The Stool Pigeon

Almost a year ago to the day, I had the pleasure of interviewing Bradford Cox, frontman of Atlanta’s finest, Deerhunter. It was a pleasure for all of three questions. After a few words about their then new album Cryptograms, he spent the next half-hour listing his personal problems. He spoke about the anti-depressants he was taking, and how these meant he couldn’t come; he told me about suffering from Marfans, a syndrome that makes his limbs disproportionately long and has hospitalised him more than once; and he complained that Deerhunter was limiting him musically, and why he wanted to write songs without drums or bass.

“Have you told your rhythm section?” I asked.

He didn’t laugh.

He was ridiculously self-centred, but it seemed in character. Watching Deerhunter live at the time largely involved gawping at Bradford. He would come on stage in a dress, then spend the opening 10 minutes looping his voice into a drone before the rest of the band joined in. And if you visited their blog? Well, he had a habit of posting dodgy pictures of kids on it.

I gave the group a month. Tops.

Guitarist Colin Mee almost proved me right leaving shortly afterwards, saying hilariously, about the blog: “I don’t want the world to know what our excrement looks like... It’s just a way to maintain attention when the music should speak for itself.”

A year later and all seems to have changed. Deerhunter’s forthcoming new album, Microcastle, is a real blinder. Out have gone the six-minute ambient passages and in has come some staggering songwriting: delicate pop songs, tearful campfire singalongs, and exhilaratingly loud jams.

And they appear to have become much more of a band. Bradford’s voice doesn’t dominate the record as it did on Cryptograms and the lyrics don’t dwell on his past. Guitarist Lockett Pundt even sings its two best songs, and it’s the same with them when they play live: Bradford, wearing baggy t-shirts, now spends gigs happily playing guitar, letting the other members share the spotlight.

I pick up the phone expecting to hear a happier Bradford on the other end. A stupid thought. During the course of our half-hour chat, he seems to want to make only two points: one, he writes and records a lot of music and, two, he’d be much happier if people left him to it.

“I don’t give a shit who likes us,” he says. “In fact, the fewer people who like us, the less I have to leave my room and stop making music.”

“All I do is record,” he adds later. “It’s the only interest I have. At all. I don’t need anybody or anything else.”

I ask him what’s provoked the changes in the band; why he’s trying to be less personal. “The reason I was so open in the past is because I didn’t know that people were actually paying attention,” he says. “So I have taken a rational step back from that. But, look, my problems are internal, and they really aren’t that interesting. I mean, everyone’s miserable, so why’s my misery any more or less interesting than anyone else’s? Can’t we just talk about the music?”

Deerhunter were formed back in 2001, when Bradford met drummer Moses Archuleta at a show at Atlanta’s legendary Alphabet House - a punk girl’s bed-sit that occasionally put on gigs. The pair were eventually joined by Colin, who was kipping on the Black Lips’ floor at the time, and Justin Bosworth on bass.

According to Moses, they spent the next three years “just having fun, playing with no direction”, until 2004 when Justin got killed by a car while skateboarding. Josh Fauver was brought in as a replacement. The debut album that followed, Turn It Up, Faggot, is an unsurprisingly nasty listen.

Shortly after that came out, Bradford invited his best friend Lockett to join the band and, after a few more years hard graft, they released Cryptograms. Since that, they’ve done little but tour the States. Microcastle was written in one of the few breaks they’ve allowed themselves.

I ask Bradford if there was any idea behind the record, because it certainly sounds like they were going for a more immediate sound. “There’s no real answer to that,” he replies. “I mean there’s no developmental process I could explain to you; no ideas behind it. I make music constantly. I could have made five records in between Cryptograms and this.”

He goes on: “I don’t depend on anything for inspiration. I don’t have to take drugs to write. I don’t have to drink to record. I don’t get distracted by pussy or ass - boys and girls or crap on TV. I have a very one-dimensional personality. I’m only interested in music and recording. I am a normal person. I have good relationships with my parents and family. But outside of them, I’m not that interested in people. I mean, I have pals - ‘buddies’ - but I don’t have the romantic or sexual distractions other people have. I don’t feel I need to have someone else come into my life and be an inspiration to me. I’m more inspired by anything from girl groups to Rauschenberg collages to Tiffany lamps.”

So what inspired Microcastle? “Girls groups, Rauschenberg collages and Tiffany lamps,” he replies, deadpan.

Bradford mentions his love of girl groups in practically every interview he does, even though you can’t hear an ounce of them in Deerhunter’s music. Since he sounds miserable already, I decide to tell him that.

“Yes, but I don’t like ripping off my influences,” he says. “Music doesn’t need to be digested a second time and re-shat out. You just lose bulk in the stool then; you get diarrhoea. I’m inspired by the ambience of girl group records - everything from the drums to the way the guitars sound. But I’ve no interest in copying them. I don’t want to sound like them.”

After saying this, Bradford starts name-checking his favourite girl groups. He mentions Martha Reeve & The Vandellas and The Cookies, and then starts filling me in on who they actually were. And, magically, he’s suddenly funny, interesting, and opinionated. Everything he wasn’t before. It’s as if he’s trying to prove his point that all he’s interested in is music and nothing else.

He goes off on such tangents several times later too, talking about everyone from Lil’ Wayne (“a genius from outer space who just shits out verses”) to Jay Reatard (opinions on whom he only gives off the record).

It’s not where I wanted the interview to go, but at least it means he’s not sounding depressed. Unfortunately, I ruin it by asking what his hopes for Microcastle are.
“I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks, really,” he says. “At this point in time I really, genuinely, don’t care about anyone’s opinion. That might change - I’m not a fortune teller - but I’m completely stripped of idealism and ambition right now. I really would enjoy just taking a year out in my bedroom enjoying air conditioning, only going out for food. I mean what do I get from this? Money? Adoration from a group of kids? That’s cool, but I don’t need it, and it doesn’t really change anything. What have I got to be ambitious for? That’s a good question.”

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