Photo, Loreana Rushe

Sometimes great music is cerebral, engaging the brain and gently stroking the synapses. Other times its visceral, punching you hard in the gut and grabbing you by the sex bits. Sometimes, like in the case of Deerhunter’s second album cryptograms, it can be both. In cryptograms, the American noise-rock outfit drew on difficult personal circumstances to record a record that charted a feedback driven course between suffocating freak-outs and blissful psychedelia by way of ambiguous instrumental interludes. It was wayward, challenging and one of the best albums of recent times. After touring the shit out of cryptograms the band returned home late last year feeling knackered and leaving fans worrying that Deerhunter were no more. They went into hibernation and frontman Bradford Cox focused his energy on his sample driven solo work released under the Atlas Sound moniker. One super Atlas Sound album later and it seems the Deerhunter juggernaut is roaring back into life, this time with a bunch of songs that (while still noisy) trade some of the more wigged out elements of cryptograms for a tighter, poppier sound. At the start of their first spate of gigs showcasing material from the forthcoming album microcastle, Analogue interviews the band before a Foggy Notions show in Whelans. Bradford in particular is in ebullient form. With his legs sprawled across the table and his hair falling across his forehead in a boyish bowl-cut, he seems energised, animated and full of opinions.

Analogue: I was a bit presumptuous and thought I was only interviewing Bradford so some of the questions will be directed just to you Bradford. But there are a good few questions that I’d like to direct at the band too?

Bradford Cox (lead singer): That’s totally okay, that’s totally okay.

Analogue: I saw earlier today on your blog you put up some nice photos of you all arriving in Ireland. Was that just this morning or have you been here longer?

Cox: Just this morning. I’ve gotten really quick on Flicker. Really the reason I did that is for my family but I’m also putting it on the blog just to keep the blog active. I was really disappointed with myself when I went on the Atlas sound tour, I just let the blog go dead. The blog is really important for the band, especially now that its straightened up into something that’s really music focused. Rather than just focused on silly things because I really feel like music is changing. The way its made and produced and the rules are kind of becoming more and more useless. For over a year now I’ve been giving away free music as me. It seems like now that’s becoming a more reasonable thing to do. Music doesn’t have to be made and you’ve to wait for months to hear it. I don’t really give a shit about the music press.

Analogue:: Woops

Cox: No I mean there are people in the music press I like but I do resent the way they have come to control the way music is manufactured and produced. They create this 4 month time lag between the creation of art and then it goes through these elitist filters and gets criticized before it reaches the audience. That’s bullshit. What do you think Josh?

Josh Fauver (bass guitar): I think that there’s a lot of industry loopholes you’ve to go through to make music anymore and I think its obnoxious and it hinders the process a lot.

Cox: Specifically the press though. I’m all up for music. I didn’t have much money growing up. But as soon as I heard of stuff like soulseek and napster, I was right on it. Exploring weird stuff like free jazz. Its just a great way to cross reference weird stuff you know.

Analogue: When you talk about the music press then, who are you referring to? Is it the big music websites?

Cox: Not necessarily. I mean the last Breeders album was leaked by a Spanish journalist and suddenly its all over the world.

Analogue: OK but I think even over here, many music fans’ first point of reference for music is the website pitchforkmedia.

Cox: Pitchfork isn’t bad . They won’t leak a record. They won’t compromise your property. As far as I know pitchfork has never done anything like that. Let me tell you something I resent. I resent someone else deciding when to leak your music for you. Like I’m not going to put our new album microcastle on the blog for free. Its an album we worked pretty hard on so its going to be more traditional. I’d like in the future with our albums to do something more unconventional.

Analogue: Like what?

Cox: Maybe give them away for free and sell them on vinyl only. I think CDs are dying. Vinyl, there was an article in a US magazine recently, like business week, and there is a huge surge in vinyl sales. Everyone talks about the failure of the record industry, but I say give the music away and if people like it and you produce something quality then people will want to own it on vinyl. Its an aesthetically interesting format. The music industry has gotten away with some shit over the years. Especially the 50s and 60s, records were like one or two great songs and a bunch of filler. But now people can fucking stream the whole album on myspace and you can hear the single in context with all the filler. So if the album is shit you know in advance and don’t waste your time.

Analogue: There’s a sense of that on your blog. Another band that seems to be happy to let the fans hear new stuff early or work in progress is Animal Collective. There are a lot of high quality recordings of exciting new stuff they are playing live that they seem happy to have out there.

Cox: Yeah their new stuff is really trancey. I’m really excited for them.

Analogue: Yeah I read on your blog that you went to see Animal Collective and it was one of the best gigs you saw. Now that you are touring with them, it got me thinking that one of my dream musical collaborations would be Animal Collective and Atlas Sound (Bradford’s side project).

Cox: You see the thing about these things is, I wouldn’t know where to start. I don’t like to ask people to just do stuff with me. Plus we work with tapes and loops and stuff so it wouldn’t be that easy. But I have a very similar set up live, and I’m sure on this tour people are going to think I’m ripping them off. I think we come from a very similar place in terms of our spirit and what we do, using old sounds, mixing them with new sounds, looping, trance oriented stuff. But the problem a lot of the time, for me working with Animal Collective would mean we all have to load our samplers with new stuff. A lot of what we do is like tape music. So its not like a guitar where you just come up with a new chord. But yeah, I guess, I’ve thought about how cool that would be.

Analogue: Their new stuff is incredible though.

Cox: That’s had some influence on my end of Deerhunter. In an odd way, I’m so into what they are doing right now that its made me want to take Deerhunter in a new direction. They are so good at what they are doing I don’t want to see another band doing that type of music right now because they are pretty much dead on.

Analogue: I don’t think anyone could copy them if they tried.

Cox: Right. But ambience, electronic samples and stuff, and loops, this is the direction I want to go with my writing and this is gonna sound silly but I want Deerhunter to just be a pop band. Art pop, a band that makes records that have odd elements.

Photo, Loreana Rushe

Analogue:: This question is for Whitney. The last time Deerhunter played they had a different guitarist but now you’ve joined so the band remains a five piece. I believe this is your first live show with the band, how do you feel about going out live for the first time with Deerhunter?

Whitney Petty (guitarist): I puked up outside [laughter].

Cox: Did you?

Petty: Naww just kidding.

Analogue: I want to ask questions about the new record Microcastle. How far along is it? Are you just trying it out live or is it done?

Cox: Its finished. Its totally mixed and done.

Analogue: Are you happy with the finished results?

Cox: Yeah sure.

Analogue: Are you not going to tell me any more than that?

Cox: I was thinking internally, just about mastering tics. Just thinking about that sort of stuff.

Analogue: So what is it? Are you not far away enough from the record to talk about it yet?

Cox: All I know is I think its amazing. I think it’s a classic record.

W: All I know as an outsider, just coming in for the first time and hearing it is that it’s a really, really exciting album to hear. Its awesome.

Cox: I really feel like it’s a lot more put together. Its straightforward and direct. Not as ambiguous.

Analogue: So different to the usual Deerhunter sound then? I read somewhere that it was going to be more poppy?

Cox: Yeah sure. I’m sure its going to piss off some fans. Like some of the small army we’ve had from the start are probably going to be a bit confused and bewildered by why we are not going to go the way they expect. Like I’ve already had messages. Someone already sent me a bizarre message, an analogy that I did not understand. It was “just remember Bradford for every two people that liked crooked rain, crooked rain, there were 10 that hated it”. Like saying Pavement’s early stuff was weird and hard to listen to, but Crooked rain is more accessible but we lost our original fanbase. I don’t know what they were saying. I mean we don’t fucking sound like Pavement.
[Large discussion on the merits of which is the best pavement album ever follows for 2 minutes, then Bradford starts talking about Stephen Malkmus]

Cox: He’s such a snooty…

Analogue: Who is?

Cox: Malkmus.

Analogue: Really? You interviewed him once right?

Cox: I like him though. I don’t like throwing insults around

Analogue: Right what did you say? I wouldn’t know what to say to him. He’s one of those people.

Cox: I got really drunk beforehand so that I wouldn’t be really afraid and make a total ass of myself.

Analogue: well I had a few drinks tonight, just because I didn’t want to make a total arsehole of myself in front of you.

Cox: Oh yeah?

Analogue: I just had this feeling with you that I might say one thing, and you’d eat me for breakfast.

Cox: Well I don’t know why people think that about me, like what could you say?

Analogue: Well I could say something like…ah no.

Cox: What? What? Do it! Do it!

Analogue: Well just from other interviews I’ve read, I could say something like “you sound like a genre of music we call shoegaze. Have you heard of shoegaze?” and then you’d go on the attack.

Cox: I’d just be like, I hate Ride.

Fauver: He would leap across the table and throttle you.

Analogue: Oh yeah I read that somewhere, you hate Ride. Whats that about?

Cox: I hate Ride. They are fucking bad. I think they are one of the cheapest, like in the States you find Ride tapes in all the bins in the 2nd hand shops.

Analogue: At the end of the last tour, at the end you went on hiatus. Or how do you say that in a way that’s not an Irish accent?

Cox: Hi-ay-tus, that’s right.

Analogue: Well it seemed you were finding the cryptograms material wearying to play?

Moses Archuleta (drummer): We had been playing that stuff long before it even came out.

Analogue: But here in Dublin, it didn’t come across. You seemed to play a phenomenal gig from our perspective.

Cox: But that was exceptional. Sometimes things are exceptional.

Archuleta: I mean it was just us sort of going through the motions and we felt that the whole tour. But Dublin was the exception.

Analogue: Irish people, we love hearing bands tell us we’re the best fuckin crowd ever.

Cox: You guys got the one good show of that tour. That was so interpreted. Like a lot of people thought we were going to split up. But it was more of a case of I wanted to be home with my parents.

Analogue: Everyone thought it was the end of Deerhunter. Do you still feel the same way about the cryptograms stuff or now that you are back touring again has your relationship with the material improved?

Cox: I’m so excited to play all our stuff live. Especially now that Whitney’s joined because I had a lot of problems with Colin [the former guitarist] because he wasn’t exactly a team player. I mean I’m not gonna shit talk somebody but his work ethic was really bad. He wasn’t in it for the right reasons. He’s just not compatible with me psychologically. We’ve never had any chemistry. I’m already having a better time with Whitney in the practice sessions. If she doesn’t get a part, I don’t care. She can just make shit up. I’m not super-protective about how I make songs. Some days I am, but its like Colin wasn’t reliable if he was wasted, which was a lot.

Analogue: We met him after the last gig and he was sitting with us.

Cox: He’s such a douche

Analogue: He had drunk a bottle of cough syrup I think.

Cox: Yeah he’s rubbish at holding alcohol.

Analogue: He was pretty drooly, but we were getting on well with him. He didn’t rubbish the band or anything he was just really sort of… on the old cough syrup, the jaw was hanging down wide open.

Cox: Yeah [laughs].

Analogue: To change subject, Bradford you’ve expressed in one or two interviews that there isn’t enough noise or psychosis in indie rock?

Cox: I’ve pretty much given up on indie rock. I hate indie rock. I never listen to it anymore. Because indie rock to me is safe. Like college rock in the 80s. It has a lot to do with like economic oppression. It has a lot to do with rich kids. When I think of indie rock recently I think of sort of bands whose names I won’t mention appropriating African music.

Analogue: Will I say it? Vampire Weekend?

Cox: Yeah. New York, upper West side people.

Analogue: But in relation to what you think about noise. Do you not think that’s changing a bit now with bands like Fuck Buttons?

Cox: I always like a bit of noise, like I like a lot of a little bit of noise I like. That make sense? I mean I don’t like a small level of noise in a song. I mean I like a fucking noisy level of erotic… in my brain noise is what sexuality is in a lot of other people’s brains. I mean I get aroused by noise. I don’t mean physical, I’m being figurative here. But where most people might get lonely or horny or get the urge to give it to somebody or hook up, I get this urge to fucking like hear an exploding guitar sound. Hiss and feedback. Noise to me is like sexuality.

Analogue: Okay like visceral. And you don’t hear that anywhere in indie?

Cox: No not at all. Wait, the Raveonettes. They do a pretty good job. I mean I like Fuck Buttons. What I’m waiting for is a band that can take pop music and do that, not traditional noise pop.

Analogue: I read you say something about Patti Smith.

Cox: Yeah dangerous like Patti Smith. Exactly. And like sexually attractive. That’s what I’m waiting for. That would be my satisfaction.

Analogue: Your jerk-off record of the century?

Cox: Yeah [laughing]

Bradford will be back in Dublin with Atlas Sound supporting Animal Collective in Tripod on Monday May 19th. The entire Deerhunter gang return on June 14th to play Vicar Street with a bunch of other cool bands as part of the Foggy Notions Future Days festival.

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