain that the people that liked Deaf Havana before FAWL would hate the new album. For some reason it got us in bigger venues, selling more albums and having more success than we’d ever experienced.

Do you have anything else you’d like to add before we wrap this up? Any bands or musicians that should be on our collective radars?

I’m massively into a band called Black Foxes at the moment, I think its great. Matty also showed me an album recently by Mark Kozelek and Jimmy Lavalle, called Perils From The Sea, and it might be the best thing I’ve ever heard. I’d definitely check those two artists out, both completely different, but I cant stop playing them.

Thanks to Tom for giving us some background on the album!