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 atomi Matsuzaki, the lead singer for the Bay Area's band of art-rock freakazoids, Deerhoof, is a centaur of different blends and hues, a lyricist whose words can float off as if they were helium-filled or stick to your ear roofs like peanut butter. Her band — consisting of drummer Greg Saunier and guitarist John Dieterich — works so abstractly that even studious concentration would yield nary a glimpse into what their inner gears are made of. They're one of indie rock's greatest unsolved mysteries.Their nursery rhyme-like songs are dark, darker and darkest fictions (2004's Milk Man features a Pac-Man/man character with bananas stabbed into its ass and leg and a strawberry gashing out of its head; this was performed as ballet by schoolchildren in Maine last year). Their eighth full-length, Friend Opportunity, is another chapter in this amusing saga
Hooksexup: How does it feel to be the makers of one of the most anticipated (and currently greatly received) records of the year? Did you see this coming at all? John Dieterich: Each album we've sensed the build-up a little more. Some people hear about the music later than others and some people really like it. Some people really don't. It seems like the people who like it have been more vocal than those who don't like it. We're really lucky that we're able to tour as much as we do, and we pick up more people that way. There was a lot of stuff that wasn't planned into our year that we did last year. One of those unplanned things had to have been a ballet of your 2004 album Milk Man being performed by a cast of children on an island off the coast of Maine. I had no reference for it. That experience was so far outside any rock and roll experiences I've ever had. Basically, the person who put the production together — Courtney Naliboff — told us she was going to be doing this. She had this breakthrough one night at four in the morning. We were there for the two dress rehearsals and the two performances. We were driving in and we didn't really know what we were looking for. Then we saw all of these kids dressed in white, jumping up and down and screaming, "Deerhoof!" When we first saw them, we were thinking, "What is this weird thing that is happening?" — we didn't think it was any way related to us. The band consisted of Courtney and some other people. There was dancing and the choreography was really great. The set design was very austere and they had huge white balloons that they'd send out over the audience on these two parallel strings. They're going to be releasing a DVD of the show. What kinds of lyrical threads were you trying to work with? I know for myself, as a listener, I don't want someone telling me what to feel or what something means. I really value that everything's open for interpretation. People hear a lot of different meanings in what Satomi sings, and none of them are wrong. You can find connections between the different records and different bands. How was touring with Radiohead last year? Beforehand, I was a fan. The level of fandom has now gone completely beyond that. They're real masters and they were so great to us. I was just trying to think about it the other day and I came to the conclusion that it was the least likely experience people would have ever expected us to have. How much absolute nonsense is there in your music? I think the things that sound like nonsense are the simplest things. When Satomi sings "flower" over and over again, I think people can respond to that. You're just sitting next to it and your mind's just focused on it. It's not nonsense, it's just a different way of expressing something. You get something from it, but you don't know exactly what it is. What you're getting is probably something that you never expected to get. Either way, you're doing your own work. What you could be describing now is humanity. You'll never get a definite definition. The deeper you go, the more you'll realize is there. You get somewhere and you don't feel that you're on your own necessarily. You're in an area that's been to before. You might like the lyrics or just the fact that you liked flowers as a kid and you listen to it a little bit longer. Maybe those things come back to you. I love that sort of thing. What dimensions will you explore next? I can't predict anything. I'm more than happy with where we are right now. I never in a million, gazillion years thought we'd be here. Just the simple idea that we can make music all the time pretty much is an amazing, amazing thing. This all is a result of three imaginations. It's like hitting a couple of rocks together. Some sparks are going to fly off. You don't know what they're going to do, but that's what creative expression is and that's what we do. It's a bad analogy — I like throwing rocks at my bandmates. Things can be so clear to you and the second you show them to someone else, they mean something completely different. Every step we've taken in this band, to a certain degree, is a blind one. If we had heard Friend Opportunity a year ago, we would have said there was no way we were going to make that album. But you react to the world. It's hard. I have no idea what's going to happen. I have no perception of where we are going. n°
© 2007 Sean Moeller & hooksexup.com |
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