For 15 years, Deerhoof have defied rock music conventions with nonchalant ease and earned themselves a place on the fringes of musical experimentation. The group possess a creative zen unmatched by any other band in modern rock music. It’s an ideology that seems to exude from every pore of the band’s being to the point in which it seems that every song is a daring escapade into the undiscovered hinterlands of imagination. Is there a philosophy behind the ever evolving sound of Deerhoof?
Armed with his pre-performance tea, Greg Saunier, Deerhoof drummer extraordinaire answers the question in the most pellucid of manners: “there’s no way you can pre-plan the philosophy and then base a band around it, the music informs the philosophy and the philosophy informs the music; both are constantly being revised; there’s not a particular philosophy I could espouse to you now that I could be totally sure that I could get behind or that wouldn’t need some sort of correction either”. The calm introspection of the man as he considers his answers juxtaposes his extraordinary onstage energy in the same way a ruminating monk mirrors a warrior in battle. It’s a contrast that epitomizes the capricious vivaciousness that encapsulates the whole of their latest record, La Isla Bonita. The album is yet another stellar slab of phantasmagorical groove chocked full of hooks, melodies, and guitar flourishes that shouldn’t even be there yet are. Surprisingly however, the recording of the album took place in much more conventional settings. “We were all staying at Ed’s house, our guitar player,” Greg explains, “If I think about it, it was the stereotype of what a band usually is, you know hanging out in the house and rocking all day! That’s exactly what we did. It was like a dream, and it’s so odd that all those years had passed and we’d never really approached it that way ever. And it was so fun! It’s amazing to find out after that many years that not only can you still stand each other but that you find yourself able to become closer friends with these people you’ve known for all this time then you had been before.”
And just like their songs, the conversation suddenly turns to Middle-Eastern terrorism vis- à-vis the mentioning of a certain Deerhoof tweet that read “the line between us and ISIS is technological, not moral”. “It was a sentence I’d read in article”, Greg elucidates, “what I gleaned from that nugget of wisdom is that the US is a very rich country, their military is greater than all the other militaries combined, which makes our ability to harm incredibly efficient and the desire to do so seems quite similar”. So, to quote that great axiom, with great power comes great responsibility? “Yes but that that particular aphorism can also be twisted in a way; that was a line that was often used as a pretext for invasion, because we’re the world’s policemen and it’s our job to depose a leader in some country on behalf of the people who aren’t able to do it themselves and other such lies. We know that they are lies because there are other brutal dictators that we supported and continue to support, and Saddam Hussein was one of them until he stopped behaving according to us”. He concludes: “the only thing that I agreed with that person in that tweet was that our goal is terror as well, the US government is working very hard to terrorize a lot of people and its extremely successful at it in the sense that they’ are causing terror in a much more threatening way that IS is able to”. It’s clear that Greg’s inquisitive weltanschauung resonates with a lot of other people, Americans and non-American alike.
The meandering thoughts of Greg Dyke suddenly appear, and then fizzle out in preparation for the next idea to enter his mind – but it’s a concatenation that contributes towards the meaningful expression and masterful elocution of the man’s opinions – in journalistic terms, never has a transcript relied on semi-colons more. We fluctuate back towards the light-hearted. What band would you be in and why? “A couple times a month I have dreams of playing drums in the Rolling Stones and sometimes guitar. That’d be fun, although I’d be hard-pressed to say who I’d want to replace because I kind of like them where they are!” Deerhoof have been cited as major influences by bands such as Foo Fighters, Grizzly Bear, and the Flaming Lips. But Greg is reluctant to pin down a band that has influenced Deerhoof’s music: “I could try to cook up some kind of bizarre sounding list, but I’m still totally confident that if you were to ask the four of us that everyone would come up with a totally different list. It’d be so different that you’d really end up scratching your head like, why did these guys ever form a band?!; Sometimes we’re conscious about trying to learn some lesson from this song, like a chord progression or a slow part. But sometimes the song we’ve produced sounds so distant from the inspiration that no one can ever tell what it was and we usually can’t remember!”
Deerhoof have been renowned for their DIY approach to their career. Having fiscal autonomy and production control is an attractive proposition for a band. Unlike the corporate zeitgeist that perniciously operates in between the lines of today’s music industry, the band is able to do what they want on their own terms. Greg is just as kindred, “if you don’t do that [going DIY] you’re robbing yourself of your own education all of which is quite interesting and fun”, he says, “for example, the joy of recording is the joy of knowing how recording works which also affects how you think about the live sound; and then we get really interested in how to do things with our live sound which are not the normal live sound defaults. Or how to deal with finances as well; to not necessarily take an expert’s word for it; like you need this producer and this kind of publicist; various people that we could be paying. Some bands have managers that sift through their emails and buy them plane tickets, but for me, if I had to erase those relationships and that communication from my life and just sit somewhere backstage doing nothing, and think that I’m so important that I’ve got a bunch of underlings to do that for me, then I think I would be really sad” Greg laments. “Even when I’m playing I think it’s a conversation with my bandmates and a conversation with the audience, it’s a human kind of experience”. Bands such as Deerhoof are the shield-bearers of musical integrity and experimentation, and it’s something that we, as listeners, can’t afford to do without.
Jake Leigh-Howarth
Photo by Chad Kamenshine