Behind the Band: Death From Above 1979

Death From Above is a Canadian rock duo established in 2001. The first time Jesse F. Keeler (bassist) and Sebastien Grainger (vocalist and drummer) got together, they hardly lasted. However, they made several comebacks throughout the years as an impossibly brilliant duo. 

The music produced by the two is similar to The Black Keys, “dance-punk” and punk rock. “Death From Above embodied the DIY dance-punk aesthetic that lived in home recordings and grimy basement club,” claimed Rolling Stone. 

Keeler was young when he got into music. It was all around him growing up, his mother was a producer, and his father had played with Steppen Wolf and various other bands. Though he is fair-skinned, his mother is from India, and his father is white/British. He grew up in a large, low-income family though he felt very much rich in the parts that mattered, love, and support. 

Keeler played the drums since he was three years old simply because he liked it. Even as he got older, he never wanted to turn it into a profession. He learned the drums solely because they were available to him. Later on in his childhood, he had started to fall into a deep love of music. Keeler had been sitting by an old stereo when he heard You and I by Rick James for the first time. Soon he knew all the lyrics, and his parents went down to buy him more records by James. 

Keeler had stated in an interview, “Maybe I was too scared to have heros because I didn’t want to be disappointed.” But he looked up to people and found inspiration from many artists. There wasn’t much that I could find on Grainger’s childhood other than he was usually and deeply depressed. 

The two met at a concert though they joke they met in prison, on a private ship, or in a gay bar. They were around twenty-one – twenty-two. They released their first album in October 2004, called You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine. The two published three singles to promote their album, Romantic Rights on November 4, 2004, Blood on Our Hands on February 17, 2005, and Black History Month on June 13, 2005. In 2005, the video for Blood on Our Hands won a VideoFACT award at the MuchMusic Video Awards. 

During the same year, the band was forced to change their name due to a record label, Death From Above Records. They were pretty pissed and wrote this on their website:

UCK DFA RECORDS FUCK JAMES MURPHY WE DECLARE JIHAD ON THEM HOLY WAR ENDING IN THIER DEATH AND DISMEMBERMENT… james murphy is a selfish piece of fuck that will burn in the flames of a specially dedicated rock and roll jihad. if i had the resources i would fly a plane into his skull.

Here was Murphy’s side of the story, told in 2005 to Pitchfork:

“We knew about them for a long time, the name thing wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t until they signed to a major label, which wouldn’t release the record until we signed off on the name. That’s how this all came about… [Parent company of Death From Above 1979’s label, Vice] Atlantic’s not gonna release a record by a band with the same name as another entity in music… we spent a lot of money because we didn’t just wanna be total fucking assholes and just say no. We were trying to find a way for it to actually work… I was like, “What the hell’s wrong with Death From Above 1979?” But the copyright attorney was like, “No, that’s not fine.” And I said, “If they become a totally different name, and it delays their record, that’s something I’m not comfortable with.” So we just tried to make it work as well as possible.”

On August 3rd, 2005, they finally announced their breakup after not pushing anything out for nearly a year. This is what he had posted: 

“I know its been forever since I wrote anything on here. I’m sure by now most of you assume the band isn’t happening anymore. I wanted to let you know that your assumptions are correct. We decided to stop doing the band… Actually we decided that almost a year ago. We finished off our scheduled tour dates because there were good people working for us who relied on us to make a living and buy Christmas presents and pay rent etc. We couldn’t just cancel everything and leave them out to dry… Plus I think we wanted to see if we would reconsider after being out on the road. Our label was really hoping that we would change our minds, so they asked us to keep quiet about the decision for at first. Well, it’s been quite a while now and we are still very sure the band won’t happen again, so I guess it’s time to say something.” 

While they were broken up, it’s unclear precisely what Keeler had been doing, but Grainger was hustling. He began his solo career and released his album “Sebastien Grainger & The Mountains” on October 1st, 2008. He recorded and wrote all parts of the record on his own. He also played with various bands and occasions. 

Grainger and Keeler got back together and published “The Physical World” in 2014, took a long break, and released “Outrage! Is Now” in 2017.