You’re a young band attempting to make your way in the music industry and then, without warning, a pandemic strikes, removing any opportunity for you to tour and build up a live following. What do you do?
In the case of British outfit Deco - Max Kendall (vocals and synths), John Dell (guitar), John Steele (bass), Thomas Reinholz (drums) and Lucy Kendall (saxophone) - the answer was to lean into their love of ‘80s synth-pop and record a series of covers in the genre's unmistakable style, winning them plaudits from the likes of Nile Rodgers, Jimmy Somerville, Rick Astley and - a rarity, this - both Noel and Liam Gallagher.
If you can get those two to agree, you’ve got to be doing something right.
Now, after releasing several singles and EPs, the band have finally dropped their debut album, Destination: I Don’t Know, but they’re not quite ready to leave the ‘80s behind just yet. Not only does this record of original material retain the synth-pop sonics, but there’s also a special edition that ships with a CD of their most popular covers.
Showing true commitment to the ‘80s cause, Deco have even created their own issue of British pop magazine Smash Hits - this once counted Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant among its writers - which includes Q&As with celebrity fans such as Zoe Ball, Dawn French and Tom Kerridge.
In celebration of the album’s release, we faxed Deco some questions of our own, and here’s what came back down the wire.
You’ve taken your love of ‘80s culture to an extreme level: not only have you covered songs in an ‘80s style, but you’ve produced a Smash Hits tribute magazine to go with the new album. Where does your love of that decade come from?
“I think it’s come from a few different places, firstly from listening to our parents’ record collections when we were younger and then when we grew up there were bands like Friendly Fires, White Lies and Phoenix bringing synthesizers back in band music after the guitar-centric indie music of the previous years. This brought all that ‘80s music we listened to when we were younger back - while we were listening to these new bands influenced by that!
“I think JD in particular got into ‘80s music via movie soundtracks like Donny Darko.”
Have any of the artists whose songs you’ve covered commented on your ‘80s versions? And, if so, what did they say?
“Nile Rodgers said, ‘Let’s make a music video together,’ and we ended up supporting him on tour! Noel Gallagher said, ‘Great tune in any era’ on our version of Don’t Look Back In Anger [Liam Gallagher shared their version of Wonderwall on TikTok] and Jimmy Somerville said ‘I’m blown away’ about our Bronski Beat version of Wonderwall.
“Rick Astley told us in person that our Never Gonna Give You Up mashup with Teenage Dirtbag is ‘very good, by the way.’ Tears for Fears commented ‘wow’ on our cover of Mad World.
“Some really fun/surreal ones! It’s great to have some interaction with some of our musical heroes!”
How authentic do you try to be in your bid to emulate ‘80s production? Are you using hardware synths from that era or software emulations?
“On our debut album we tried to use hardware synths whenever we could. We had a Roland Juno-6 which made it onto every song, and a Yamaha SY55!
“On the covers stuff we try and stay as close as possible to the hardware synths, but sometimes recreate on software like the Arturia synthesizers - they’re great!”
You have a new album of original material out now, but it still has an ‘80s sound. Was it always the intention to use the covers as a gateway into your own stuff, or is that just how it’s happened?
“Well, we’ve always been an originals band. We released a bunch of singles and EPs before lockdown happened, but then we had to adapt like many musicians to try and reach people in a different way in what we had always been used to!
“Once the ‘80s versions started to do really well we then had to adapt again and work out a way to convert all the new fans we suddenly had to our own music! So it wasn’t planned as a gateway but was thought of as an alternative way to maintain and build a following alongside the original music we had been doing.”
We hear that you’ve been interrailing around Europe to meet fans and play them the album in lieu of a tour. Can you tell us a bit more about why you chose to do this? Is touring Europe as a British artist now prohibitively expensive?
“Well, the original idea was to bring the concept of the album, Destination: I Don’t Know, to life! Celebrating spontaneity and putting our fate in our fans hands by asking them to vote for where we go!
“This coincided with multiple efforts to make a European tour work without any success due to the financial and logistical impact of Brexit. So we thought we could combine the two and highlight the struggles for UK artists wanting to tour Europe from a financial and logistical point of view by doing things differently with a positive spin!”
You’ve done a great job of promoting yourselves and your music on social media. Do you think this is now an essential skill if you’re a new band and can you give aspiring artists any advice on how best to go about this?
“I think having the drive and willingness to promote yourself has always been a fundamental part of being an artist. It’s just the way in which we have to do it now has changed, and the fans’ want for consuming the personality of an artist on a more personal level has led to this promotion to fall more on the artists’ shoulders rather than the label or management.
“So the skill is being able to get your personality across in a cohesive way with your music; once you find that balance that’s when things start to work well!”
Finally, do you intend to switch-up your sound or are you happy to keep the ‘80s vibes flowing?
“I think we’re quite a progressive, ambitious band and if you were to listen to the music we made five years ago it’s quite different to what the debut album is now. So I think we’ll always be naturally changing creatively from a personal interest point of view.
“So I’m interested to hear the songs we write next! I think inevitably there will be crossovers and influences from an era that feels embedded in us at this point but definitely a progression!”
Deco’s debut album Destination: I Don’t Know is out now on Modern Sky.
