It’s been a big year for Deafheaven. Their sixth album, March’s Lonely People With Power, isn’t so much a return to form for the black-metal, post-metal, shoegaze — whatever you wanna call ’em — band, but rather an affirmation of why they’ve been the vanguard for heavy music’s avant-garde since releasing 2013’s instant classic Sunbather.
“We’re just trying to be the best we can,” George Clarke says with a humble laugh.
Before he became the frontman of one of metal’s most critically acclaimed bands, Clarke — like many others — was a dorky kid who got into heavier music through nu-metal. After all, he grew up in what is arguably the birthplace of the style: Bakersfield, California, Korn’s hometown.
“Growing up in Bakersfield, you felt like you were certainly removed from Los Angeles, but part of a fabric,” Clarke says. “Korn was really big, Deftones was really big, even just having The Matrix soundtrack — all of it made a pretty significant mark on me.”
As his musical inclinations have evolved over the years, so has his perspective on nu-metal, particularly Deftones.
“As a listener, you come back to them with fresher context, the broader your own tastes become,” Clarke says. “So initially, I was like, ‘Deftones is a nu-metal band. I like nu-metal.’ And then you go through a couple years of listening to post-hardcore, and you put on that Deftones album again, and you’re like, ‘Oh, Deftones is kind of like a post-hardcore band, that’s fun.’ And then you find shoegaze and darkwave and stuff like that, and you come back to a Deftones record, and you’re like, ‘Oh, Deftones is kind of a shoegaze band.’”
Considering how much Deafheaven’s own blend of genres mirrors Deftones’, Chino Moreno says they “fit perfectly” at Dia De Los Deftones. That said, Deafheaven do stand out as the 2025 lineup’s heaviest act — something Clarke is stoked about.
“We are certainly the heavy band this year. That is very cool, honored to carry the torch,” he enthuses. “I love being the heavy band on festivals. It’s certainly not the first time.”