Exclusive video premiere of ‘Ghosts’ by Deadfinger, taken from the new self-titled album, out today via Spectrogram Records.

During the early lockdowns of the Pandemic the two members and old friends of what would soon become Deadfinger began to discuss and then put into action a way to get together and play music. A founding member of Die Kreuzen, Daniel Kubinski describes the formation of Deadfinger saying: “Dwain and I have been friends for 20 years or more, we’ve played in bands together before. Most notably, FuckFace. In the early version of FuckFace Dwain and I played drums, so we had to work together”. – while Kubinski writes guitar-riffs, Dwain Flowers accompanies guitar-work with his very thoughtful, sometimes sporadic but always creative ideas. “Dwain always takes my guitar work somewhere I hadn’t thought of.”- says Daniel. “His work adds new and interesting dynamics and twists on my ideas, thus making them purely Deadfinger”.

One of the most notorious lyricists of the American underground, Daniel speaks about writing as a purely natural process for him. “My grandmother, Millie told me that she and her mother and father and her three brothers would sit around and play guitars, banjo, accordion and sing, almost nightly. “We didn’t have TV or radio” she said, “That’s how we entertained ourselves.” When she told me this all the music in my life, all the music in my blood and soul became even more real, true and absolute, like I had been approved” – explains Kubinski: “My life’s work and dreams of creating and playing music was meant to be, in fact, I belong here”.

It was no easy task but the two soon devised a way to divide their rehearsal spot in half with clear plastic (so they could see one another) and they began writing originals and playing cover songs to keep the boredom of the lockdowns at bay. A healthy song writing duo has emerged from these sessions. The result became the debut Deadfinger LP coming out today – one original and nine cover songs, rearranged by the duo in their own style and voice.

The cover songs are some of Deadfinger’s most favorite songs from early childhood through to today: songs by The Walker Brothers, Patti Smith, IAMX, David Bowie, Hüsker Dü are presented on the band’s debut.

According to Daniel: “Learning and playing these cover songs has been a wonderful way to work out emotional instabilities in my private life and create a new found way of expressing myself musically, creatively. As well as simply being a great mood enhancer in these dark and uncertain times.” In other words, Kubinski has found himself. Once again. Working on the arrangements, tempo, structure of some of the band’s favorites allowed Daniel to make a transition and get into the habit of songwriting. “Now I’m hooked. I spend weeknights and off days playing my acoustic and/or writing lyrics”. – explains the vocalist of DeadFinger.

Dwain Flowers describes ‘Ghosts’ as being a “back waters, Louisiana swamp stomper” in its simplicity and dark, brooding content. More songs in the same vein, such as ‘Metaflextion’, ‘Lover’ and ‘Big Dirt’ are being carefully crafted for the follow up LP ‘Black Heart’ coming out in 2023.

Headline photo: Fred Fischer

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