Deaf Club’s Justin Pearson, legendary frontperson of hardcore’s the Locust, reflects on the state of the world and permanently courting controversy.
“I kept thinking that we were probably going to get shot that day,” recalls Justin Pearson, lead singer for Deaf Club. He is telling me about a protest his band, Satanic Planet, took part in earlier this year at the capital building in Indianapolis, Indiana. “There were legitimate Christian fascists in military garb threatening us. I am used to threats, so I was thinking that at least I’d be dying for something that matters. One of our band members even decided to set up behind me because he was afraid that someone was going to kill Lucien [Graves, leader of the Satanic Temple]”, he shares.
Since the last Satanic Planet record’s release, a Satanic Temple was set on fire, and Graves now has a bomb-sniffing dog with him at all times. Signs of the times in a culture where free speech is now up for debate.
For nearly 30 years, he has been in band after band that have left a mark on hardcore, from Swing Kids to Head Wound City, Retox, Some Girls, and Dead Cross. Throughout this time, he and his bandmates have rarely gotten the credit they deserve for their influence. In a scene not marked by its accessibility, his work is singular, unafraid to push buttons, stretch boundaries, and court disdain. His story is an example of how even in a scene that promotes individuality and free thinking, there are gatekeepers and norms, and consequences for non-compliance.
“A lot of people are afraid of upsetting people. I can only speak for myself, but no matter what I do or say tends to provoke a strong reaction, and I like that. I know that if I’m getting that type of reaction, I’m doing something right. Most of what I do doesn’t get an ‘eh’ response,” Pearson says.
Deaf Club just released their new record, We Demand a Permanent State of Happiness. Curiously enough, their powerful video for “Pain in the Assery” seemed destined to provoke a strong reaction, but Justin Pearson was surprised by the measured reaction. Widespread outrage or not, it is a powerful statement about 11 September that connects that event to ongoing violence in Gaza. The numbed response to the video might be more telling about our response to genocide there, actually.
“For the video, I linked up with an artists’ collective called InDecline, and they told me they had some footage I could use to make a video. I wound up adding the audio at the beginning, but the video footage was already made. It was great to work with them. The reactions from people have been surprising. I was expecting a lot of backlash, and there wasn’t. Everyone asked me to write a statement about it, and the responses to the video showed me that people didn’t read that, which makes the criticism kind of humorous to me.
“The InDecline artist wanted to show it in relation to the destruction of Gaza. I was glad to know that, because it wasn’t apparent to me at first. Adding barbed wire and destruction in the streets was meant by the artist to evoke Gaza. And maybe we are so immune to images of war and violence now that it didn’t faze us,” he explains.
We Demand a Permanent State of Happiness‘ album cover, which features an assault rifle broken in two, has suddenly become even more topical in light of current events. “I’m not an advocate for political violence, but Charlie Kirk pushed for that. He was into gun rights and danced around the verbiage of ending people’s lives,” Pearson says. “The overall lyrical content of the new record is not much different from the things I’ve been saying all along, which is depressing because it was like that with the very first band I was in when I was 15. We are still dealing with the same shit. The album’s subject matter is the obvious stuff that the world is still facing.”
Deaf Club were initially going to be a project that sprang from a collaboration between Pearson and Yeah Yeah Yeahs‘ Nick Zinner, who was also part of the Pearson project Head Wound City, on music for a film. That stalled, but the group still came together.
Deaf Club’s name has been a source of negative attention at times. “The band name is a nod to the legendary punk venue with the same name, but it’s also a commentary on our music. Some people have said what we create isn’t really music,” Pearson says. “Could there have been a better name for the band? Probably. There is irony in the band’s name. We aren’t doing it from a malicious perspective. It’s kind of making fun of us, really. I have been told for my whole career by people online that they could do what I do. You’re going to come at us when there is all this other shit going on in the world?”
In a world where people are doomscrolling and looking for reasons to be outraged, a group named Deaf Club is an easy target, but is there danger in sanding the edges from everything in the spirit of not creating dialogue, in a world where people are literally fighting for their right to exist?
“When I’m offended by something, I look at the source. Where are they coming from? Are they trying to make a point? It’s fine to make people uncomfortable. In the nineties, there were so many hardcore records that had graphic images of war, and it wasn’t glorification. All of the Struggle records had brutal imagery. At the time, we didn’t know how to be more artistic than presenting these images.
“Even with the new record, there’s a lyric in a song that has an f-slur. One band member was uncomfortable with it, but others said it should be used because it was appropriate in the context. Is it too taboo? I spent my entire life being called that term. The lyric is more about, ‘We are called this word, and fuck this world for making it harder for people to be who they are. I want to lift people who are marginalized.”
We Demand a Permanent State of Happiness continues the politically charged content Deaf Club are known for, but it is also a little more accessible, possibly providing a point of entry for adventurous listeners who are not as well-versed in Pearson’s other projects. As you might expect for an artist who is in several bands at once, there is a restlessness that drives the vision from one release to the next.
“It wasn’t a conscious effort to be catchier, but it is usually a choice to change things up. The next record will probably be more brutal again. I tend not to like my vocal performances. I think the vocals are a little too soft on this one. I wish it were harder and nastier. This record isn’t as nasty or jarring, but that came more from working together than from a manifesto,” Pearson explains.
“Much of the work I’ve done in bands has been brutal, but it didn’t always have clarity. When you’re recording analog, it is harder to note all the nuances, but now we can do more sonically. If you can make brutal music with blast beats and yelling, but make it have hooks or melody or give it cohesiveness, that’s cool. Still, I’m already thinking it’s too soft. I want to get brutal again on the next one.”
Justin Pearson has always had a knack for biting, humorous song titles, and this new collection has some great ones, including “All Hot Dogs are in-Bread”, “Nihilism for Dummies”, and “Biblical Loophole”. Pearson has always written political lyrics, so these times are ripe for inspiration, even though he wishes they weren’t.
“It just has to be like this for me. It’s hard to write something positive, especially with the sound of this band. Writing about my dog wouldn’t fit with this music. Then there’s the brutal grind of this world–the destruction of the planet, the lack of humanity in Western civilization. We are supplying the weapons that are causing the destruction of Gaza. It feels crazy because, as citizens, we can’t do a lot to combat it. Supporting Israel is being on the wrong side of history. In war, the profit element is always there. Someone is always profiting and someone is always suffering,” he shares.
He continues, “Having the privilege of not addressing the state of the world… I can’t write a fun hardcore song because the world sucks. I don’t think I can do anything else. I have anxiety and stress because I’m aware of what’s going on right now. I want to say something. It’s up to artists to reflect the world we live in and relate to it. It makes me want to do something that could have a ripple effect or even just provide listeners with an opportunity to breathe. And there’s always the complaint about keeping politics out of music, but even before people recorded music, there were war chants and folk music. Saying that to me is like saying, ‘don’t breathe air.’”
Pearson has been in the hardcore scene long enough to see disturbing trends re-emerge. “For over a decade now, you can be a fascist bigot and that’s acceptable to say openly. Neo-Nazis have been around hardcore for decades, and I’ve always had problems with them in the scene. I remember being threatened by them when I was a kid, twelve years old and just starting to go to shows. But luckily, I found protection and solidarity with other groups in the scene. That extreme went away for a while, but the pendulum has swung back that far again.”
The infighting of the opposition is not helping matters. “At the same time, maybe the progressives got a little soft. Hopefully, the leftists can stop shitting on each other and develop a response. People on the left criticize people on the left for not being as pure as they are. How is that helping? Someone got a Deaf Club show canceled because no one in the band has a hearing impairment. In order not to get kicked off the bill, we were asked to make and distribute a zine before the show to address that. We are not mocking people with disabilities with the name. That’s not the point at all.”
Deaf Club will be on tour at some point in the near future, and there are also new releases from Planet B and Satanic Planet on the way. Last year, he published a new book, GG Alien and the Mystery Meat. Pearson never stops working, from his bands to running Three One G, the label he started over 30 years ago. Pearson’s ability to keep the label afloat in these last three years of rapid change is remarkable. The talent that is attracted to work with Pearson is an enviable list, including Slayer’s Dave Lombardo, Faith No More‘s Mike Patton, and now Martin Atkins of Killing Joke, Ministry, Pigface, and Nine Inch Nails.
“I have been an unpaid intern for myself for 31 years. As much as it is sometimes not fun, I have learned a lot about how to survive in a capitalist system that doesn’t care about art. It keeps going because I have to find ways to do all of it with very little money. I wonder if it will be considered historically relevant. Money aside, it’s an incredible community of artists that I am so happy to be involved with. I’m broke as fuck, but I am able to create music with people who are absolute legends who have become people I love.”
Justin Pearson has learned that, like the groups who inspired him, it is not about the immediate response. “It comes down to monetary success for most people in the industry. But I am completely successful in many other ways, and a lot of those don’t show themselves in real time. The Locust was not fun, cool, and easy at the time, and it felt like people didn’t really care about it at the time, but it would have been great to have Gabe (Serbian, drummer for the Locust who passed away in 2022) here to see the legacy of it. What I do has very little value, but once in a while, someone tells me one of my bands saved their life.”