Never heard of Deluxe? Well, who can really blame you? The four-piece band have only just completed their first tour outside of KwaZulu-Natal, but are about to become “national property” as they launch their debut album, This is Deluxe, next month with live performances across the country. “It’s happening this year, mark our words … we are going to do music full-time,” says the group’s guitarist Aidan Cornhill.
Deluxe grew from a songwriting relationship between Cornhill and lead singer/guitarist Torsten Fehsenfeld. After meeting in 2002 Fehsenfeld and Cornhill hooked up regularly to write songs and perform. This continued until late 2003 when they decided to recruit a bassist and drummer to fill out their sound for a live recording.
“We thought we would get these two musicians that were amped at the time so we would have a bigger sound, and they just never left,” says Cornhill. The musicians in question are bassist Roly Struckmeyer and drummer Adam Stanley.
Fehsenfeld says expanding the band did present some initial problems, but the process was a great learning experience. “Firstly, there are two new personalities to integrate into the band and then there is musical integration. Is this exactly what we wanted? Is it as spacious as we want it to sound? It’s quite a growing process.
“You know when you are in a band you are always fighting for parts or space. It was never like that. It was, let’s make a great song.”
Adds Cornhill: “It’s like something we were talking about earlier, about wanting to be a rock star and claiming parts. People like that are all about the stage, while we are all about the song.”
Chips in Fehsenfeld: “The song is king.”
The band took about eight months to record This is Deluxe, choosing a studio deal where they were able to fit in here and there. “It was three weeks intensive full-time and then just sporadic recording after that,” says Cornhill.
“In retrospect, it was great, taking time to craft the album,” says Fehsenfeld.
The group chose to record their album at Tropical Sweat Studios, under the watchful eye of co-producer and former Squeal frontman David Birch. The album is a stunning soft-rock repertoire with multilayered guitar riffs complemented by Fehsenfeld’s hoarse vocals. Outstanding efforts include the opening All, Let You Go and Headlights.
The band say that the challenging part of recording This is Deluxe was finding a sound that represented them. “We had endless discussions — do we give it that Pedro the Lion, Lo-Fi sort of approach? How far do we go? We didn’t want to have an album that we could not represent live,” says Fehsenfeld.
Deluxe’s first single, It’s Allright, is currently receiving airplay on East Coast Radio and Highveld.
“We can’t pick up Highveld in Durban. I was so bummed as they were the first to say ‘okay, we will pick up the song’, but we couldn’t hear it,” says Fehsenfeld.
Those lucky enough to have caught Deluxe live will be aware of the extra effort the band go to to please their fans. They distribute specially themed gifts to their audiences — a nice touch for a band building a relationship with their fans.
“We had our first gig at Home and we needed a flyer, so Torsten found this picture of these two hysterical girls who were fans of the Beatles and it said ‘I love Paul’.
“So Torsten put ‘I love Deluxe’ instead of Paul and then we decided to make badges with the image on … everyone loved it and wanted one and it sort of became a tradition,” says Cornhill. “I think it’s awesome though, it’s a thank you.”