We chat to HEALTH founding singer and guitarist Jake Duzsik, ahead of their sixth album, CONFLICT DLC, out December 11 via Loma Vista.
HEALTH are always the first to poke fun at themselves. Their merch promotes “Sad Music For Horny People”, and their mantra of “YOU WILL LOVE EACH OTHER” is printed on free condoms handed out at shows. But behind the veneer of irony, HEALTH’s championing of modern industrial has created a global community far-removed from empty nostalgia and fetishising misery. It finds empowerment in empathy and refuses to be placid in the face of injustice.
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Jake Duzsik, founding singer and guitarist, is fascinating in conversation. He flicks between utter reverence for music and biting wit as a self-described “fucking luddite technological moron caveman.” I ask about his approach to vocal production, as his ethereal, androgynous voice is one of the core elements that sets HEALTH apart from its contemporaries.
“When the band started, it was one of those punk rock stories where ‘someone has to be the singer.’ I used to layer everything in a very shoegaze kind of Kevin Shields way, multi-tracked vocals and tucked them lower in the mix. As we’ve written songs that are more melody-forward, we just shied away from that quite a bit.
“Now, production-wise, it’s mostly just single track vocals with reverb, and then I’ll layer it for a chorus so it’ll pop out more or something. But a lot of the affectation and the way I sing, that sort of gender-neutral androgyny… I can’t remember how many times, whether or not it’s in person or on the internet, someone has said ‘I was sure that this was a female singer, that this was a woman, that this was whatever.’
“That’s just how my voice sounds, and it’s hopefully just a testament to the fact that more people are hearing the music. We’ve gotten a lot more exposure in heavy music communities, people who are listening to hardcore and metalcore and thrash and all these kinds of things. I think that they’re not used to hearing vocals like that at all, so they don’t know what the fuck to make of it, heads or tails.”
Intentional or not, Jake’s vocal style and lyricism don’t exist in a vacuum. Industrial, goth, and alt scenes are heavily populated by marginalised, queer, and neurodivergent people who see themselves in HEALTH.
“It’s not something that we have curated or tried to take any ownership over. Because we really respect our community, especially our Discord, which is so active. But the LGBTQ+ and particularly the trans faction of our fanbase is very supportive.
“Nothing is gendered or grounded. I want things to be appealing to anyone on a very emotional, empathetic level. There’s a lot of generally dysphoric, unhappy, struggling with existentialism and meaning (lyrics) that I have just had as a preoccupation my entire life. But I think that somehow those components, like the aggressive music, the goth scene, the industrial scene and the post-punk scene… It’s always been playing with the queer space and gender fluidity, and non-normative macho shit. Which is not, like, ‘metal’ y’know. We don’t present ourselves that way at all. All those things in conjunction with the lyrics and the vocal, I think, seem to create something that’s appealing in that way.”
For music entrenched in such dark themes, HEALTH’s tight-knit community provides aftercare, which dispels any notion of suffering being worshipped. The band has consistent messaging of “YOU WILL LOVE EACH OTHER” and “DON’T KILL YOURSELF” across most of its media releases. Jake finds this particularly important, considering the vulnerability of his writing and the current state of the world.
“When people were telling us that we had helped them through some sort of mental health crisis, the immediate reaction was imposter syndrome. You feel like ‘you can’t take my band that seriously.’ I mean, I do internally, but after hearing it enough times, you need to be respectful of it. Even though the songs are depressing lyrically, people are coming to see them as uplifting or somehow comforting.”
“To me, the biggest thing is feeling seen and not feeling isolated or alone in those experiences. Because having had those kind of experiences myself, where you feel lost or hopeless, being able to commiserate with another human being who has had those same feelings is hugely therapeutic. I wanna write lyrics that I feel are true to me, but I think that it is important to juxtapose the bleakness with some form of humanism and empathy.
“No art is made in a vacuum. It’s a response to the environment in which it’s created, and the way that it’s viewed is also interrelated to the world state that you’re in. I know, like, there are plenty of things that we have to be thankful for in terms of stability, having food and having shelter, but things are pretty bad.
“Especially in my country, they’re really bad. And they’re just getting worse. It’s terrifying. And then on top of that rise in authoritarianism and fascism, and suppression of human rights, there’s this concurrent phenomenon of our technology, our phones, destroying our brains. So, y’know, hard to think that those things don’t have a pretty significant effect on how people feel, and how they feel about music, and how they feel about having a place to go.”
Releasing December 11th, CONFLICT DLC completes the “Neo-Industrial Saga” started by RAT WARS in 2023. “It’s all the same sonic palette. In a weird way I would say that this record is just as sad, but more fun? It’s trying to simultaneously be melancholic as fuck, and also a party. Once this record’s done, that’s the door closing on the RAT WARS sonic universe.”
HEALTH’s sixth album, CONFLICT DLC, is out December 11 via Loma Vista Recordings.
