Guest List features artists filling us in on some of their favorite things, along with other random bits. This time, we spoke with guitarist Kerry McCoy and frontman George Clarke of Deafheaven, whose ecstatic LP Sunbather was our favorite metal album of last year. 

Last Great Concert I Saw

Kerry McCoy: Drake was the last one I saw, but the last great one I saw was Marshstepper.

George Clarke: That Drake show really killed it, too. We play clubs for the most part, but I’m really impressed by large-scale productions. They have explosions, lights. I liked the things that you could tell he totally rehearsed. It was well thought-out.

Strangest Display of Affection From a Fan

GC: We were playing Moscow, and it was the tightest show. The crowd was crazy. And this girl kept climbing onto the stage and hugging my leg—I’m trying to walk and she's just bear hugging me. I was wearing these really tall Doc Martens boots, and she was just licking it up and down. I'm just like, “Holy shit, this is ridiculous.” So I looked at her, and she opened her mouth, and I just spit in it. She was so down. Eventually, security had to pull her away.

KM: Her boyfriend was in the opening band and he didn’t even care. 

Favorite Karaoke Song

KM: “All My Life” by K-Ci & JoJo. But one time [George] got kicked out of this gay bar because he was screaming it, like doing death-metal vocals.

Favorite Actresses

KM: For me it would definitely have to be that super-bomb girl from Seven Pounds.  

GC: Rosario Dawson? 

KM: Yeah, or like Sandra Bullock—but like Speed-era Sandra Bullock. 

GC: Wait, are we talking looks?

KM: I mean, they're all good at acting.

Easiest Money I've Ever Made

KM: [laughs] To be honest, we still sometimes get back from tours and almost have to keep ourselves from laughing at the fact that people are actually paying us to do this. 

Worst Part About Being on the Road

GC: It's really just little things, like not seeing your girlfriend, not getting laid. That sucks.

Dumbest Thing I Bought This Year

GC: A pair of sunglasses that have two weed leaves on the lenses, so you can barely see out of them. They were $9.99 at a liquor store.

KM: This keychain in France that says: “Fuck nature, I’m a capitalist.” It has a picture of a guy throwing away a cat.

Favorite Video Game

KM: I loathe video games with all of my heart.  

Best Birthday

GC: When I turned 25, I had been talking about how I’d never been in a limo—it was just a running joke. So all I wanted was a party bus or a stretch Hummer for my birthday, and my girlfriend totally, actually did it. We got this stretch Hummer and packed it with a ton of our friends and champagne, and we made the driver go up to Bernal Heights [in San Francisco], where he wasn’t supposed to. We were so, so hammered. 

Biggest Pet Peeve

GC: Snitching

Favorite New Songs From the Past Year

GC: Kanye West’s “Guilt Trip”, Weekend's “Mirror”, Rhye’s “Open”, the Willis Earl Beal cover of “Black Beauty”, the Low cover of Rihanna’s “Stay”, and maybe [Lil Wayne’s] “Rich as Fuck”? [laughs]

KM: We listened to “Rich as Fuck” a lot on our U.S. tour. 

Role Models

KM: The people I try to model myself after as a human being and as a musician are the guys in Russian Circles. We did two tours with them, and it was probably the most I learned about being a musician and playing guitar, but also about how to not be an asshole. Not that we were assholes before, but we had no idea what we were doing. They took us under their wing. 

I remember a very specific moment in Belfast, Ireland. We were all getting so drunk every night on that tour and having fun. Then Russian Circles walked in after their sound check, and there were all of these beer bottles and chip bags all over the place, and [Russian Circles drummer] Dave [Turncrantz] comes up to me and goes, “This is kind of bad business.” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “Well, someone’s got to pick this up, you know?” And I was like, “Oh yeah, I never thought about it like that.” He’s like, “Yeah man, if you make the smallest effort to clean up your green room so that when you leave it’s not completely trashed, the venue will always remember that, and they will always treat you better when you come back, because no one ever does that.” The three rules of any successful band are to write good tunes, be excellent live, and to not be an asshole while doing that. We were always striving to do that, but [Russian Circles] hammered it into our heads.