Photo by Richard Saunier
*Article by Adam Barnett — buzz Music Editor*
Deerhoof is a strange band, and I don’t think anyone would disagree with me on that statement. A sort of weird, avant-garde, experimental art rock dressed like pop – people love it. I love it. Drummer Greg Saunier has been making music with the band since 1994, and it now boasts a catalog of 11 studio LPs released since 1997. Along with Greg’s rhythmic expertise, vocalist Satomi sweeps across the upper-register while Ed Rodriguez and John Dieterich inventively pound and pluck their guitars, and the result is several highly praised and influential musical works. Signed to Polyvinyl for its latest studio release Deerhoof vs. Evil, the band is set to perform at the Polyvinyl 15th Anniversary Showcase at Pygmalion Music Festival, and Saunier took some time to chat with me about the band’s split 7” series, a recent tour performing with Congolese musicians, vs. Evil’s leak and the band’s new home. Download the new, completely free record from Deerhoof, 99% Upset Feeling right here on the band’s website.
buzz: Where did the idea of the split 7” series come from, and how many are you gonna put out?
Greg Saunier: I don’t know how many we’re gonna put out. It kind of depends on how many people want to do it. It started by accident, as many things in Deerhoof do. I had a friend who goes by the moniker Busdriver, a rapper in LA, and we’ve been planning for a long time to do some kind of collaboration. So I had an instrumental backing track that I had made that I thought would be perfect for him to rap over, and I sent it to him – or no, I wanted to send it to him. This was a year ago. I accidentally sent the wrong track, and instead I sent him a rough mix of one of the songs that I was mixing for Deerhoof vs. Evil, because I was, at the time, right in the middle of the process of mixing the record. And we hadn’t done any vocals yet; I was just getting the instruments together.
So, I accidentally sent him the wrong rack. And before I even realized my mistake, he sent me back an mp3 of himself, he’s already written new vocals and recorded them, and mixed it. And it was completely amazing, what he had done with it. You know, he had no idea what the melody I intended was, or lyrics or anything like that. He made up completely different ones that fit perfectly over the music. And when he sent it, I thought there was no way I could possibly tell him, “Oh, sorry. I sent the wrong track. Just scratch that. Here. let me send you this different one instead.”
So then with Polyvinyl, I went to them and tried to explain my error, and tried to figure out what we should do, and they were great ‘cause they said, “Why not just put it on a 7” with his band on the other side. We can even make a series out of it. Just keep taking all the backing tracks from all the songs on your album and just have different people sing over them.”
Deerhoof & Busdriver – Hoofdriver
buzz: Awesome. That’s a good story. They sound really rad too. And you just did one with Jeff Tweedy and his sons. What was that process like?
GS: When I was on the phone with Polyvinyl having this first conversation, I mean, immediately our minds started fantasizing all kinds of crazy notions for who we could get to sing. We even had a few really crazy ideas about the people that we knew would never say “yes,” but we were trying to not edit ourselves in our flight of fancy.
So we started making this list, and “Oh, wouldn’t it be great if we could get Jeff Tweedy to do one? But you know, he’s such a celebrity, there’s no way he’d be interested.” But, finally at some point, Polyvinyl was coming back to me and was like, “Have you asked Jeff Tweedy yet?” I’m like, “Come on. That was just some goofy idea.” And finally, it was like, “Okay, okay.”
Deerhoof opened for them several years ago on tour, and we always bump into them around the world at festivals and stuff, and pick up our conversation where we left off last time. Nels Cline, their guitar player, I’ve known quite well for many years, so I had his contact, and I called him up and asked him if he could ask Jeff if he would do this. And I was very shocked to discover that Jeff totally wanted to do it.
And I sent him the track, and the song I chose to send him, it was such a beautiful thing for me because the song that I sent was one that I wrote totally inspired by Wilco, and I was inspired by their songwriting style and by the mood of it, and the production of it too. And it might not be that apparent when you hear the version on our album, you know, with Satomi singing it. It just sounds like a Deerhoof song or whatever, but when you hear Jeff Tweedy sing it, it’s like, “Oh, wait a second.” And you realize Deerhoof is a bunch of rip-off artists, or whatever, that we actually do have a lot of different current bands that we’re really inspired by, and that we try in vein to imitate when we think that we’re good. The song sounds really cool with him singing on it.
buzz: You guys were just on tour with some Congolese Street Musicians, if I’m not mistaken.
GS: We formed a band. It’s not like we were opening for them, or they were opening for us, but we actually formed a 19-person band that was touring Europe all summer, and played Fuji rock festival in Japan at the end. We still haven’t made it to America. I’m still kind of dreaming for us to be able to do that in 2012. I can’t even begin to describe what an incredible challenge and just off the charts. kind of rewarding ,and just growing-kind of experience that that was. And it wasn’t just Deerhoof plus some musicians from the Congo. There were ten musicians from the Congo from two different bands called Konono N°1 and Kasai Allstars. But then it was also a Swedish duo called Wildbirds and Peacedrums.
buzz: I love Wildbirds and Peacedrums.
GS: They’re awesome. I got to share a drum riser with Andreas – that’s their drummer – all summer, which is just the most incredible thing for me…. We just started to feel like we could read each other’s minds, you know? We would lock in so tightly. I mean, I’ve never done something like that before. I’ve played with other drummers occasionally. I have a duo with Zach Hill.
But this was different because it was really our job to lay down something really precise and really steady, and we were still just the rhythm section of what was a really large band. It wasn’t like a big drum showcase. It was just, we were the drum section. One of us would start a fill, and the other would finish it. And sometimes it felt like we were one drummer with four arms or something. It was really an uncanny experience for me. I just totally fell in love with him on that tour. I mean, I already loved him, but to be able to play with him that way, both of us really struggling – What we were asked to do was actually very difficult, and it was really hard to know if we were actually doing it right. But we felt great about it –
And then there’s this guy Matt from this band Skeletons that was in the group, and then an Argentinean singer-songwriter Juana Molina, who I’d just been a huge fan of for many years, and never thought I would have the chance to meet her, and also just fell in love with her instantly, upon meeting her.
And then… Vincent Kenis, who’s the producer of the whole Congotronic series… He’s the one who’s always going to Kinchasa in the Congo and recording them, and then Crammed Disc, who’s the label that organized this tour, they would release it.
And so, he was the only person who already knew the Congolese musicians on a personal level before the tour started. And the rest of us, other than the fact that I knew Wildbirds and Peacedrums, beause we’ve toured together before, everybody in the group was a complete stranger to me when we first arrived. And we got there with no material, nobody in charge of the band, no leader, and one week to prepare for a huge show in Brussels that was gonna be in front of thousands of people in this gigantic venue. We just spent that week practicing 12 or 15 hours a day, not even able to speak to each other because the Congolese didn’t speak a word of English. And just trying to figure out some way to make a 90-minute concert out of nothing. And it was just so hard, and I absolutely loved it.
It was one of the biggest musical challenges I’ve ever gone through. And it really ended – nobody’s gonna be surprised if I say that, of course, it ended up being more than just a musical challenge. It was really an interpersonal human challenge, everybody just trying to connect to each other. But the language and cultural gaps being so wide… much more than when I’m just sort of around indie rock circles that tend to be filled with nice guys and very sweet people that are very easy for me to get along with. It’s like, this really took a lot of balls to find a way to connect and find a way to make an utter fool of myself in French, which I could barely speak. I can say that by the end of the tour, my French was much better.
buzz: That’s good that you came out of it knowing some French. That’s a good plus.
GS: Yeah, that was the main thing. I mean, the concerts we played, and the fact that every show was recorded and all. That’s just kind of an added bonus. But really, I’m glad about the French.
buzz: I’m sure everyone else is too. They’re probably like, “Whoa! Greg knows French!”
GS: I know. It’s turned my life around.
buzz: On the subject of global interaction, it was a pretty big deal when you had your “global album leak,” at least when it first happened. Why did you guys decide to leak the album that way?
GS: I don’t know… When a band puts up a stream, they’ll stream the whole record on a website or on NPR. I thought it was cool to be able to listen to somebody’s new record, and I discovered a lot of music that I really liked just from that exact method. But… I thought to myself that I, or probably anybody else, I assumed, would really have time to sit and listen to the whole thing in one swoop…
So I just imagined a person who wanted to go stream Deerhoof’s new thing. What happens in your mind when you say, “Well, I don’t have time for this now. I’ve gotta switch this off,” or “I’m getting bored. I’m gonna press the stop button and go to a different website now.” Or, whatever. And I thought, maybe it would be more of a positive association in the person’s mind if they listened to just one song, and then if they liked it, then they would go on this treasure hunt to go find more songs…
And then again, just in conversation with Polyvinyl. One thing that I think is really cool about them, is that I have this very vague idea like that, and they’ll turn it into something real, turn it into a realistic idea that can actually be used. Then we got more involved, and decided to have every song on a different website, and all in different countries. I think it turned out really fun…
buzz: It seems like every album is being leaked in some way these days. How do you think leaks affect the music industry as a whole?
GS: I know the effect on us has been very good, particularly when we travel to a new place that we’ve never been before. If we’ve never been there, then it’s not that hard to imagine that no record store in town has ever carried one of our records. The first time we play in Bratislava, Slovakia or something like that: “Oh, we can’t get your records here, but I heard you on the Internet, and that’s why I came to the show.” And there are like, hundreds of people there. And they’ve all heard it because they [the records] got leaked… The fact that people have been able to find our music online has only helped us. And the only times that we’ve ever made an attempt to clamp down over the years, we’ve always regretted it. It just made the music get heard less…
buzz: This is for Pygmalion, and more specifically the Polyvinyl 15th Anniversary Showcase, so I was wondering if you were looking forward to anything in particular.
GS: I know that there are a lot of Polyvinyl bands playing. I’m really excited about the Polyvinyl roster right now because, actually, I haven’t felt this excited about the roster of the label we were on since the days of 5RC, when that was still going. It was sort of like a Kill Rock Stars off shoot, and I remember feeling so blessed, or proud or thrilled about the fact that we were in the company of such amazing bands at that time, and I suddenly feel that way again.
Asobi Seksu, I just did a remix for a few months ago, and then this band that I have with Sean Lennon and Martha Colburn opened for them here in New York a couple months after that, so I feel connected to them, and I really like them.
And of course, Xiu Xiu has recently joined the label, which is totally great to me because I’ve produced, or helped produce, their last three records, and have been in the process of working on the new one which will be their Polyvinyl debut. And Jamie Stewart is one of my closest friends, and I’m always happy when I get an opportunity to see him in person and also see him play, ‘cause I think he’s a real genius…
And of Montreal, definitely one of my favorite bands. And stay tuned to find out, we may be doing a tour with them next year, actually. And I’m really excited about that possibility because, both live and on record, I just think that they’re completely amazing. And I listen to his songs so many times. Maybe if I’m feeling too proud as a songwriter, all I have to do is listen to one of Kevin Barnes’ compositions, and I’m brought back down to size to hear the incredible ways he’s able to put lyrics and melodies together. And stuff just always sounds so smart or something, it humbles me, and it also makes me laugh, because I think the songs are also very funny. While they’re sad, they’re also very funny…
buzz: I actually just talked to Jamie the other day for the showcase, and he was talking about how you hooked them up with the label…
GS: Yeah. He owes me. This is the second label I’ve gotten him signed to.
buzz: Oh yeah, you were both on Kill Rock Stars.
GS: Exactly. Jamie owes his career to Greg Saunier. I said it right here in buzz.
buzz: Now people will read us and be like, “Wow! This announcement was in buzz!”
GS: Exactly. Now you owe me too.
Who: Deerhoof, Xiu Xiu, Braid, Japandroids + More – Polyvinyl 15th Anniversary Showcase
When: Saturday, Sept. 24 @ 2:30 (Deerhoof @ 9:10)
Where: The Highdive – Outdoor Stage
Ages: 19+
Cost: $25 in advance ($30 at the gate); free with festival wristband
Buy tickets here
Deerhoof – “Super Duper Rescue Heads”
buzz Magazine: Music 
Posted on September 14, 2011
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