Part of London’s thriving post-punk scene, deep tan have just returned from touring with Queens of the Stone Age across 14x UK/EU shows (also with Australian punk band The Chats) in arenas including Amsterdam’s Ziggo Dome, Berlin’s Max-Schmeling Halle and London’s O2 Arena, in addition to releasing latest track ‘xenomorph queen’ – a ‘sensual punk bop’ on the subject of matriarchy, queer parenting and sapphic love – which has already been garnering plays across BBC Radio 6Music, BBC Radio 1 and Radio X.
The band’s stripped-back, minimal sound is often the vehicle for songs that engage with contemporary themes, from deepfake revenge pornography to gender-expansive ideology and stories of furry hedonism.
Emerging from the fatalistic side of life with a flash of cynicism and a rumble of venomous intent, the Hackney-based three-piece tour extensively, joining contemporaries Yard Act, BODEGA and Nation of Language on the road, as well as appearing on festival stages including Latitude, Secret Garden Party, Truck Festival, Live At Leeds, Dot-To-Dot, Wide Eyed Festival and more.
FACTS
1. Two of us met on a dating app.
2. One time on tour Josh Homme put Wafah in his leopard-print Vans and serenaded her with a song about Düsseldorf.
3. We think spargel is the most goth of all vegetables.
1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
Wafah: Original coldwave, gothic and postpunk bands and more recent projects with a jagged, angular and experimental edge.
2. How and when did you get into making music?
Wafah: Since the age of ten I was humming melodies and analyzing songs, listening to the layers of production. I’d make songs on my cassette player.
Marie: I’ve been surrounded by music for as long as I can remember. I got the chance to play several different instruments as a kid and eventually figured that the drums were the most fun of all.
Celeste: I started playing guitar when I was eleven and never stopped.
3. What are 5 of your favourite albums of all time?
Celeste:
Discreet Desires by Helena Hauff
Dedication by Zomby
Mezzanine by Massive Attack
Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea by PJ Harvey
Pop Crimes by Roland S Howard
Wafah:
Disintegration by The Cure
Reggalla De Blanc by The Police
Paradieswärts Düül by Amon Düül
Post by Björk
Purple Rain by Prince
Marie:
OK Computer by Radiohead
Selma Songs by Björk (the soundtrack to Dancer in the Dark)
White Pony by Deftones
Take To The Skies by Enter Shikari
Meliora by Ghost B.C.
4. What do you associate with Berlin?
Celeste: My German cousins who live – and are from – there, and Peaches. She’s a Berliner and we met her backstage at our show supporting Queens Of The Stone Age at the Max-Schmeling-Halle and she told us about the time she also supported QOTSA on tour. Also, @berlinclubmemes, ‘kosmische music’ and the band Easter.
Wafah: Berlin has an amazing music history with so many great bands and movements starting there, so I mostly think of that. Oh, and freezing your tits off in the queue at Berghain.
5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
Wafah: The Divine in Dalston, our favourite new queer pleasure palace.
Marie: My favorite place is probably The Evening Star in Brighton, where I live. It’s a great old pub, place of lots interesting alternative people and community.
Celeste: The voluptuous horror of the Shacklewell Arms.
6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
Marie: Set myself on fire.
Celeste: Finally write my queerdo screenplay.
Wafah: I’d become the crazy cat lady I know I really am and work at the Battersea animal shelter.
Marie: Oh yeah, actually, I’d be a crazy cat lady with Wafah for a while first.
7. What was the last record/music you bought or listen?
Celeste: Aïsha Devi’s new record Death Is Home.
Wafah: Auto-Pain by Deeper.
Marie: Nothing, Interesting by Library Card
8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
Wafah: We’d love Aleem from Crack Cloud to remix one of our tracks.
Celeste: Massive Attack, Irvine Welsh and Kembra Pfahler.
Marie: I always felt that deep tan and Dry Cleaning would be a very sexy match on a bill.
9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
Wafah: Prince in Paris. My aunt took me and my sister, and he sung most of the set to her. It added some spice to the evening, you could say.
Marie: Our support show with QOTSA at Ovo Hydro Glasgow, which was also my first show with these guys.
Celeste: Our show at a festival in Christiania, the commune in Copenhagen where they’d made a beer with our name on it.
10. How important is technology to your creative process?
Celeste: Our approach is mostly analogue. The main building blocks of our tracks come from hours of freeform jamming between bass and guitar, working on our parts and then choosing our favourite sections as the foundations. After this, Wafah writes vocal toplines and I’ll work on the song concept, lyrics and direction, which we’ll discuss and collaboratively make some creative decisions. It then all comes together when we bring in the drums. We use very little tech.
Wafah: Yeah, for us technology is secondary. I really feel that the songs need to stand out on their own, feeling strong when our parts are just played as a three-piece before going in and recording them, when we add some other elements.
11. What can we expect from your Berlin concert?
Celeste: Unreleased tracks and our human footstool (who lives in Germany) being in attendance.
