Death from Above 1979 was a Toronto based Canadian dance-punk duo in the 2000s. The members were Jesse F. Keeler on bass, synths, backing vocals and Sebastien Grainger on vocals, drums. Without the help of a lead guitarist they played loud, heavy metal influenced, dance-punk on a bass and drums combination. They were signed to Last Gang Records in Canada, Vice Recordings in the U.S. and 679 Recordings in the UK.
Although they reportedly met at a Sonic Youth concert, Keeler and Grainger sometimes jokingly claimed to have met in prison, on a pirate ship, or in a gay bar, leading some journalists and fans to believe these hoaxes. They also claimed to have lived in a funeral home at one time. In 2005, the video for "Blood On Our Hands" won a VideoFACT award at the MuchMusic Video Awards. They played "Romantic Rights" on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, with Grainger standing on his chair singing and drumming for the first half of the performance and Conan's Max Weinberg on drums for the second.
On Keeler, via the band's official website, announced the duo's split.
Name change controversy
The band was originally named "Death from Above", a name which appears on their first released recording, a self titled EP release. The duo changed their name after a legal dispute with New York City dance music label DFA Records, with the members of Death from Above 1979 denouncing LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy in messages on their website. Death from Above had been a working name of Murphy's prior to the 11 September 2001 attacks.
The reason for the seemingly arbitrary date of 1979 comes from Sebastien Grainger's birth date. From Sebastien's perspective, this is what it stood for:
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1979 is the year of my birth,
1979 is the year of Off the Wall,
1979 is the year of Pleasure Principle,
1979 is the last year of the last cool decade,
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He also stated in an interview given to MTV: "I was born that year, and it's never going to be wrong."
Split
DFA1979 live in NYC, March 2005
As of , 2006 the band officially disbanded. Jesse F. Keeler posted the following message on the official Death from Above 1979 forum:
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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 since there are no shows, no work on a new album, etc. well. 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.(...)
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?Jesse F. Keeler,
On MuchMusic's television program The New Music, Keeler further explained why the band split. He claimed it was due to disagreements with bandmate Grainger on many levels, including creative differences, music style, and more.
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Original Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death From Above 1979
Original Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death From Above 1979
