Photo by Atiba Jefferson
(L to R): Dehd vocalist/guitarist Jason Balla, vocalist/bassist Emily Kempf and drummer Eric McGrady.
Three-ish years, a few tours, and two full-length albums later, the indie outfit heads back to Florida to fulfill the dreams of fans—like the one writing this very article—that have been patiently waiting for its return.
Dehd was scheduled to play Hooch and Hive in 2020, a venue with a capacity of about 150. In 2023, the band—fresh off of playing its biggest crowd yet at Lollapalooza this summer—will soon bring its reverb-heavy riffs and symbiotic vocals to Orpheum, which can accommodate about 400 people inside. The juxtaposed capacity of these venues truly speak to just how popular Dehd has grown over the past few years. Even Balla himself is surprised that the Midwestern outfit hasn’t ventured into Florida’s swamps yet.
“We’ve been touring for like seven years and it’s kinda insane to me we haven’t had a headlining show in Florida yet,” Balla tells Creative Loafing Tampa Bay in an email (Kempf just got married in the middle of the New Mexico desert, and McGrady has never been fond of interviews, so Balla is answering for his bandmates). “Just excited to catch the vibe of how y’all do it down there. Maybe catch a sunburn. Maybe make a couple gator sightings?!”
In addition to Tampa, Dehd is doing what bands of its caliber rarely do these days—an extensive run of Florida shows that span the entire state. In addition to Orpheum, Dehd will play for a few hundred sweaty fans in Miami, Jacksonville and Orlando—also hitting these cities for the first time in the band’s existence.
While next Thursday marks Dehd’s first Tampa show, the trio briefly ventured into the Sunshine State in 2021 for an eight-song set at St. Augustine’s Sing Out Loud Festival. On its drive back to Chicago, Dehd proudly sported a “Salt Life” bumper sticker on their van, invoking an ironic, yet playful interest in Florida culture (although the sticker has since been removed after Balla, Kempf and McGrady were made aware of the Salt Life cofounder’s recent murder conviction.)
While the trio is steadily rising to the top of indie-rock fame and continuously playing larger and larger crowds, Balla says that he’s looking forward to the intimate audiences that he and his bandmates will play in front of this month.
“Festivals are always fun, but the shows I love the most are intimate rooms. Festivals feel larger than life, but it’s a little harder to connect on a more personal level with the crowd. There’s these big barricades, all these cameras, the sunshine... it can get a little distracting,” Balla explains. “There’s nothing like being in a smaller room and close to the crowd. We can see each other’s faces without a jumbo screen or any of that—that’s when it feels most exciting.”
While its setlist may be compiled of songs that span all the way back to 2016, Tampeños can definitely expect a few tracks off of Dehd’s latest album, 2022’s Blue Skies— a 13-track LP filled with upbeat singles led by Kempf’s powerhouse vocals (“Bad Love”) and Balla-led tracks like “Palomino,” which serves as a soothing respite between heavy-hitting bops. Notably, McGrady only uses one floor tom, a snare and a sampler for percussion instead of a traditional drum kit, which creates a simple, yet echoing rhythm to each song.
Wonderfully tear-jerking and relatable lyrics aside, Kempf’s ability to roar, shriek, scream and yip with the gusto of Janis Joplin and the androgyny-invoking tone of Tracy Chapman is one of the most unique aspects of Dehd’s sound, which its “indie-rock” categorization rarely encapsulates.
While Bad Love is its newest and perhaps the most comprehensive work, I always come back to one of Dehd’s very first releases, 2017’s Fire of Love EP. Much to my surprise and delight, Balla agrees, saying “those songs are super special to me.”
“We are always making music and each album we make is a little doorway to a different time—it’s a way to relate to older versions of myself or to see from a different perspective I might not have anymore,” he adds.
What started as a handful of fuzzy, lo-fi songs with call-and-response vocals grew into all-encompassing rock anthems that will reverberate through the walls of a Tampa venue for the very first time this week. For a band of only three people, Dehd can sure make a lot of noise.
Pitchfork deemed Dehd’s 2020 album Fire of Devotion as the “perfect road-trip album,” and it will certainly be on repeat as I drive to three of Dehd’s Florida shows after years of patient anticipation.
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