The Deadly Syndrome

Words by Susan Brooks

Photo by Alan Gastelum

Fear not! The Deadly Syndrome may sound like a dreadful disease, but is instead an L.A. indie band with a unique story. Formed in 2006, The Deadly Syndrome skipped the D.I.Y. stage outright, garnering so much support at their first public gig that it earned them a manager that very night. A record deal with DJ Steve Aoki’s Dim Mak label was signed just as expeditiously — the band played at Aoki’s Cinespace club and he loved them at first listen, asking to sign them on the spot. More live dates, including a recent Spaceland residency and a small West Coast summer tour, fell into place this year.

A foursome, their lineup gelled through drummer Jesse Hoy, from San Luis Obispo. Guitarist William Etling of Santa Barbara was his college friend and he met keyboardist Michael Hughes, from New York City, through his girlfriend, and singer Christopher Richard (a New Orleanian displaced by Katrina) through his job. Hoy worked separately on songs with all three, then put them all in the same petri dish to see what would happen when their energies combined. Sinister chemistry ensued and The Deadly Syndrome was created.

Simple instrumentation marries spiralling lyrics and sweet melodies in The Deadly Syndrome’s oeuvre, making for a kind of modern take on folk and rock. Song topics include failing relationships (“Emily Paints”), facing adulthood (“Eucalyptus”), the end of the world (“When it All Went Wrong”), and the afterlife (“I Hope I Become a Ghost”). The music is serious, but the group is not.

Putting four young guys together often makes for hilarity, but members of The Deadly Syndrome take humor to a new level. Even their ominous-sounding name began as a joke — “How funny would it be to be in a band called The Deadly Syndrome?” The name of their new debut album The Ortolan, released last month on Dim Mak, is another example. One of the band’s producers, Nico Aglietti, off-handedly mentioned the outlawed French delicacy, a bird killed cruelly and consumed whole as a symbol of Christ’s suffering. Leave it to this band to find the fun in that: Etling looked up the topic online and it was so over-the-top that it gave them a direction for their first record. “It was like Eyes Wide Shut with birds,” Etling explains. “We thought it was a cool metaphor too for stuffing all this stuff into the album and people can take it and chew on it.”

They’re visually amusing too: a cadre of cardboard ghosts dots the stage during shows (including the band’s mascot, Mustachio, whose first incarnation was stolen by a mysterious dreadlocked man — “Have you seen this ghost?” posters hung all around Silver Lake, to no avail, and Hughes speculates, “He’s in a trash can right outside that venue”).

Hoy elaborates, “We’re kind of like an elementary school play, because if you’re standing behind the ghosts you see all the old cardboard and tape and everything, but when you’re on the other side, you’re in the forest with the shrubbery and the houses. It’s just an elementary school play. That’s our entire aesthetic.”

Etling adds, “And if you watched us practice, you’d be like, ‘These kids’ play is going to be horrible!’”

The band’s structure is democratic, with each member contributing lyrics. Etling often brings in rough demos and the others create their own parts. Hoy says, “We start adding things and things start happening, and it becomes The Deadly Syndrome. I like going to Chris with lyrics because he can find vocal melodies in a way that I don’t understand.”

Only Hoy had band experience prior to joining The Deadly Syndrome, in a punk group that he left because it wasn’t a good fit. The others were working on their own music individually, but without satisfactory results. Richard says, “I think we all were kind of doing stuff, but when we came together, we realized, wow, these are the three pieces I wanted and needed. We all were working on something, or had ambitions to be working on something bigger and greater, and so...”

Hughes completes the thought: “It’s like that’s what you were missing that you didn’t realize. Like, ‘Wow, this makes sense. That’s why there are bands!’”

www.thedeadlysyndrome.com