Anthem Magazine

Last year’s Cryptograms saw the emergence of Atlanta’s Deerhunter, a five piece that power housed a tripped out, ethereal wash in sound. Critical acclaim was thick but much of the attention made towards the group was focused on front man Bradford Cox who at year’s end became a polarizing figure in independent rock music. No other artist has received as much ubiquitous praise one minute, starch criticism the next than Cox who gained notice not just for his music but also for the fake blood he smeared, flower print dresses he wore and the way too personal blog posts he wrote.

Controversy or not, Cox is a constantly productive artist, more so than any other musician in his age bracket or genre. Having already received much admiration earlier this year for Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, the debut record for his solo project Atlas Sound, Cox returns with his fellow ATL alum―Moses Archuleta, Lockett Pundt, Josh Fauver and the newly added Whitney Petty―for Microcastle, a singular work that incorporates the group’s blissful psychedelic with the timeless sound found with the early doo wop and girl groups of the 1950s and 1960s.

Following a Deerhunter performance in Duluth, Georgia (a suburb of Atlanta), where the group was opening for Nine Inch Nails, Cox and I chatted on all things Microcastle from its recording process to its unfortunate leak on the Internet, nearly four and half months before its release date of October 28. Not shy, Cox spoke on a handful of subjects from inspiration to Lil Wayne.

How’s the Nine Inch Nails tour been treating the band?

Absolutely perfect.

Okay, cool.

Yeah I mean it’s just unbelievable how nice they are and gracious. A complete opposite of stuff we’ve dealt with in the past. We have a lot of respect for them because they’re putting on a real fucking mind blowing show. They’re just really professional and nice.

I came across some tour photos of you on the Internet that had you wearing Whitney’s cheerleader outfit. You had previously worn dresses on stage before. Are you revisiting those prior performances, those that confront the audience and illicit a reaction?

I just do whatever I feel like, whenever I feel like doing it. I don’t feel like I owe anybody anything. It’s just when I feel like doing that kind of show, we do that kind of show.

Was it a conscious decision to just focus strictly on the music and not any type of stage antic(s) for your recent shows as of late?

I mean you could say that but I’d probably didn’t even think of it much. It just more I do what whatever I feel like, whenever I feel like it. Not to sound like a brat, you know. I’m not going to ever do anything that I don’t feel like doing.

You recently participated in an advertising campaign for Converse. By participating in the ad were you trying to show that you were now more comfortable in revealing yourself, particularly image wise to a wider audience, instead of just through your music?

I don’t even think about it. I just don’t. I mean not to be a dick. When you ask me what I think about doing a Converse ad, or if I’m trying, or do I have a motive or am I trying to change my image, I don’t give a fuck. I don’t give a fuck about my image. One day I might shave and tuck in my shirt and the next day I might fucking shit myself on a street corner. I don’t care. I don’t even know what I’m into myself. I don’t know what exactly I’d be trying to project. Things like Converse ads and stuff like that I don’t even… I went and took photos somewhere for ten minutes. I didn’t really think about it that much. I mean I’m glad. I was honored that they asked me to do it you know, that’s neat to me. It made my Mom and family excited because they got to go and look at me in magazines. I mean, whatever that’s cool, I don’t have anybody else to impress except my family I mean I’m not interested in impressing fucking hipster kids. I don’t care what hipster kids think of me. I’ve been doing this shit since a lot of those kids were fucking in diapers reading Harry Potter.

Bands who have received massive acclaim/hype from their previous record don’t always achieve the same prior success with their following record. Was it important with Microcastle to try and break away from that mold?

It’s not going to happen to us because we’re not in any way like that. We’re not a hype band. We’re going to be around for a long time. We’re going to put out quality music. My hero is Lil Wayne. I don’t buy into hype.

Really?

Fuck hype, plus I mean we were never that hyped. I mean look at us and then look at other bands. If people want to call us a fucking hype band…call me a hype band when I sell 50, 000 records. Call me a hype band when I’m fucking doing my second appearance on Letterman. We’re not a fucking hype band. We’re an underground cult band; I mean were a cult rock band. That’s what we want to be, we’re not a fucking hype band.

There’s been a noticeable change in the group dynamic not just on the new record but significantly live on stage. As a band do you see more of a focus―in terms of meeting/achieving goals as a group―than ever before?

We were more focused on producing a more cohesive record, A… B… I think that the press and things like that had to do a lot with the last record and this record is not very inward looking. It’s not very personal. It’s more of a rock record. Its got its cathartic moments and I’m leaving it more for the audience, if they relate to that type of catharsis. Put the music to their own experience. We’re not trying to talk as much about my experience or overly invest my own personal life or my personality traits into the music. Let’s just make a record with songs that people can relate to and live their own lives to and have their own stories about, because you know that’s what it’s all about anyways. It’s not about what a song means to me, it’s what it means to the audience. I stopped feeling sorry for myself and being like adolescent, overly nostalgic, you know.

Did the addition of Whitney [Petty] change the dynamic of the group?

Not really, she’s just kind of hanging out, playing guitar. It’s not really a big deal. I mean her position in the group is active I guess. She’s not a writing member of the group. She’s just kind of a touring member that adds, you know, a dynamic live. A lot of the guitar parts on the record were doubled. Lockett and I can only do so much so she helps kick up the sound live. We’re not changed, and there’s no, drama or anything.

This year alone you’ve released two impressive records with Atlas Sound and with Deerhunter. Musically, how do you differentiate between the two bands? When you start crafting demos, do you immediately know which songs will be for an Atlas Sound or Deerhunter record?

To answer your question in two ways: one, yeah there’s pretty much an immediate feeling for me when I’m writing a song whether or not its Atlas Sound or Deerhunter, but I don’t really think too much while I’m writing songs. It’s more of just a stream of consciousness kind of thing and usually I just write a cluster of songs together and if it’s something that I think can be improved by the group, I’ll bring the group of songs to the group to work on. That’s how Microcastle was; the other band members bring their songs into it. Were as if it’s going to remain an Atlas Sound thing I just leave it as it is and that’s what Atlas sound records are. They’re recorded and I play all the instruments and they’re my creation and I don’t want anyone else’s input on them usually. I don’t have a way I want Atlas Sound to sound versus the way I want Deerhunter to sound. I just want to constantly be putting out records. I don’t really care about systems and how things are suppose to work. If I could put out like, I mean, if people are impressed that I put out two records this year… to me that’s, “Oh please.” I could put out fucking ten. I could put out 20 records in a year. I could put out two records a month.

That’s Lil Wayne style.

Lil Wayne style.

Were you initially disappointed when Microcastle leaked four and a half months before its release date?

No, I wasn’t pissed off. I was just disappointed with people’s fucking greed, you know. I’m all about giving stuff away for free I mean look at what I do. I’m not selfish; I’m not a hyper capitalist person. I give people free music constantly that’s quality music. I don’t give away people shit. I give quality fucking music for free that I could easily charge for and have some record label slap their logo on it, put a fucking barcode on it but I give it away for free and it’s not enough for people you know. That kind of pissed me off, because I’m trying to do things from a different approach, you know what I’m saying. We’re never going to be a huge band or a commercially successful band really, and so I do feel when we make a record, it’s supposed to be the record that comes out in the store. I go through so much trouble to make sure that people feel rewarded for listening to our music. I give as much as I can without fucking going crazy from working all the time and so I felt a little jaded that people couldn’t take that. I mean some people try to overlook that but at the same time I would download the record if I was a fan so I’m not mad at any of the kids for downloading. I’m not mad at them personally for downloading. I encourage them to fucking download, I don’t give a fuck. I do feel if they want to support us and if they like us enough to download our record and keep it and listen to it… you know I’m not even talking about the kids that download it and listen to it a couple of times and say, “aw this isn’t my thing” and whatever. I’m talking about if you fucking download it if you’re into it, you might want to think about supporting the band because it’s not like I’m fucking raking it in with Converse ads, you know what I’m saying. We work so hard and we don’t make a lot of money. The only way underground culture can exist is if there’s an underground to support it. I’m all about downloading stuff. I’m all about fucking freedom, you know, and discovery, but you know at the same time I feel you should still let the artist who makes the records decide when they want the record available, regardless of when the record came out. It was still going to get on the Internet at some point; they could of at least fucking waited until October to start downloading it.

Was streaming a majority of the record on the Deerhunter MySpace profile around the time of the initial leak, a response to the leak itself?

We didn’t stream the record. We just put up some songs because it already leaked and we were tired of the songs that were up there. And then I immediately got yelled by a bunch of people like my band mates, and the record label. They were all like ‘take it down’ so I took it down. I wasn’t just streaming the record. I was just tired of the songs that were up there on the player, so I just put new jams up.

A lot has been made of how intense the recording process for Cryptograms was. How would you describe the process in making Microcastle?

It was easier than changing a flat tire.

You’ve described the first Deerhunter record, Turn It up Faggot, as essentially pre-cum and that Cryptograms was an orgasm. How would you describe Microcastle?

Somebody that’s jerked off way too much and just has no sexual interest whatsoever anymore.

You mentioned in prior interviews that you wanted to incorporate a micro-structure to the album. Do you feel that you’ve achieved that or was that something…

Oh I’ve achieved that but not with this record.

Was that an idea you’ve wanted for this record?

My process in writing usually revolves around a concept and usually I abandon the concept because I’m lazy and then what happens after it (at the end of the concept) is usually what ends up on the record.

You constantly put up mixtapes on your blog. The songs off Microcastle often bleed into one another in separate but equal parts just how a mix tape would. Is that an effect that you like to establish for your records, especially with a record like Microcastle?

Yeah definitely. I enjoy that concept a lot, the idea of a mixtape. The idea of structuring an album like a mixtape, yeah I mean that’s really interesting to me. I’m really into narrative and I’m really into art as energy like energy art and records.

I’ve always been impressed by your wealth of music knowledge. Living in Georgia (Athens, Atlanta), how did you get your hands on all off this music?

Well I fucking have to be part of the generation, the first generation, I think, where geography became completely irrelevant to what music you were exposed to and really had only had. The only boundaries there were the boundaries you set up for yourself as to what you would or would not accept aesthetically. I was willing to give records a long shot and even if I didn’t like them at first, I’d listen to them because I knew that there was something hidden in there for me, and so records that I didn’t like initially I got into over time. Then through those records you start doing this process over the Internet of cross-referencing and downloading stuff. I mean I don’t view musical knowledge as some kind of thing. I don’t think it makes you cooler, I don’t think it really is that empowering. I mean I view myself as a geek. I use my musical knowledge as like the blankie, like Linus’ blankie, you know like the Peanuts gang. I cover myself with it because it’s all I do. It’s all I’m interested in. I mean it’s the music. I don’t give a shit about anybody or anything else. The only things I care about are my music and family. And when I say my music, I mean my music collection, like music in general, my instruments, my guitars, amps, and drums. In fact, stuff like that is all I care about because those are the things that are reliable.

Are there any groups or songs in particular that we would be surprised to know that you really liked? Any guilty pleasures?

I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. I think that’s just hipster irony culture. I think all music is rad for all different reasons. I think Cyndi Lauper is incredibly inspiring. All I could listen to today is Lil Wayne. The Strokes are one of my favorite bands. I suppose that a lot of fucking faggot hipsters would try and act too cool to be into that shit and act like they know more about music, especially with the Strokes… the way people act, they put out socio-political crap… its pop music, you know what I’m saying. It’s not about how rich their parents were, or you know, how much coke they do, I don’t give a fuck. I’m listening to the record and I think they fucking rule. They’re one of my favorite bands. I’m into good pop music, I’m into good experimental music, I’m into good soul music, I’m really into this soundtrack by this guy named Thomas Newman. He did the soundtrack to American Beauty. He did the soundtrack to Desperately Seeking Susan, which I’ve been listening to a lot. I’m into everything from gamelan music to new wave cassette culture.

What kind of music were you listening to when you were making Microcastle?

I listen to everything all the time, I really do. If I had to pick out specific influences that I think kind of affected the record itself, I would say number one, Television, especially the second album, Adventure. Number two would be the Breeders' Last Splash and number three would be Wipers Youth of America. All guitar based records. If you want to think about it like a film, I wanted to make [Microcastle] a period piece. I didn’t want to shoot a film on digital video, I wanted to shoot a movie on 35 mm, that’s kind of 1977 Panovision guitar rock.

In terms of inspiration, are you inspired by everything?

Yeah, a collage totally, I can’t help that.

Any particular art?

I’m really inspired by photography, specifically a book I just got by this photographer named Stephen Shore called American Surfaces which is basically just photos of toilets and gas stations and abandoned strip malls and stuff that he took in the 1970s. So it’s basically just surface noise of America… linoleum-cracked floors and empty dust-filled cabinets and abandoned dime stores and back rooms and laundry mats and, you know, cables and wires. I’ve been really inspired by the photographer Gregory Crewdson, most indie rock people would know his work mostly from the cover of the Yo La Tengo album And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out. He does these really eerie, twilight portraits. They’re really insanely choreographed and insanely put together. They usually have some kind of eerie… like a light coming from the sky for no reason. It’s just surrealist American kind of stuff. I’m really into American culture and American suburban atmospheres, lawns, strip malls and stuff like that. I’m not urban-esque. Microcastle is not an urban album. It’s kind of like Television’s Marque Moon. It’s recorded by an inept not-as-talented garage band, in a garage, in a suburb.

Speaking of cover art, can you talk about Microcastle’s cover art? It definitely has a Physical Graffiti feel to it?

Yeah, but that’s not even the real cover.

Oh really?

No, that’s the vinyl cover. Every version of it is going to have a different cover.

What can you tell us about the CD cover?

I kind of want to leave a lot of it to be a surprise, but it’s really elaborate. Not necessarily the cover image. The cover image is kind of subtle, kind of an understatement, but it’s a visual pun. There are a lot of collage elements. This album has this kind of phantom influence from doo wop and girl groups but it’s not like we ripped them off by taking their riffs or their specific sound and changing them. I’m inspired by it so I want to make something that sounds like it. I want to make something new out of it, so some of the artwork has a defaced Motown vibe. Like Motown satanic Halloween vibe.

Does it still say Weird Era Cont on the vinyl and CD cover?

Yeah.

What does Weird Era Cont mean, in general?

I can’t explain it right now. [Since this interview a series of demos off the new Atlas Sound full length entitled Logos and an unmastered record entitled Weird Era Cont―a bonus disc that will be released with Microcastle―were leaked on the Internet after Cox had unintentionally shared his MediaFire folder via a blog post he had made on Deerhunter’s blog].

Deerhunter demos―in particular especially the demos for Microcastle―are often fleshed out…

And some of them are better than the record.

Do you feel that the demos sound better than the finalized product?

Yeah I do and I might record the next album maybe on a cassette player because I don’t really care about what people want anymore. I don’t care about what’s expected. I had it [Microcastle] be a little more produced because I told you I wanted to shoot on a 35 mm. I wanted it to be more like a Panovision type record, whereas most of my other records I want it to be VHS, or super 8 collages, experimental fully edited type of things. The fact is that I think that we’re best when we’re the least rehearsed. Microcastle is a departure from who we really are, you know. I don’t think that makes it a bad record, I think it’s a good record, I’m proud of it, but it’s not as raw as we are. It’s not, but it was an experiment and I like it. If people think we’re trying to go pop or become more accessible or widen our fucking fan base… just wait. They’ll quickly be proven wrong.

The album is very strong lyrically. Prior records have established significant themes especially a sense of nostalgia and adolescence. With Microcastle, you appear to be venturing in the realm of traditional pop songwriting especially with a song such as “Nothing Ever Happens.” Is that something you want to do eventually and really flesh out? Can you see yourself and the group venturing to that type of lyricism?

No, I could already do that. I could’ve done that from the beginning but it’s too easy. I like that song [“Nothing Ever Happens”] because it’s a song that we wrote together and really rocked together on that one. We were all in the room. We all had good spirits with each other. Everybody contributed to that song equally. Josh wrote the bass of it, he wrote the root of the song but we all gelled on that one. The lyrics were just kind of secondary. I had this concept. I wanted the song to be the most bitter song ever. I was thinking about a woman who is kind of abandoned by her family. Maybe her husband abandoned her and her kid. Then she raised her kid. She’s a single mom, works at Wal-Mart, no health insurance. Then her kids grow up to resent her and then they go off and start a meth lab or something. Then the woman is just this lonely old woman who did her best and everyone has abandoned her and then all of a sudden she gets hit by a transport truck on the way to her fucking shitty Wal-Mart job. She never got to take a vacation. She never got to experience something romantic. I wanted to write a song that was an Ouija board for people that died without ever really getting to ever live.

I feel kind of bitter sometimes the way that I get so much experience. I’ve had so much fun as someone would think doing all these tours, meeting all these people and having fans. People think that it’s such a fun experience but what I really relate to is the feeling of empathy for people that don’t get to experience… I feel shitty when I’m in Paris. I hate Paris but my aunt for instance who’s poor and who works at Wal-Mart and has had a pretty rough life. She probably would give anything to go to Paris and I’m sitting in Paris, chain smoking in a hotel room, cursing, “fuck this place.”

I think part of the idea came from this book, a short story by George Saunders. He wrote a story called “Sea Oak” in a book called Pastoralia and it was about basically what I’m talking about. I recommend anybody to read it. It’s about this woman who has her shitty deadbeat son living off of her. Then she dies of fright when these thugs invade her room. She dies of fright or whatever. Then she comes back to life as a zombie and is basically, “fuck all of you.” To her son she’s like, “get a fucking job, you’re going to get a job tomorrow at a strip club and you’re going to show your fucking cock. You’re going to buy me a fucking vacation, I’m going to fucking Hawaii, I never got anything, Nobody ever gave me anything, I never go to see anywhere, I never got to have any fun. Fuck this. I lived my entire life for other people.”

Do a majority of your songs have a definitive back story to it?

Not always, a lot of times I write lyrics off the top of my head like Lil Wayne. I’m not even joking. “Twilight at Carbon Lake,” seems like it means something but it’s just free styling over a guitar track so that I would know what the cadence of the vocals would be when I finally did write lyrics but I never really wrote lyrics and just left it as it was. That’s typically how it goes. I’ll write filler lyrics to fill the demos, to have lyrics. “Little Kids,” I mean, what the fuck is that about?

I wanted to talk to you about that song. That image of little kids burning an old man…

Yeah, I guess I was thinking about… I don’t know because it was a stream of consciousness but I guess what I was getting at was the idea of kids being really innocent and the idea of these thug kids drinking gin, like little kids drinking gin, setting old people on fire. The outro “to get older still,” kids always want to be older than they are and when they’re old they’re like ‘I wish I was a kid again.’

The song “Twilight at Carbon Lake” has this kitchen sink quality feel of effects and pedals to it but I know that for Microcastle you wanted to minimize the effects and pedals from prior records past.

I didn’t use any effects or pedals on the song. I used no effects or pedals on anything on that album. The only thing I used was singing through an amplifier that had tremolo. There are no effects on “Twilight at Carbon Lake” at all; it’s all just guitar, bass, drums and vocals.

It definitely has that feel to it [pedals and effects] for sure.

Yeah but my goal was to accomplish something without using pedals. I’m sick of pedals. The thing is that there are ambient sounds in that song but they’re created with tape. The cymbal going backwards throughout the whole song, it sounds really eerie, it’s just a tape running backwards. There’s no pedals used, there’s no effects. I had a rule about that song. I didn’t want to use anything that couldn’t have been done in 1966. I wanted that song to be a schizophrenic doo wop song. I wanted to make it a doo wop song from a teenage mental institution for boys.

For future recordings do you see yourself not using pedals/effects?

No, no, no. I don’t ever make rules. I just get tired of things and then I get used to them again. I never used effects on that album but as soon as you start playing it live… I built an effects board so that I can duplicate some of the stuff that we do with tape. So I can still make it sound good live. We’re not like the Strokes, I don’t think we’re talented I don’t think we can pull off the raw guitars, the no effects sound. We’re not excellent guitar players.

Your vocals on this record really play a key part, in particular the songs in which they’re lowered thus playing a less significant part to the music itself. That in itself can be compared to the method used by My Bloody Valentine. Can you see this process occurring more with future recordings?

On some songs but not always. I never set rules. There’s nothing I want do in the future that I know of right now. It depends on when tape is rolling and how the guitar sounds like once its mic’d. How my vocals sound once I’m singing over the prerecorded music. I just pull shit out of the air to try to make it sound haunted and real.

In terms of the pop quality aspect of Microcastle, we talked about doo wop and girl groups but were you inspired by any of the Eno pop records, especially the production aspect of it. The drums on Microcastle have this big feel to it.

I’ve always had that sitting in the back of my head because I love those records but I think that I concentrate more on the Eno aspects of production when I’m doing Atlas Sound stuff and I can play the drums myself. This record is more of a Wipers record or something, maybe not like a Wipers record because Wipers might call us faggots… “that it’s too wimpy or emo” In terms of instrumentation we were trying to do something a little more drier.

Speaking of which, one critique of the record for those that have listened to it was the sense of detachment the record has, often feeling emotionless.

That’s absolutely true and if that’s a criticism those people need to fucking have some more misery in their lives so that they can fucking talk about… I mean what the fuck. Yeah I wanted it to be more detached because I was miserable on the last record. I’m sorry that I tried to better myself, that’s my apology to those critics. Fuck yeah the record is detached, detachment is comforting some times. Plus it allows the listener to attach their own emotions to it if I leave it more empty. They can put their own meaning into it and it’s a lot more effective that way. I don’t understand these critics. These critics are stupid and they’re not musicians.

What are your thoughts on the reaction from those who criticized Cryptograms but have raved over the new record? Do you find that interesting?

Yeah, but it’s expected. I wasn’t trying to give the people what they want so to speak, I was just trying to make the record that I wanted to make at the time. Our next record might disappoint those people terribly, you know, or make the people that liked Cryptograms even more… or it might even alienate both and then we get a completely new audience. I’m interested in music. I’m not interested in becoming a character, or becoming a notable. I’m not interested in people who try to attach a certain sound to what we do. I like the idea of building a respect level so that people are respectful enough to actually want to listen to whatever we do, whether it’s what they’re expecting or not.

The song “Calvary Scars” has images of religion, in particular Christianity. You’ve grown up in the South. Your father is a deacon. How much is religion apart of your life? Do you think its taboo to talk about religion in music?

I don’t believe in taboos. Religion is important to me. It’s more of a personal thing. I don’t shy away from it because I’m not afraid of awkwardness. That might be some kind of awkwardness a kid is facing, a religious confusion or something and maybe it would be nice to have somebody that makes music or somebody that says something that makes them feel less awkward about their situation or their doubts or beliefs. My point is that I don’t feel confident enough in talking about it plus I don’t really feel that it expresses the rest of the group and I don’t think that my opinion of my religion or my religious persuasion should reflect the rest of the band. If it was an Atlas Sound interview I maybe might talk more about it but in terms of Microcastle it’s there but it’s very oblique.

Do you feel now that after having completed the new record, the band has finally established an identity, something in which maybe wasn’t established with the first two records?

It’s not that we didn’t know who we were as a band and we were trying to figure something out. It’s just that we didn’t give a shit. We were just throwing stuff together collage style. It was less about confusion and more about chaos.

Do you think that the group’s identity will constantly be changing with every following record?

I think that somehow everything we do kind of sounds like Deerhunter but I have no interest in repeating things because that’d be boring. Plus I make too much music to do that. I mean I fucking record constantly.

You’ve been critical of Cryptograms in prior interviews. Could you ever see yourself in 6 months or maybe a year or maybe the next Deerhunter album, to be critical of Microcastle?

I promise I will. What value does an artist have that doesn’t question the validity of their own work? I’m never finished. If I make an album that I think is perfect, I’m done, later. Why go back? I love My Bloody Valentine but I’m a little bit skeptical. I would be nothing but happy if they made an album that was as good as Loveless or something to follow it up but why not just leave good enough alone. They made a perfect record, they win. They can shut up and do what they did and when I say they can shut up I’m not saying for them to shut up. They had the right to fucking do what they did which was go into dormancy and chill the fuck out because they did more than any other band around then that was capable of. When you make a fucking flawed ass, fucking Brit-pop record that’s smeared with My Bloody Valentine rip-off concepts… I’m not going to name names but a lot of those shitty bands kept making records. That doesn’t make them better. That doesn’t make them more productive. Productive is when you produce something of value it’s not when you make a shit ton of crap.

Prior Deerhunter albums have had a dedication. For Microcastle, who’s the record dedicated to?

Nobody.

Why no dedication this time around?

I don’t really know how to answer that question. The records were dedicated in the past to really close people that died. I guess the reason that this record isn’t dedicated to anybody is because nobody died.

You dedicated the Atlas Sound record to Lockett [guitarist]. Pundt plays a significant role in Microcastle, singing on two songs. Was there an intention to have him play more of a significant role?

I don’t care.

Really?

Nope. Really don’t talk about him much. We’re over it.

So are you guys…

Nope we’re not anything; there’s no story there. It’s not like you know… I didn’t have any intention of having him be any less or more on the record than anybody else. I would’ve been totally happy if Moses [drummer] wrote four songs and sang them on the record. I was encouraging anybody to do anything they didn’t want to do. Do I sound like a dick?

No.

Good.

Definitely not. What can you tell us about the Atlas Sound record?

I shouldn’t say too much because it’s not fully edited yet. I kind of want it to be more of a surprise. It’s not going to even come out until next year. If I start talking about it now it’s just like what’s the point.

Can we expect really soon?

Hopefully by the New Year. Maybe in January of February but that’s totally expectation on my part. That is now way a concrete. I finished my part of it

We briefly talked about the Deerhunter blog. What has surprised me most about the blog is that you put yourself out in the open for all your fans and as a result you’ve become an inspiration to people. Is it surprising to be an outlet for other people?

That’s really exciting for me. I don’t think there’s anything better you can do with your life if you have a shitty life then to make other people who feel the same way feel better, more empowered. At the same time it wasn’t my intention.

You said in an MTV interview that the reason you produce music on a constant/consistent basis is because you, yourself don’t really know how much longer you’ll have to create music. Do you still feel that same way?

Yeah, but I didn’t attend to spark this fucking weird hypothesis that I’m making songs because I’m afraid I’m going to die. Fuck that. I don’t think about dying that much. I think about making songs. I think it’s fucking stupid. I think if you’re a real musician or a real artist you should be able to dedicate your life to do things music or art or whatever you do. You should dedicate all of your available time to it. I don’t think I’m anyway special because I make a lot of songs. If more musicians get their shit together and stop wasting time on stupid social things they would make more songs too. When I get a check for five-hundred bucks I go out and buy a fucking guitar or a four track. I spend all my time, money and resources on music. It’s what I’m interested in. It’s not a hobby it’s a life.

Could you see yourself doing anything else besides music or is there nothing else?

When I turn 30 I’m going to do film and I’m going to write a book also before I’m 30, two books, maybe three. Books, photography, writing, music, film but whatever I do I’m going to do it constantly like I might make five films when I’m 30. The reason why I say when I’m 30 is because I hope that I’m a good storyteller by then because I don’t think there’s any point of wasting your time making bullshit. I don’t feel like I have the talent or the ability to tell a good story right now, enough to be able to be a filmmaker or I’d already be pursuing it. When I think I can make a good film that’s when I’ll do it.

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