Listening to avant-garde noise bands can be a real chore. Everybody knows somebody who loves the goofy anarchy of early Boredoms albums, the spastic antics of U.S. Maple or the frantic guitars of Melt Banana. Sure, there's plenty of fun to be found in those sounds, but it can be a difficult search for all but the die-hards. That's what makes Deerhoof special. The San Francisco based-band is a speedy noise band with a sweet pop core, a frenetic whirl of drums and guitars that stops on a dime to reveal keyboard lullabies and the coolly-detached word puzzles of vocalist Satomi Matsuzaki. Their sound is a gorgeously screechy thing, a joyous tension between dissonance and melody that Matsuzaki describes as "natural, mineral, fruity noise."
Deerhoof started in 1994, the project of Greg Saunier and Rob Fisk. Fisk left the group in 1999, leaving Saunier with the name and a desire to fill out the lineup. The band's current incarnation first manifested on 2002's Reveille and took full form in 2003 with Apple O'. Apple O' generated considerable critical praise as well as substantial sales. Welcome success considering that around this time the four members -- Saunier on drums, Matsuzaki on vocals plus guitarists Chris Cohen and John Dieterich -- left their day jobs to pursue Deerhoof as a full-time project.
Their latest recording -- Milk Man -- is a peculiar concept album based on the art of Ken Kagami. Featured on the album's cover, Milk Man is a pale androgyne with bleeding puncture wounds from which protrude bananas and strawberries. Matsuzaki's lyrics sketch out a surreal narrative involving this Milk Man and the children he visits in the night. In search of some clarification regarding this storyline, I spoke with the affable 34-year-old Saunier on the phone from San Francisco, where he was preparing to join his band mates in Tokyo for a Japanese tour.
Daniel Chamberlin: The band has gone through a lot of changes over the last ten years. Can you give me a highlights reel history of Deerhoof?
Greg Saunier: Let's see. If you want it without mistakes or anything, there's already a highlights reel on the Web page -- deerhoof.killrockstars.com -- of basic stuff that happened.
DC: I'm after something more. Not just facts, but emotional high points.
GS: I'm sure there are some parts of having been in the band that are supposed to be the especially exciting parts, but I have to say it's really been very fun for me right from the beginning. I feel lucky that I managed to get the band going in the first place. There have been a lot of things that have been really exciting for us recently. Even when that wasn't happening it was always exciting... for instance to have crossed paths with Satomi [Matsuzaki]. I guess if I had to pick highlights, maybe that was a highlight. Managing to meet Satomi. I could say the same about John [Dieterich] and Chris [Cohen]. Just a feeling that I had met somebody in each of them who I kind of feel like I'd been searching for, you know. It's hard to explain. For instance, the way Satomi sings was like a dream come true to me. The kind of songs that I wrote, the songs I was trying to write. Suddenly when I heard her singing them I realized that it was the absolute perfect sound, the ideal sound. She sang things in a very plain way without any emotion really. Without adding any of those signals that say that the singer is really emotional and must really be passionate and into it. She doesn't give any of those signals at all, which I thought worked really well because they way that me and the other guy who was playing in the band -- Rob [Fisk] -- the way we were playing was sort of the exact opposite. We were doing those expressive signals in the most exaggerated way possible. Going really extreme with dynamics, speeding up and slowing down and just finding any possible way to squeeze extra intensity out of our measly material, you know. Just when she came in and started singing the way she does it really clicked because it created a tension in the music. Finding Chris and John was similar because everybody has this attitude of they don't want to rule anything out. No idea is too much going out on a limb, music-wise
DC: How did you meet Satomi?
GS: Through a mutual friend. There's a band in San Francisco called Caroliner. They went on tour in Japan 10 years ago and she went to see them and was just crazy about it. She went to several of their shows, met them, got to know them a little bit, became friends with them and partly on that basis decided to move to San Francisco from Tokyo. So then she got here and was staying with one of them. This just happened to be at the time that Rob and I were saying to ourselves, "You know what, our singing is really bad and we need somebody else to sing in this band." And so this friend of ours in Caroliner, we were telling him, whining and moaning about our vocal ability. And he calls back a couple days later and he's like "Oh I know somebody who just arrived here from Japan. I just played her your first single and asked her if she wants to be in your band and she said 'OK.'"
DC: And you clicked?
GS: She had never done a note of music in her life and a week later we were on our first Deerhoof tour opening for Caroliner. She just latched onto it right away.
DC: You mentioned Rob Fisk, who you started Deerhoof with in 1994. He's not in the band anymore.
GS: Rob kept quitting and rejoining. I can relate to his feeling. For a long time he was somebody for whom there's extreme doubt as to the value of doing art or music. He's also a visual artist; he's done a lot of our covers and stuff. He came up with the name Deerhoof. It was his idea originally. He'd go through these phases where he'd get really enthusiastic about it. We'd practice every day, we'd set up shows and write new songs. But then a few months later he'd be, like, "I don't know about doing music. It's not doing anything in this world. It's not helping. There's so much trouble on earth, what are art and music doing to solve those problems?" And so he'd take all his paintings and throw them in the nearest Dumpster. He kept moving away from San Francisco. He moved to Seattle and moved back. He moved to Arcata and moved back. He moved to Alaska then Knoxville, back to San Francisco, then to Alaska and now he's coming back. He's got a new band called Seven Year Rabbit Cycle that is totally amazing. Something happened and he believes what he's doing.
DC: Do you grapple with those issues?
GS: Definitely. I don't think it's strange to do so. Here's the reason it might be different for certain bands: If you've already decided that you want to play music long term then you find yourself asking, "What is the value of it? Is it really worth it?" If you're just doing it temporarily, you're just doing it for fun while you're young or it's just something to do, then it might not be as much of an issue. It's just temporary. But for better or worse that's not the case with me. All my life I've known I wanted to do music. Since I'm planning on still doing Deerhoof when I'm 70 years old, the issue of "Does that really make sense?" comes up.
DC: Why wouldn't it make sense to think of Deerhoof as a lifelong endeavor?
GS: Just because of what we're talking about. It's hard to quantify any beneficial effect it has on quote unquote the world. For many years Deerhoof was not bringing in any money so it's not like you have that to pat yourself on the back for. It's not ending any wars, or bringing up minimum wage in San Francisco. Rob and I used to have this argument all the time. We started off playing a lot of Rob's songs. A lot of his songs were kind of politically oriented although his lyrics were always symbolic. He'd write songs about animals and things but it was thinly veiled, you could always tell it was a political rant of some kind. To make matters worse even that aspect of it has receded a lot since Rob is no longer in the band. We still write songs about animals [laughs] but when Satomi is writing lyrics it never is making a political statement. We have made a lot of songs that might in a symbolic or undertone kind of way look at some political issue but it's never specific. We're never taking sides or casting a vote for anything. Even though we might in real life. The music ends up being just . . . I don't know how to explain it. Basically our music tends to be about our imagination or fantasy or intensity. It's about the way we play together or interact. And so that makes it even harder to justify.
DC: If you have a message, you've got quite a platform to speak from now. Your last three albums have received a great deal of critical praise, from bastions of avant-garde and underground music like The Wire and Pitchfork.com to mainstream outlets like Jane and The New York Times.
GS: To me it's not necessarily that any magazine has more weight than anybody else. But I can say that the fact that there are some actual human beings out there who get something out of our music is the force pulling in the opposite direction of what I was just talking about. It's what tends to help me feel like there is a point in doing it. The fact that it does mean something to somebody. Even though that somebody might include more high profile names now, that has always been there. People who related to it in some way or got something out of it that they didn't get from anything else. People who believed in it. That's always been a big factor in wanting to keep going.
DC: The Milk Man album seems kind of dark, but there's a lot of joy in your sound. In some ways it reminds me of bands like Japanese noise bands like Melt Banana or Boredoms. I think a lot of people in hipster circles want to like those bands, but they can be hard to get into. With Deerhoof there's a lot of noise and a lot of chaos but then there's a sweet melodic treat if you make it through that.
GS: I never thought of it that way, but it does make sense. I'm not familiar with the Boredoms at all but Melt Banana I've seen play two or three times. It seems like they've been around about as long as we have and during that time I've seen them play and I always like them. I understand what you're saying, but for me personally they aren't hard to like. Especially live. It's very exciting. I wouldn't think of Deerhoof as a slightly lighter version of Melt Banana. Not that that's what you said we were. I feel like there's a different idea behind it in the first place. They seem to be able to achieve to the nth degree this one band of possible moods. I don't want to say narrow -- but it's sort of like one idea. Everything is like a fire engine going 90 miles per hour down the street at you. This kind of emergency sort of mood. Everything has this frantic... I'm not saying that Deerhoof isn't frantic. But I wouldn't say that was ever our objective. Deerhoof has always tried to express a range of moods.
DC: Your music almost has the kind of range you find in progressive rock. It's like you're doing a King Crimson song that's seven minutes long and you're cramming the whole thing into two minutes. You hit the dreamy middle part and the spazzy freak-out poetry part then go down into some other strange space. It's this dense kaleidoscope of all sorts of sounds.
GS: [Laughing] That's pretty nice. As far as the prog rock thing, maybe don't tell Satomi 'cause she's no fan of prog but I know that John listened to a lot of prog rock when he was learning to play guitar. When people say Deerhoof reminds them of prog rock it's only recently that I've been able to comprehend what they're talking about. I had never thought of it that way. I was at a record store the other day and found a clearance copy of what's it called -- 90125 or something -- Yes. "Owner of A Lonely Heart"-era. And I got it and was like, "Whoa!" I really liked it a lot. It did remind me of Deerhoof. Like you said, it's dense. So many parts and a lot of things going on. Trying to get these different moods and stuff. At the same time I wouldn't want to overplay the comparison. Somehow it's different. I did like "Owner of A Lonely Heart" though. It's a nice riff.
DC: It seems like there's a narrative thread in Milk Man, but I'm not sure what's going on. There are some kids dealing with the Milk Man and there seems to be a lot of fruit involved. I also get the sense there's some sort of bad vibes between the kids and Milk Man.
GS: Satomi made up almost all of the words. There were a few words that I made up, but she gave me the image she was trying to use. Unlike Apple O' where more than half of it was words that I wrote, Milk Man is mostly Satomi's. It's sort of funny because you're feeling like you're getting an impression about what the words mean, or stand for. Why is this happening here? And you want to find out, you want to ask Satomi, "Can you explain it?" The really funny thing is she wrote these lyrics based on the drawings of an old friend of hers, Ken Kagami. He's been drawing Milk Man for a long time. At a certain point we were like, let's get Ken to do the artwork for the next album. And let's make the next album about Milk Man, since he's always drawing Milk Man. We told him and he was so excited. Then we go to him and we say, "So Ken, I guess we're going to need to write some songs, make some lyrics and stuff. Could you please explain Milk Man? Why does he have this banana stuck into his brain? What's going on? Give us the lowdown." And suddenly: complete silence. He gave no explanation whatsoever. I'm having this premonition that if you talk to Satomi about the lyrics you're going to get the same thing. There's nothing to explain other than what's there. Part of it is just a desire to allow any interpretation on the part of the listener. That any [interpretation] is okay, there isn't a right one... The hope, the fantasy is to create something that always seems like you just about got it but you never quite finish it. You always want to keep listening to it or thinking about it or looking at it. Sure, maybe part of it is that when you first hear it there's that excitement, the rush of hearing it for the first time. But the hope is that after 50 times there's still something, the potential to find something in it that you haven't heard before. It's not just a question of hearing sounds that are buried in there -- although there might be some of that too -- but something that didn't connect before suddenly connects. Or another possible meaning of the lyrics suddenly becomes clear. [starts laughing]
DC: That makes sense.
GS: It makes sense, but I didn't even come close to answering your question.
DC: That fits into this larger idea of the record. There's no definite answer to "what does Milk Man mean." It's there for listeners to work out for themselves.
GS: It's like if you look at TV shows, always the best part, in my opinion, is the theme song. Where they're playing the song and they show these little scenes of the characters. It could be a comedy or a drama, and you see them walking down the street, or talking to somebody. Making this really intense face. Out of any context whatsoever. It's not part of the story; it's just these shots. The music is playing and there's no way in the world -- you can't put it together. It's just pure intensity.
by Daniel Chamberlin
Deerhoof started in 1994, the project of Greg Saunier and Rob Fisk. Fisk left the group in 1999, leaving Saunier with the name and a desire to fill out the lineup. The band's current incarnation first manifested on 2002's Reveille and took full form in 2003 with Apple O'. Apple O' generated considerable critical praise as well as substantial sales. Welcome success considering that around this time the four members -- Saunier on drums, Matsuzaki on vocals plus guitarists Chris Cohen and John Dieterich -- left their day jobs to pursue Deerhoof as a full-time project.
Their latest recording -- Milk Man -- is a peculiar concept album based on the art of Ken Kagami. Featured on the album's cover, Milk Man is a pale androgyne with bleeding puncture wounds from which protrude bananas and strawberries. Matsuzaki's lyrics sketch out a surreal narrative involving this Milk Man and the children he visits in the night. In search of some clarification regarding this storyline, I spoke with the affable 34-year-old Saunier on the phone from San Francisco, where he was preparing to join his band mates in Tokyo for a Japanese tour.
Daniel Chamberlin: The band has gone through a lot of changes over the last ten years. Can you give me a highlights reel history of Deerhoof?
Greg Saunier: Let's see. If you want it without mistakes or anything, there's already a highlights reel on the Web page -- deerhoof.killrockstars.com -- of basic stuff that happened.
DC: I'm after something more. Not just facts, but emotional high points.
GS: I'm sure there are some parts of having been in the band that are supposed to be the especially exciting parts, but I have to say it's really been very fun for me right from the beginning. I feel lucky that I managed to get the band going in the first place. There have been a lot of things that have been really exciting for us recently. Even when that wasn't happening it was always exciting... for instance to have crossed paths with Satomi [Matsuzaki]. I guess if I had to pick highlights, maybe that was a highlight. Managing to meet Satomi. I could say the same about John [Dieterich] and Chris [Cohen]. Just a feeling that I had met somebody in each of them who I kind of feel like I'd been searching for, you know. It's hard to explain. For instance, the way Satomi sings was like a dream come true to me. The kind of songs that I wrote, the songs I was trying to write. Suddenly when I heard her singing them I realized that it was the absolute perfect sound, the ideal sound. She sang things in a very plain way without any emotion really. Without adding any of those signals that say that the singer is really emotional and must really be passionate and into it. She doesn't give any of those signals at all, which I thought worked really well because they way that me and the other guy who was playing in the band -- Rob [Fisk] -- the way we were playing was sort of the exact opposite. We were doing those expressive signals in the most exaggerated way possible. Going really extreme with dynamics, speeding up and slowing down and just finding any possible way to squeeze extra intensity out of our measly material, you know. Just when she came in and started singing the way she does it really clicked because it created a tension in the music. Finding Chris and John was similar because everybody has this attitude of they don't want to rule anything out. No idea is too much going out on a limb, music-wise
DC: How did you meet Satomi?
GS: Through a mutual friend. There's a band in San Francisco called Caroliner. They went on tour in Japan 10 years ago and she went to see them and was just crazy about it. She went to several of their shows, met them, got to know them a little bit, became friends with them and partly on that basis decided to move to San Francisco from Tokyo. So then she got here and was staying with one of them. This just happened to be at the time that Rob and I were saying to ourselves, "You know what, our singing is really bad and we need somebody else to sing in this band." And so this friend of ours in Caroliner, we were telling him, whining and moaning about our vocal ability. And he calls back a couple days later and he's like "Oh I know somebody who just arrived here from Japan. I just played her your first single and asked her if she wants to be in your band and she said 'OK.'"
DC: And you clicked?
GS: She had never done a note of music in her life and a week later we were on our first Deerhoof tour opening for Caroliner. She just latched onto it right away.
DC: You mentioned Rob Fisk, who you started Deerhoof with in 1994. He's not in the band anymore.
GS: Rob kept quitting and rejoining. I can relate to his feeling. For a long time he was somebody for whom there's extreme doubt as to the value of doing art or music. He's also a visual artist; he's done a lot of our covers and stuff. He came up with the name Deerhoof. It was his idea originally. He'd go through these phases where he'd get really enthusiastic about it. We'd practice every day, we'd set up shows and write new songs. But then a few months later he'd be, like, "I don't know about doing music. It's not doing anything in this world. It's not helping. There's so much trouble on earth, what are art and music doing to solve those problems?" And so he'd take all his paintings and throw them in the nearest Dumpster. He kept moving away from San Francisco. He moved to Seattle and moved back. He moved to Arcata and moved back. He moved to Alaska then Knoxville, back to San Francisco, then to Alaska and now he's coming back. He's got a new band called Seven Year Rabbit Cycle that is totally amazing. Something happened and he believes what he's doing.
DC: Do you grapple with those issues?
GS: Definitely. I don't think it's strange to do so. Here's the reason it might be different for certain bands: If you've already decided that you want to play music long term then you find yourself asking, "What is the value of it? Is it really worth it?" If you're just doing it temporarily, you're just doing it for fun while you're young or it's just something to do, then it might not be as much of an issue. It's just temporary. But for better or worse that's not the case with me. All my life I've known I wanted to do music. Since I'm planning on still doing Deerhoof when I'm 70 years old, the issue of "Does that really make sense?" comes up.
DC: Why wouldn't it make sense to think of Deerhoof as a lifelong endeavor?
GS: Just because of what we're talking about. It's hard to quantify any beneficial effect it has on quote unquote the world. For many years Deerhoof was not bringing in any money so it's not like you have that to pat yourself on the back for. It's not ending any wars, or bringing up minimum wage in San Francisco. Rob and I used to have this argument all the time. We started off playing a lot of Rob's songs. A lot of his songs were kind of politically oriented although his lyrics were always symbolic. He'd write songs about animals and things but it was thinly veiled, you could always tell it was a political rant of some kind. To make matters worse even that aspect of it has receded a lot since Rob is no longer in the band. We still write songs about animals [laughs] but when Satomi is writing lyrics it never is making a political statement. We have made a lot of songs that might in a symbolic or undertone kind of way look at some political issue but it's never specific. We're never taking sides or casting a vote for anything. Even though we might in real life. The music ends up being just . . . I don't know how to explain it. Basically our music tends to be about our imagination or fantasy or intensity. It's about the way we play together or interact. And so that makes it even harder to justify.
DC: If you have a message, you've got quite a platform to speak from now. Your last three albums have received a great deal of critical praise, from bastions of avant-garde and underground music like The Wire and Pitchfork.com to mainstream outlets like Jane and The New York Times.
GS: To me it's not necessarily that any magazine has more weight than anybody else. But I can say that the fact that there are some actual human beings out there who get something out of our music is the force pulling in the opposite direction of what I was just talking about. It's what tends to help me feel like there is a point in doing it. The fact that it does mean something to somebody. Even though that somebody might include more high profile names now, that has always been there. People who related to it in some way or got something out of it that they didn't get from anything else. People who believed in it. That's always been a big factor in wanting to keep going.
DC: The Milk Man album seems kind of dark, but there's a lot of joy in your sound. In some ways it reminds me of bands like Japanese noise bands like Melt Banana or Boredoms. I think a lot of people in hipster circles want to like those bands, but they can be hard to get into. With Deerhoof there's a lot of noise and a lot of chaos but then there's a sweet melodic treat if you make it through that.
GS: I never thought of it that way, but it does make sense. I'm not familiar with the Boredoms at all but Melt Banana I've seen play two or three times. It seems like they've been around about as long as we have and during that time I've seen them play and I always like them. I understand what you're saying, but for me personally they aren't hard to like. Especially live. It's very exciting. I wouldn't think of Deerhoof as a slightly lighter version of Melt Banana. Not that that's what you said we were. I feel like there's a different idea behind it in the first place. They seem to be able to achieve to the nth degree this one band of possible moods. I don't want to say narrow -- but it's sort of like one idea. Everything is like a fire engine going 90 miles per hour down the street at you. This kind of emergency sort of mood. Everything has this frantic... I'm not saying that Deerhoof isn't frantic. But I wouldn't say that was ever our objective. Deerhoof has always tried to express a range of moods.
DC: Your music almost has the kind of range you find in progressive rock. It's like you're doing a King Crimson song that's seven minutes long and you're cramming the whole thing into two minutes. You hit the dreamy middle part and the spazzy freak-out poetry part then go down into some other strange space. It's this dense kaleidoscope of all sorts of sounds.
GS: [Laughing] That's pretty nice. As far as the prog rock thing, maybe don't tell Satomi 'cause she's no fan of prog but I know that John listened to a lot of prog rock when he was learning to play guitar. When people say Deerhoof reminds them of prog rock it's only recently that I've been able to comprehend what they're talking about. I had never thought of it that way. I was at a record store the other day and found a clearance copy of what's it called -- 90125 or something -- Yes. "Owner of A Lonely Heart"-era. And I got it and was like, "Whoa!" I really liked it a lot. It did remind me of Deerhoof. Like you said, it's dense. So many parts and a lot of things going on. Trying to get these different moods and stuff. At the same time I wouldn't want to overplay the comparison. Somehow it's different. I did like "Owner of A Lonely Heart" though. It's a nice riff.
DC: It seems like there's a narrative thread in Milk Man, but I'm not sure what's going on. There are some kids dealing with the Milk Man and there seems to be a lot of fruit involved. I also get the sense there's some sort of bad vibes between the kids and Milk Man.
GS: Satomi made up almost all of the words. There were a few words that I made up, but she gave me the image she was trying to use. Unlike Apple O' where more than half of it was words that I wrote, Milk Man is mostly Satomi's. It's sort of funny because you're feeling like you're getting an impression about what the words mean, or stand for. Why is this happening here? And you want to find out, you want to ask Satomi, "Can you explain it?" The really funny thing is she wrote these lyrics based on the drawings of an old friend of hers, Ken Kagami. He's been drawing Milk Man for a long time. At a certain point we were like, let's get Ken to do the artwork for the next album. And let's make the next album about Milk Man, since he's always drawing Milk Man. We told him and he was so excited. Then we go to him and we say, "So Ken, I guess we're going to need to write some songs, make some lyrics and stuff. Could you please explain Milk Man? Why does he have this banana stuck into his brain? What's going on? Give us the lowdown." And suddenly: complete silence. He gave no explanation whatsoever. I'm having this premonition that if you talk to Satomi about the lyrics you're going to get the same thing. There's nothing to explain other than what's there. Part of it is just a desire to allow any interpretation on the part of the listener. That any [interpretation] is okay, there isn't a right one... The hope, the fantasy is to create something that always seems like you just about got it but you never quite finish it. You always want to keep listening to it or thinking about it or looking at it. Sure, maybe part of it is that when you first hear it there's that excitement, the rush of hearing it for the first time. But the hope is that after 50 times there's still something, the potential to find something in it that you haven't heard before. It's not just a question of hearing sounds that are buried in there -- although there might be some of that too -- but something that didn't connect before suddenly connects. Or another possible meaning of the lyrics suddenly becomes clear. [starts laughing]
DC: That makes sense.
GS: It makes sense, but I didn't even come close to answering your question.
DC: That fits into this larger idea of the record. There's no definite answer to "what does Milk Man mean." It's there for listeners to work out for themselves.
GS: It's like if you look at TV shows, always the best part, in my opinion, is the theme song. Where they're playing the song and they show these little scenes of the characters. It could be a comedy or a drama, and you see them walking down the street, or talking to somebody. Making this really intense face. Out of any context whatsoever. It's not part of the story; it's just these shots. The music is playing and there's no way in the world -- you can't put it together. It's just pure intensity.
by Daniel Chamberlin
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
jonnytrrrash7:
a co worker recently turned me on to them, and they're playing here next month. one of the fresher musical experiences of had in a long time
longblackbangs:
Wow! That was a great interview. Its great to see such talented yet semi unknowns getting some airtime on the home page of SG. Again...wow, Deerhoof is good stuff .