An Interview with Deeper

Words by Sarah Morrison

Mental health is a very sensitive and personal topic for me. It took a long-time to become comfortable being open with everything I have gone through and things I still currently still face.

Deeper is a band that has found their confidence within their most vulnerable places. They take their darkest and perhaps scariest emotions and allow themselves to find release through their music. The band has suffered one of the hardest years; from a falling out with a founding member to experiencing one of their greatest fears, while in the midst of preparing to release a concept record surrounding the importance of mental health.

Shortly after the release of their second album ‘Auto-Pain’ [out March 27], I sat down for a Zoom call with Nic Gohl, Drew McBride, and Shiraz Bhatti, where we were able to delve into very personal details regarding the start to present process of this album.

You’re all based out of Chicago, IL. What is the arts community like?

Nic: It's pretty robust. You definitely have to come and experience it to understand it but I think it's a lot different from New York or Los Angeles.

For the most part, I think everyone sort of knows each other and every one, some way or another, has played a show together. It's a pretty communal place to play music.

It's nice but also kind of hard when you're trying to build a bill. 'Well, I don't want to play with these guys because I played with them two or three months ago,' and then after a year or two you're like 'Oh fuck, I guess I've got to recycle this one.'

Drew: I think a big difference, for better or worse, is maybe it's not as cutthroat as New York or L.A. or something where I feel like in those cities there are a lot of bands of a particular genre that are all competing against each other or jostling to blow up.

In Chicago, it's a lot more supportive and communal as Nic said. The band's sound pretty different, everything from Twin Peaks to Whitney to Dehd or us. The Hex are probably only the really post-punk band in the city that we would lump ourselves in with. For the most part, it sounds pretty diverse.

These are just the guitar bands we're talking about, not even getting into Chance the Rapper or anything on the hip-hop side which is a huge part of the scene here.

I read that your album artwork features Northwestern Prentice Women’s Hospital in Chicago. Out of any healing facility, why showcase this specific one?

Drew: We really love brutalism, we’ve just always been drawn to that architecture style. Chicago has a lot of really interesting architecture and history and this building is really unique. The Historical Preservation Society tried to save it and they couldn't which it then got demolished.

We came across the picture of the building with the designer we were working with and went 'Oh it would be a really cool way to commemorate it.' It was the same designer as the honeycomb towers that are on 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' by Wilco.

There are a lot of cool ways it ties into the city. In regards to the healing aspect, I don't think we sought out for anything... we definitely picked it because it is a place you'd typically go to heal but I wouldn't say there's anything more specific around that except for the history of the building and the Brutalism.

Nic: For us too, we've always had architecture in mind, and photography as well. With the first record, there's the blueprint on the front; that's an actual film photograph that my mom took in the 90s and I developed twenty years later. We always wanted to incorporate some sort of photography in it.

When we did the run 7” inch we used a guy who's worked on a lot of our profile pictures; Brandon Carrel. He took an amazing photo of Rush which is a very cool modern hospital in Chicago. We put that photo on the cover and when our designer, Tyler, was putting together the artwork for the album, he started floating the idea of that hospital. It all just kind of worked; everything seemed to have a connection to everything we were doing.

Drew: There's something cool about the way the cover of the album and the 7" work together. Stylistically they're similar; both buildings have a more traditional building part with an abstract piece on top of it. They look fairly different but they complement each other in some ways as well.

For a new fan or someone unfamiliar with your story, could you explain who Mike Clawson was to the band? What could you tell us about the type of person he was?

Nic: He's definitely a founding member of the band and one of my closest friends. He's an essential part of the first record; we wrote it as a four-piece. A lot of the main guitar lines you hear on the record are him. He's a pretty amazing guitar player as well.

Mike and I grew up with each other; I've known him since I was around fourteen or fifteen years old. He got me into playing guitar and messing around with pedals. We started playing music together and moved into downtown Chicago with each other which is when we started a band that eventually turned into deeper.

During the making of the new record, we had a falling out and he left the band halfway through making it. A couple of months after the fact, after we finished the record, he took his own life.

A lot of the themes on the record were written around my relationship, well all of our relationship with him; mental health in general.

It's one of those really fucked up things where everything you're afraid would happen and everything you talk about, just happens. It becomes real.

It's sadly becoming almost common.

Nic: Is it more common or are we talking about it more? Which is what we've been trying to do to heal from it.

We had these things on the record already; the album was finished long before any of this had happened. We were talking about how we had always had this in mind, to talk about these feelings we have. With everything, with Mike, we realized we really needed to step-up cause this is exactly what we were talking about and it's now happened to somebody we considered our brother at a time and still have a lot of love for. We can't just let this keep falling through the cracks.

We focused a lot on trying to talk about mental health and trying to support charities that help with that.

We need to talk about suicide in a healthy way; it's not just a taboo subject, it's something we can tackle together and help prevent someone from thinking that is their only way out.

Drew: With all that said, Mike was a quiet guy and kept to himself, but he had those people that he would really open up to. Basically, the band was that for him. When we did sort of go our separate ways, it was hard for everyone. It was the right thing, it was mutual, but it was something we were concerned about in real-time.

We told him a number of times to go and get the proper help he needed, and, at least at the time, we thought 'What more can we do?' There was only so much we could do.

We drifted over the course of a few months and while we were on tour in October is when he passed away. You can't help but think 'Maybe we should've done more?'

That's something we've at least talked about: 'What more could have been done?'

It must have been good to have that support system between the three of you when the news broke. You shared a lot of life experiences and close moments with this person, so to be able to have that bond while trying to come to an understanding of what has happened must have really helped.

Nic: It definitely helped with the healing process and it's a forever thing; it's not like one day you feel better about it.

We have such a different relationship in memory of Mike than I think a lot of people do. We spent so many hours with him and so many uncomfortable experiences together.

Touring in a band, now and in the early days, you have a lot of shows that suck, a lot of drives that suck, you're bored all the time, and you're not really sure where you're sleeping most of the time. I wouldn't trade it for anything else but definitely not the most glamorous experiences together. We've seen some shit.

Drew: It's, I wouldn't say a coincidence, maybe ironic, that when Mike leaves the band and after we eat shit for multiple years, things are starting to turn. It's pretty unfortunate that he can't bear the fruit from his success.

He was a great guy. He and Nick were such a pair, they always got into goofy shit.

Nic: I miss him every fucking day.

Mike wasn’t able to hear the new material you had been working on. Is that something any of you have struggled to come to realization with?

Nic: I have a lot of problems with it honestly. It's hard. We already had the album ready to be put out before, everything was done. I was a little more afraid of him hearing the record, originally. The songs that he was on, he knew; four of them.

Before we announced the record and after we gave it some time from when he passed away, I sent it over to his mom and sort of asked for permission to talk about it. She's very supportive of the band and capturing Mike's memory. He's super young, he's twenty-eight years old, and beyond having a college degree, this is basically his life's work. He's been doing this since he was in middle school.

If you were ever lucky enough to have the chance to see him play guitar, he was very good.

It's lucky we have what we have to celebrate him.

Drew: I remember the first practice we had after he passed away and we just went 'We can't play these songs.' We weren’t unsure if we could play them again. It was great that we had each other but we were wondering if we'd ever be able to play those old songs or if we'd need to start over.

The record is interesting in that way because it shows the past, present, and future, all in one. You have those indie rock songs that tie back to Mike's time in the band, then the noisier/weirder tracks we did on our own, and then those drum machine/synthy tracks, that tease one of the directions we're going to continue to explore. I think it all works together really well.

Kevin, how did he get involved with the rest of the band? Was it a natural fit? Did he mean to join full-time or was this a substitution until a later decision?

Nic: We talked about it for a while, before bringing in anybody. Originally Drew played bass, so our first thought was to get a new guitar player. It was a difficult idea to bring somebody new into the band and have them play someone else's part.

When Drew joined the band very early on, he was also a guitarist in another band called Landmarks and Mike was obsessed with the way Drew played guitar. Since Drew has filled in on bass for a few other friends' bands, when we went looking for a new bass player, Mike brought up the idea of asking Drew to play bass.

It came full circle when we needed a guitar player. Drew offered to switch to guitar so that way we could look for a new bass player, which was easier and felt more natural.

Drew: I knew I could depend on myself to learn the parts, so I made the switch from bass to guitar and then we'd just need to find someone to join in on bass. We all really liked Kev's guitar playing in Clearance, and he's a really good bassist.

Nic: We didn't know what to expect; we were all friends with him but we had never played music with him.

After the first tour we went on with Kevin, it all just clicked. Really after the first show, we knew he was a forever member.

It's weird looking back on the old days with Mike because it doesn't feel like the same band anymore. Adding Kevin to the mix really changed our psyche and pushed us forward. I feel more confident having him in the band. He's a good person to have.

Drew: The dynamic of the band isn't only just more mature but much more positive, optimistic; there are fewer moments when people are down. It's easy to play off each other's spirits. When you're in a marathon of touring, you need to be able to do things like that.

Nic: It feels healthy and that's nice to have after the year we've had as a band.

Four of your songs on the record were written with Clawson. What was writing with him like?

Nic: We kind of just threw shit at the wall. The way we recorded and wrote most of our stuff, there was really no conversation between any of us. We'd get held up in our practice space and you'd have one person fuckin' around with a line, and the rest would all just start playing along with it. That's basically how we wrote all of the early material.

Drew: The dynamic is definitely a bit different now but when Mike was in the band it was really just throwing shit at the wall; having an in-prompt to jam.

Was Kevin involved with writing the last bit of the record or was it just the three of you after Mike left?

Nic: It was just the three of us. He came in...

Drew: During the tail end of mixing.

Nic: By the time he joined the band, we had already recorded everything.

At what point did you realize you had been chipping away at a bit of a concept album?

Nic: I think early on, that's kind of what we were going for.

Drew: We started off by coming up with little loops or ambient bits of noise sections that we wanted to put on the record.

I'm not sure if you've heard of 'Hypnic Jerks' by Spirit of the Beehive but that's honestly what we imagined the second record to be; this patchwork of ambient sounds that were in-between songs to bridge those gaps.

Basically every time we'd write one of those, we'd expand it a bit more into a song. I think the record unfolded in a really unique way. We were so transfixed on these tiny bits that we kept adding to and stretching and were less focused on building an entire song.

Nic, I read a lot of the way you write lyrically comes unknowingly but that you used to strictly write love songs. How did you program yourself to switch the way you express thought?

Nic: I've been in a great relationship for five and a half/six years now, and when I first started dating Natalie [my girlfriend], I wrote a lot of very obvious love songs. Mike said he thought I needed to get a little more abstract because it's kind of lame to sing about your girlfriend all the time.

I thought, alright, so how can I write a lyric that if it is about something, Mike will never know the true meaning of what it's about because it's so ambiguous. I guess it was just a way of practicing.

In reality, it was easy for me too because I suffer from depression and anxiety, and a bit of an anger problem too and I think it's natural for me to use those emotions. A lot of the lyrics are off the cuff so it's a very therapeutic way for me to just word vomit until I feel an attachment to something or someone in the band likes it.

Drew: I think with the first record, we were all still trying to figure each other out; the dynamic of playing together. You sing about what you're most comfortable singing about.

With the second record, not only were we comfortable with the dynamic of playing together but once you feel comfortable expressing yourself in a certain way and you see that it's ok, you have more confidence.

Nic: You're sort of taught that you need to sing about a trope. I think everyone's first song is probably a love song. Once you get over that hump and learn to write a different way, especially with the way we write songs, it doesn't feel right to write about love with this band.

On top of dealing with Mike’s passing, you all suffer from your mental health problems. If comfortable, could you explain how you’ve felt in your most vulnerable moments? How did you find a balance juggling your own health while coping/grieving?

Nic: I think the main thing is that you have to have some sort of routine. You need to have that focus point of your day where you can forget about everything else in order to make sure you got your game of Sudoko in or something.

You know in Happy Gilmore, the happy place he goes to, to putt? You need to find your own happy place. For me, that was really helpful.

In general as the band, we'll do band workouts as lame as it may sound. That helped us a lot and we're able to create a comradery together. It's usually us fighting Shiraz cause he's forcing us to do a hundred push-ups a day.

In the last few years, I've become very close with my dad and just calling him once a day or text him, and having that one person to unpackage all your woes has been super helpful. With that being said, not everyone has that support system, but it's something I'm thankful for and that's helped me.

How does it feel to be playing these songs after everything? Were songs that once felt a certain way now feel different? How long did it take before you all felt comfortable in your own skin/allowing yourself to be vulnerable with each song?

Drew: I was really excited/anxious for the album release show to see if I would get stirred up with emotion.

It took a while, maybe around a month, of us not practicing; the group of us come to rehearsal space, have a beer, and just not talk. Gradually, we were able to start playing the songs again. I don't think we started playing seriously again until maybe January?

Nic: The song that's hardest for me to play is 'Lake Song.' It's pointed at my relationship with Mike and lyrically there are parts that hit way to close to home. If I could, I probably wouldn't have written that song.

Recently when we played in New York, Mike's ex-girlfriend came out to the show. I remember singing the song and the worst time you could link eyes with somebody who probably has a similar feeling towards that was at that moment. It kind of fucked me up; it's always kind of fucked me up singing that song.

Shiraz, you not only identify as half Pakistani but also half Native American. Being an obvious mix of minority races, what are obstacles you’ve had to overcome? How has your heritage and cultures taught you to be resilient?

Shiraz: When I moved to small-town Wisconsin at age ten from Paris, I was one of the only minorities in school and was afraid of the bullying many south Asians and middle eastern people were getting post 9/11 so I hid my heritage and identified as French for many years. I didn’t want to identify as Native American because when I did, people would passively call me a savage or wouldn’t believe me and tell me that we don’t exist anymore.

But as I grew up and would visit my grandpa more and more on the reservation in Northern Wisconsin I felt a sense of home and saw people that looked like me and that welcomed me as if I were family. I learned of the centuries of genocide that my people had to overcome, the constant lack of recognition from the US government and false narrative that they have been telling their citizens. I learned from the beauty of our stories, our powwows, art, and ceremonies that we are resilient people and survived so much trauma and that my generation just being here is an act of protest towards the US government.

I also just restored a relationship with my father and visited him in Pakistan, which was an eye-opening experience. Throughout their persecution by the Western world, Pakistani people are the most welcoming and happiest people that I’ve met. Both cultures taught me to hold my head up high and to be proud of who you are and to thank my ancestors for all that they’ve done to get me here.

Within the arts and music community, what have you noticed when it comes to the mental well-being of others? What sort of dynamic do the two have?

Nic: I think people need to do a better job of bringing diversity into it. There's a lot of white dudes, speaking of myself, and we've bared all the fruit of the music scene. I think it's changing a lot; I see a lot more females and POC being taken more seriously in the last few years. That really needs to keep on moving forward.

Shiraz has brought this up to me before but when we played with other acts that aren't just four white dudes, he feels so much more comfortable. It's good to get away from working within those barriers and it's unfair to other people. As a straight, white male, that's something I'm trying to ensure I do a better job at looking out for.

Drew: People are talking about mental health more but I think especially in the States where we don't have a socialized health-care system, I think mental health care is pretty unevenly supported here.

A lot of people within the arts communities don't have health care as they most likely work in the service industry to support themselves while playing music.

People talk about mental health more but it still doesn't feel like nearly enough by any means.

You’ve been very strong and brave individuals, especially as men, to have gone through everything you have while being so open. What’s been the biggest achievement to have come with this strength?

Nic: Fuck, I don't know! In a lot of ways, it doesn't really feel like we've achieved anything. Everything takes so long.

Drew: I don't think there's one moment where we feel like we've felt we've achieved strength from all this persevering.

It's honestly been through all these interviews and being able to talk about this stuff that's at least given me the confidence to talk about this further.

Comparing this to the first interview we had on this press cycle, the interviewer asked a lot of great questions but I don't think we were ready at the time. After the call, we went 'Damn, that was really hard. How can we talk about this every day for the next three months.' We really questioned if we were going to be able too.

Nic: The record lives in so many different avenues for all of us. One thing that it's done and a reason for why we made it was the idea of that healing process. From where I was when we started it to where I am now, I feel that I've grown and healed in a lot of ways. I feel more comfortable in my skin.

Groovy TunesApril 7, 2020