Back in April Deerhoof released Noble and Godlike in Ruin, their 20th LP if we’ve counted right, and if a record comes out between now and the end of the year that intrigues me quite so much, it will have been a very good year indeed. It’s a richly woven tapestry taking in elements of a myriad of musical styles and binding them into a multi-textured, vibrantly covered tableau tackling some of the most pertinent themes of the modern era dispersed through the prism of Mary Shelley’s gothic masterpiece Frankenstein. As is often the way with a Deerhoof album, it’s a stylistic jump from 2023’s Miracle Level, but in a blind listening test you’d be left in no doubt as to who created it.
They’ve been mindful of the environment that the record has been created within too, eschewing the usual social media announcements by revealing the record via a series of enigmatic posts on classified ads site Craigslist, and recently announcing that they are removing all of their music from Spotify, following the platform’s CEO Daniel Ek investing $700million and becoming chairman of a company specialising in AI battle tech. You can read Deerhoof’s full statement on their withdrawal from Spotify here.
With the band set to hit these shores for a UK tour, we asked for the thoughts of drummer Greg Saunier on the new record, the political climate that it’s released into and the secret to the band’s longevity.
The first time I listened to the album it conjured up a stage production in my mind, with Satomi narrating as the voice of Mother Nature. What images or sensations have you experienced in creating and listening to the record?
Making records usually necessitates a journey through every known human emotion. But that isn’t your question. The sensation of most of making a record is that of “that’s not quite it.” Or you ask of images. It’s like painting an image that doesn’t exist until you finished it. But making a record diy-style is also a process of accidental desensitization. You’re always in danger of hearing it too many times, to the point that you really don’t hear anything anymore. No sensations at all! As for listening to the record, ask me again in about five years! It usually takes that long for me to forget what it sounds like and I can hear it fresh again. Sometimes I even went into a restaurant and heard some music and thought “wow this restaurant plays some pretty weird music” only to realize five minutes later that they are playing my band.
The album is released into a particularly turbulent political and social environment, what effect did this have on its creation and have subsequent events reshaped your interpretation of the songs in any way?
Some people say art should mirror its environment, others say it should model a new one in its place. But I think for us it’s not quite either of these perfectly valid rationales. More like art is the way we wrap our heads around a turbulent environment. I don’t actually think today’s environment is more turbulent than the rest of history. But I do think it is particularly well designed to make you go insane. The making of music is for us a protection against going insane. It’s an easy way to process feelings that are given no other outlet in our society.
What were you watching, reading and listening to at the time of writing and recording the album – did you notice any of it seep into the record?
We were touring the UK and Satomi had downloaded an audiobook for us to listen to in the car. Frankenstein. Read by the guy from Downton Abbey I think. Let’s just say that it was already enough for John to be driving on the wrong side of the street, without him and all of us weeping to this book. The album is based entirely on Mary Shelley’s masterpiece about dehumanization, self hate and revenge.
The album was announced via a series of cryptic ads on Craigslist – why did you choose this method rather than more traditional printed, online or social media announcements?
I don’t know, announcing everything on Instagram is so boring. Zuckerberg is a fascist. I think we just wanted to see if we could announce without supporting a fascist.
You worked with Saul Williams on ‘Under Rats’, how did the collaboration come about and what did Saul bring to the record?
A few years back he and I were on the same avant garde music festival in a town in Switzerland. He performed with a string quartet and it was one of the most inspiring things I’d ever seen. After the show we started talking about US politics with a Swiss man who was there. We raged on for hours, I mean we hit it off instantly. Deerhoof was following him on social media and appreciated the way he had been using his platform. He was relentless, and poetic. Every day there was another unapologetic critique of the American Empire and its partnership with Israel to exterminate Palestinians. So I just DM’d him and sent him a track!
For your previous album, Miracle-Level, you broke with Deerhoof tradition and recorded in a studio with a producer. What did you take from that experience when working on Noble and Godlike in Ruin?
Mike Bridavsky was incredible at everything he did, but it took tremendous discipline for us to let him produce that record! And to learn to play all the songs perfectly together without any mistakes. And especially when Mike said “ok guys clear the room, I’m going to mix the record now,” and wouldn’t let us back in. We were not used to any of this! When it was time to go back to doing it ourselves, I think we felt like going wild and doing the things you can’t really do when you have limited time in a recording studio. A lot more editing, experimenting with sounds, recording separately, adding lots of layers, and just generally taking forever to get it right.
Deerhoof are now 31 years and 20 albums in. There aren’t many bands that stay together this long, fewer still who are so prolific – what has kept you creating together?
Not that we expected it, but it actually gets easier and more fun over time. We’ve seen each other’s ups and downs and trust each other in a more relaxed way. The songs and ideas come faster when we’ve let our guard down a bit.
Is there a strand that you could follow, a core sort of ‘Deerhoof-iness’, that links this album with your debut and all of the records in-between?
Every time we make a record I think, “Wow, we really made something totally different this time!” But then if I happen to listen to it a few years later, I always realize we sound like exactly the same band. I don’t know what it is. Our personalities and politics just always come through.
You’re heading across the pond for shows in the UK and then on to continental Europe in August. Are there any cities or venues on the tour that you’re particularly looking forward to?
That hour or so on stage is always the highlight of every day. Makes the grind of constant travel worth it. It’s when we can finally get some peace and quiet!
Noble and Godlike in Ruin is out now – order on vinyl, CD, cassette and digital download via Bandcamp
Deerhoof’s UK tour starts in Bristol on 22nd July before the band continue their tour into continental Europe during August with further shows in the USA later in the year – all live dates and ticket information can be found here
Interview by Paul Maps
Photograph by Satoru Eguchi
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