09/30/08
Text: Nik Mercer
Photographers: Sam Kahn
Deerhoof, one of this publication's favorite bands of the past fifteen years or so, has experienced lineup change after lineup change during the course of it's eleven album career (drummer Greg Saunier is the only member of the group who's actually been in it since its founding!)
To celebrate the newest record, Offend Maggie (out on Kill Rock Stars on October 7), we swung by the Hollywood Bowl for an awe-inspiring performance by the quartet and an interview with Saunier (which was, by the way, one of the most intense and inspiring ones we've experience). In addition to chatting up half of Deerhoof's rhythm section live, we also talked with guitarist John Dieterich, singer and bassist, Satomi Matsuzaki, and and rookie guitarist Ed Rodriguez. Each Q&A was conducted separately, making for a compelling, hyper-in-depth glance into the heart of the band.
View the video in the media player to the right or over at our Vimeo page for a slightly higher-quality version... and don't forget to read through the whole interview portion! It will rock your world.
John Dieterich
On the new band: Basically, we think of it as a new band. It's not necessarily that we do it on purpose. I feel like we never know.
On practicing and playing together: If we have anything more than two days off, we're in complete panic... we're never able to recapture something.
Ultimately, we're trying to communicate—and you need to speak a language that's intelligible. As a receiver of art, one of the things I like most is seeing something I don't understand because I know the artist is saying something.
When you're playing the music for the ten-thousandth time or something... you change! And we work off that.
On songwriting: I think the 'ragged' element you're talking about is... I dunno. There's something very pleasing about the music, but at the same time, there's this counter-rhythm element, too.
On the Hollywood Bowl Performance: I love [playing there]. It presents different kinds of challenges. One of the challenges is [our size]: we're a small band! We try to keep everything small, so on a stage like that, it's easy to lose [the other band members] and the music.
On musical restraint: Greg used to have a big drum set and he tended to play everything at once. He wanted to restrict himself from overplaying. Now he can delve more deeply into the sounds [his drums] can produce.
Ed and I have been playing together for fourteen years... and we've always been investigating our tools. Like a sound explosion. For us, [listening to improvisation] is a way to learn how to extract sounds from these pieces of wood with four strings.
On Satomi: She's partially what drew me to the band. I'd almost lost interest in the voice. Words are loaded with so much meaning; it's the most powerful instrument we have. I was trying to figure out how on [the guitar], there's no language, no words—so how do you communicate emotion? When I saw Greg and Satomi, I immediately connected. Her voice is like a trumpet or something. She created a musical language for herself.
One of Satomi's complaints with me is that I go into a sort of trance [on stage]... while she's very focused and she looks at everyone.
On albums: We were always attempting to create something that was thought out. From our perspective, we've always thought of our albums as albums. We always thought that you could dive into them—or not—as much as you wanted.
On the "Fresh Born" sheet music: It was an attempt to leak it in a way that we would enjoy and other people would enjoy, too. It's excruciating, to not receive feedback. It's hard to wait! The hope was that the [sheet music] would add to the meaning of the music for the listeners.
