'Words Just Left Me': Alejandra Deheza on School Of Seven Bells' Final Statement

Photo: Clarke Tolton/Justin Hollar

Creating a powerful microcosm charged with passion and devastation, the music crafted by Alejandra Deheza and Benjamin Curtis as School of Seven Bells is drenched in tender, bittersweet emotion. Meeting by chance in 2004, while playing in bands supporting Interpol, their worlds collided and would remain forever changed.

Discovering a deep and soulful connection that bound both together creatively and, for a time, romantically, from that moment on their lives consisted of playing shows and writing and recording their poetic verses and anthemic melodies. Churning out song after song in the studio, working for 12 hour stretches at a time, the pair would then dance until the morning beckoned.

Awakening a need in each other to explore every opportunity life invited, Dehaza describes that time with her best friend: “It was perfect. As brilliant as life could ever have been. I couldn’t function without us making music together. I needed it. That was part of us being alive together and it was super intense. It completely changed the way I saw my life from the minute that I met him.”

They began writing ‘SVIIB’, their fourth album, a beautiful, honest and bountiful collection, in the summer of 2012, when both took a break from their tour schedule. The blissful writing sessions ran into the autumn, when Curtis fell ill. He was later diagnosed with T-Cell Lymphoblastic Lymphoma and in 2013 he tragically passed away. He was 35. Dehaza was left desolate and alone.

Her pain came gradually into focus and she relocated to LA. She began finalising the material she had written with Curtis all that time ago, working closely with friend and producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen to build the record that she and Curtis had envisioned. Describing the process as haunting and harrowing, the end goal of finally releasing her soulmate’s posthumous album helped channel the grief and confusion which clouded her mind.

The fruits of their painstaking labours are profound and deeply affecting. Released on February 26, it is an incredibly moving tale of true love, interrupted but remembered with the delicate reflection only inner peace can bring. Listen with an open heart in a thankful moment.

When you finally rendered the album and you heard it in its entirety, did you feel a sense of relief, triumph or more sadness?

Everything. A whole spectrum. I’m not going to know how it’s going to feel for everything to be complete until all of this is done. It was a mixture, very intense. I remember playing it for the first time for the label. We were so rattled by the experience, because when you had been working on something so intensely, it is just you. We had been stuck in a room working on this planet of different life we had created and then all of a sudden people are listening to it and it’s so far out. It was really bizarre. Right after we played the album to the record labels we couldn’t carry on working on the finer details and just went out. We needed a drink. It was insane. I had never seen Justin like that. All of us were so shell shocked by the experience.

How did Justin help to enhance the album when you collaborated?

When Benjamin got admitted into the hospital, about a month later is when we had scheduled to work with Justin. He had a flight over to New York and he was going to be staying there and he came anyway to just talk. He knew the rhythms of the record really, really well and has always been so respectful of everything. I could not have finished this without him. He always made sure to let me know he was there and ready. We met up a couple of times and decided to finish it there and then.

We were working so close with the songs we already had. Some of the production was already complete, but there were a lot of things that Brandon [Curtis, Benjamin’s brother and Secret Machines bandmate] had to go into Benjamin’s computer and hard drive for. They had to sort everything out because everything was such a mess. It had been so long and he had been working on things here and there. Without Brandon this couldn’t have happened. Then Justin came in and basically they were working as much as possible to make the songs sound exactly as they were when we were working on them.

Looking back on the album written in that summer, is there a moment that epitomises your time spent together in those moments?

Yes, it was when we were writing This Is Our Time. I remember we were just getting ready to do more shows, some tours booked, just hanging about in the studio. We had no work to do anymore and we thought: ‘We have written so many songs for the record and we're just gonna sit back and wait for Justin.’ That was going to be in a month, so we were just gonna take a break from being in the studio every day playing music. We decided to write a new song just for fun ahead of a date we were playing in New York and we did and that song just right there, the words and the vocals. Everything just happened. It was just during that peak, it was the perfect time in our lives. We were having so much fun. We were in the studio all day and at night we would be going out dancing and DJing. It was a perfect moment. We were the best and the closest two people could be. There was no baggage. It was perfect.

I also read that you would work for 12 hours a day?

Oh my God, yeah. It didn’t even matter how late we got back. It was just about getting home, no matter how hungover we were, and always going to the studio religiously at 6am. Get a coffee at the corner with something to eat. We all were walking distance from the studio. We would stop working, go out and do the whole thing all over again. It was the best life possible. It was never like: ‘Ugh, gotta go to work.' We were just happy to do that when the sun came up.

The texture and layering of the music allows for the choruses to feel quite overwhelming. I was wondering if that was representative of how you two could experience life together?

Oh yeah, there was never a dull moment from the day we met. Never! We just met and were completely and insanely crazy about each other, but making music from that point. Even though we were both in different bands it was fire.

What have you been listening to that has helped your ability to write?

It’s crazy, for a year I couldn’t write anything I swear. I couldn’t even write a sentence down. It was such a block. I had all these things stirring in my head and then the minute I went to write something down everything turned into a cement block. Nothing made sense. The words were gone. I was pulverised. It was the craziest thing for someone like me, because that’s how I function. I have been writing since I was a kid. Now, finally, since finishing the record, I have been able to get my thoughts out. Moving here [Los Angeles] and finishing the record, I have been able to move forward. But before, it just drove me nuts to not be able to for a year. Nothing made sense. I couldn’t talk about it. Words just left me.

When you listen back, which track do you think combines your talents best?

I think the one is Open Your Eyes. When we were writing it, we were both like: ‘What is this?' We had just never written anything like that before. I didn’t write that way and he didn’t write that way. It was a song that came out of the ether. The lyrics were so hard to sing in the same room as him. Wow. It was so private and all things that I couldn’t talk about with him. All these things that I just didn’t want to bring up because I didn’t want to disrupt our life. We had just reached this point and I have to create that song for that reason.

Will you continue to write and record your own material?

Definitely. That's who I am.

There’s a real strong sense of positivity, power and passion to the music. Will your music be a continuation of what you have recorded previously in School of Seven Bells?

It’s all my voice, as much I think each record is different. It’s still my voice and that’s what I have been told. I can think the vibes are entirely different, but people tell me it’s exactly the same. I’m just too close to the songs. I feel like the stuff that I am writing now is completely different, but I’m sure someone else will  tell me that’s just how I write. It's always been a little bit romantic; a little bit of that will never leave. I will have to see what people think when I actually play it

How do you get to  grips with performing the material live? That must be a painful process.

I haven’t performed them yet.

Will you?

Put it this way: I am working on it. It’s heavy.

'SVIIB' is out on February 26 through Vagrant/Full Time Hobby.

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