INTERVIEW: Deerhoof (Part 2)

by John Davidson
14 March 2007

Why did you release an EP separately from the new album?

DIETERICH: It’s so much fun!

Deerhoof has been performing for a lot longer than people think. Is this the career you imagined yourself having? Have your muses changed over the years?

DIETERICH: I didn’t imagine any career. That word even connotes a certain amount of seriousness that seems completely foreign to me. I just feel like somebody who gets to play guitar and write music all the time, and I feel really lucky that I’m that person. I never expected to be. As for my muse changing, it’s hard for me to say, but I don’t think that it has. The place that I go in myself to search for ideas or energy or whatever feels like it’s probably the same place as it’s always been. It’s just slightly aged.

What is exciting about making music at this phase of your career?

DIETERICH: I feel more excited than ever about making music, but one thing that I have really been enjoying so much of late has been getting to tour with lots of other bands and get to peek into other musicians’ musical worlds in some really intimate way.

Do you yearn for larger commercial success as a band? What would significantly larger popularity do to or for the band?

DIETERICH: I’m happy where we are and am glad that we’ve grown so slowly in terms of popularity or whatever. I think bands that get popular very quickly can combust very quickly, and that was never something that I wanted to emulate.

Your music is often described at avante garde. Do you consciously avoid more accessible or what might be termed “popular” musical elements when writing? In other words, do you have an internal identification of what Deerhoof sounds like, and you aspire towards that when making music? What kind of limits are there to Deerhoof, in terms of what a song can be?

DIETERICH: I would say we are just as often called “candy-coated pop” as we are “avant-garde,” to be honest. And no, we don’t avoid any kind of musical elements when we’re writing. My hope is to get my original idea out as clearly as possible and then attempt to reconcile that idea with the aesthetics of the band, which are always shifting. We have no one focal point that we’re shooting for or from. There are no limits, and it would be painfully boring if there were.

Prior to working on a new album, what (if any) preconceived ideas do you have about the artistic direction it will go in?

DIETERICH: It’s different for every album, and it seems like it just follows from the process of communicating with the other people in the band in a very off-hand way, day in, day out, whenever we are together. Things come up, people have changes in their lives, and all of that gets wrapped into our understanding of what we’re trying to communicate together. Of course, in addition to that, we all have plenty going on in our own private worlds that we then have to try and communicate to each other if it’s something we want to express.

How is the arranging done on songs? Do you ever switch instruments?

DIETERICH: Oh, we switch instruments all the time. I usually write on guitar, but I really enjoy writing on other instruments as well, and it can help me develop ideas. And when we were recording this album, we really were not concerned with who’s playing what for most of it, we were just trying to get the ideas down so it’s kind of a jumble.

How much writing do you do on tour?

DIETERICH: Not as much as I’d like! I’m a person that craves company but needs to be able to remove myself and have privacy in order to be creative. Touring is not that great in the privacy department. I do get some writing done, though, and I think I’m just going to have to develop that skill!

Filed under avant-garde art-rock