Sydney’s Deficit are back with a vengeance, unleashing their fired-up new single FYA featuring Jay Webster of Texas rap-metal band UNITYTX. The track is a thrashy, groove-laden combination of hardcore and rap-metal, dripping with tongue-in-cheek angst and a deliberate jab at the overly self-serious corners of heavy music.
With four EPs, millions of streams, and tours alongside the likes of Alpha Wolf, Malevolence, UNITYTX and Ocean Sleeper already under their belts, Deficit have become one of Sydney’s most commanding rising forces. Forged in the toughness of Western Sydney’s scene, the band thrive on authenticity and unapologetic individuality.
We caught up with Deficit to talk about the making of FYA, their collaboration with UNITYTX, their vision for authentic heavy music, and what’s next.
HEAVY: Congrats on the release of FYA! First off – how did the collaboration with Jay of UNITYTX come about, and what drew you to his style for the song?
Deficit: It was one of those natural, organic things, really. We’ve been flying the flag for UnityTX for nearly 10 years now, and have always had a rapport with the guys. There are a lot of similarities between ourselves and UnityTX in our attitudes and perspectives – It’s one of the reasons why we get along so well.
It made perfect sense to us to have Shaolin involved in one of our new tracks, especially one that is meant to be polarising. Getting to catch up and play together earlier this year was a long time coming and a huge amount of fun. That’s when we were able to sit down together and work out what we wanted to do, both musically and for the video.
The lyrics in FYA are intentionally over the top – was it liberating to lean into the absurdity of it?
We notice a lot of bands spend so much time and energy trying so hard to be what other people will think is “cool”. Borrowing heavily from other bands musically, and trying to write lyrics that are deep and profound, stringing together abstract words because they are trying to be poetic, but in actual fact, they don’t have anything to say, or any actual real-world experience to draw from. As opposed to truly being honest with yourself and letting your own individuality and creativity shine through to create memorable art, it’s just empty, hollow posturing.
To jab at that, we very deliberately wrote a set of nonsensical lyrics, made them as angsty as we could with as many expletives as we could fit. Lyrically, this is how these artists come across to us. Make no mistake, there are still some very pointed lines in the track – but it was definitely liberating trying to outdo each other and make these as over the top and nonsensical as possible to reflect what we hear.
Working with Colin Jeffs (Ten of Swords Media) on the video – what was the vision for how FYA should be presented visually?
FYA is the second of three parts. Original Criminal, our previous single being the first. It has been important to us to focus on building the visual “world” in which Deficit exists. There’s a very loose narrative that carries across these videos, and in future videos. Stylistically we like each video to have individuality, but it’s important that they reflect us and are an extension of us. Urban scenes, grittier tones, an edge of cheekiness and drawing influence from a lot of our favourite videos from the 90s in particular.
The band has been clear about rejecting polished, overproduced modernity in favour of authenticity. What does “authentic heavy music” mean to Deficit?
With our writing and creating, it’s about not giving a fuck what others think. Ignoring trends, genre tropes and boundaries and just writing what you truly love and enjoy. If it’s honest, and it moves you, it’ll move others. This continues into our music production, which needs to reflect this. With the advancement of technology, it has become easier to make any music you create “perfect”. Whilst that can be great, it lessens the human element, and that makes it harder for it to resonate in any way for a listener.
We walk that line of making things sound big, punchy and clear using all the modern tools and standards of today, but at the same time still giving it a raw energy, so as to maintain a level of aggressiveness and abrasiveness that we feel is missing from a lot of what we hear. It is supposed to be metal, after all.
The Sydney heavy scene is thriving right now. Has being forged in that environment influenced Deficit’s sound and attitude?
Absolutely. The band is from Western Sydney. If you know the area, you know what life is like out there. It’s part of the band’s DNA, and makes its way into everything we do. There’s a hardness and hunger there that’s underpinning it all. Not only that, you’ve got Sydney bands like Speed playing Coachella, Justice For The Damned topping ARIA charts, Polaris touring with Slipknot – this is just to name a few! That fills us with pride for all the bands from our hometown, but further motivates us to keep striving as hard as we can.
Deficit have already put out four EPs – can listeners expect another full-length release soon?
They can, and a lot sooner than you may think.
