Dead Actors formed in London in 2021, when, by chance, four young men sought refuge in a public toilet from an abrupt deluge of August rain. Their hair was slick, shirts clinging to their backs, sodden with water and sweat. The humid, porcelain night was fraught with static, the silence so loud it became silent again, and what little air there was quickly running out. In the bristling miasma an idea was formed, made of newspaper clippings, memories, predictions and insults. A sticky tomb and a maternity ward all at once, where, as something dies it is immediately reborn, dies again and is then once more reborn. A howl of injury becomes a cry of awakening. Bells ring in the distance but there is no one ringing them because none of the four young men can see anyone ringing them. A word is uttered, like the first building on the face of the earth, and it changes everything. No more silence.
Dead Actors is two guitarists, one of whom sings, a drummer and a bassist. The music they make together is like the lies you’ve heard and what could’ve been. They refer to their music as anti-rock, because they are free to do so. If you ask the group why they persist and what influences them, they will try to avoid answering. The problem with influence is that nothing sounds like it’s supposed to and only as good as the PR budget allows the write up to be. How many groups are supposed to sound like Sonic Youth or Swans? Do they actually? Persistence is a motivation in itself. If they’ve been making music since 2021, why stop now, or ever? As the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Dismantling Rome in a day, however, is much easier.
Dead Actors is Jonah Hartley, Daniel Brown, Ciarán Harris and Nico Wood Oliván. They have released an album, two EP’s and a standalone single. Work on their second album, Translation Failure Exception, is underway.
Photos by Alex Creamer.
Dead Actors 