{"id":490974,"date":"2019-10-07T07:31:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-07T13:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rocksound.tv\/news\/read\/james-veck-giloldi-on-deaf-havanas-meet-me-halfway-at-least-i-treat-that-as"},"modified":"2019-10-07T07:31:00","modified_gmt":"2019-10-07T13:31:00","slug":"james-veck-giloldi-on-deaf-havanas-meet-me-halfway-at-least-i-treat-that-as-a-different-band","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/music-news\/james-veck-giloldi-on-deaf-havanas-meet-me-halfway-at-least-i-treat-that-as-a-different-band\/","title":{"rendered":"James Veck-Giloldi On Deaf Havana\u2019s \u2018Meet Me Halfway At Least\u2019: \u201cI Treat That As A Different Band\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

“I\u2019m proud of what \u2018Meet Me Halfway, At Least\u2019 and the EP were at the time but it was very different for me.”<\/em> – James Veck-Gilodi.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Today marks 10 years since the release of Deaf Havana<\/strong>‘s debut album ‘Meet Me Halfway, At Least’. In this month’s issue of Rock Sound, we have a career-spanning interview with Deaf Havana frontman James Veck-Gilodi, which covers everything from the beginning of the band’s career, through to today. <\/p>\n

Below is a snippet about ‘Meet Me Halfway, At Least’, but you can read the full interview by picking up a copy of our current issue now from SHOP.ROCKSOUND.TV<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When did you know you wanted to pursue music as a career?<\/strong>
Says James: \u201cWhere we grew up was so remote that if you weren\u2019t into sport or incredibly intelligent, there wasn\u2019t anything else to do. It was just a few outcasts and me congregating in the music room at school. We had nothing else to do, so we would play music. I always pursued it as a hobby but I never ever thought it would become anything like a career, I didn\u2019t even think that was possible. I think I always wanted to be a guitarist, but never anything more than just playing. It was just like my version of football, my escape. With football it\u2019s even harder to make a career out of it because you have to be actually really good. With music, you can almost trundle your way through.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

How did the band come together, then? Did those outcasts in the music room decide to write music?<\/strong>
\u201cPartially. I think there were a few groups of people around who were like that. I remember playing with a different group of people who were really into funk. I played with them because that was kind of the stuff I liked but then Ryan [Mellor, vocals], who used to scream in our band, was really into metal. I don\u2019t really know how we became friends. I think we both had the same random guitar teacher when we were 13. He really got me into metal and that progressed into emo and then emo became really cool to like and side partings became a thing. I guess we were just a group of people who had nothing else to do.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Your breakout EP \u2018It\u2019s Called The Easy Life\u2019 was released in 2008 at a time when British music was having a huge surge. What was it like being a part of that group of bands?<\/strong>
\u201cMy main memory is that we weren\u2019t really in that group. I remember from the outside seeing bands like Canterbury<\/strong>, Tonight Is Goodbye<\/strong> and You Me At Six<\/strong> all touring together and we weren\u2019t. I wouldn\u2019t call us outsiders, but we didn\u2019t really have any friends. I can remember playing shows with those guys and they would all know each other, but we would just turn up and play really. The music we were playing at the time was different. They were all a bit more pop-punk and we just wanted to sound like the heavy bands we grew up listening to. It took a long time to really get in with those bands… I don\u2019t think we ever truly did.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

Then came the debut album \u2018Meet Me Halfway, At Least\u2019. Just after release, Ryan Mellor left the band…<\/strong>
\u201cWhen Ryan left we didn\u2019t know if we should get someone else. We fucked around a bit and got our friend Max to come and scream for a bit. We didn\u2019t know if we wanted to carry on being that band at all, because I couldn\u2019t scream. I tried it, and I really couldn\u2019t do it. We had a transitional period where I tried to do both parts and it was weird. It felt like a limbo. I remember  coming off stage every night and thinking, \u2018What the hell are we doing?\u2019 It was a pretty quick learning curve for me as well because I never wanted to, and I still don\u2019t really want to, be the frontman. I didn\u2019t even really put myself down as much of a singer back then either. It took about a year and a half for me to really get my head around it and know that I had to do this. I treat that as a different band though. When people ask how many albums I\u2019ve got, I start at \u2018Fools And Worthless Liars\u2019. I\u2019m proud of what \u2018Meet Me Halfway, At Least\u2019 and the EP were at the time but it was very different for me. Back then all I did was write the music. Ryan took care of all of the lyrics, so I don\u2019t really feel attached to those songs. They\u2019re just a timestamp.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

How do you feel when you still have people asking why you don\u2019t play songs like \u2018Friends Like These\u2019 and \u2018Nicotine And Alcohol Saved My Life\u2019, then?<\/strong>
\u201cI think you have to respect where they are coming from. They fell in love with us at a time in our musical life where we weren\u2019t thinking about looking forwards. The band was just a thing to get us out of our village and nothing else. I remember when we wrote \u2018Friends Like These\u2019 we were trying to write the cheesiest chorus we could. We did it and it kind of worked for a bit. There was no sincerity in any of those songs whatsoever. Any good things that came from them is a bonus and that is still the same right now. Whenever anything cool  happens even today I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh fuck\u2019. I think that is kind of detrimental. I speak to people like [You Me At Six frontman] Josh Franceschi and he has always had a goal. Ever since he was a kid he has always had a vision. I have never had a vision. I\u2019ve always thought that as long as I can keep playing music, hanging out and travelling then I\u2019m happy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Turn up Deaf Havana’s debut album:<\/strong><\/p>\n

via:: Rock Sound News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I\u2019m proud of what \u2018Meet Me Halfway, At Least\u2019 and the EP were at the time but it was very different for me.” – James Veck-Gilodi. Today marks 10 years since the release of Deaf Havana‘s debut album ‘Meet Me Halfway, At Least’. In this month’s issue of Rock Sound, we have a career-spanning interview with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-490974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-music-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-21 21:34:18","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KQZR - The Reel","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}