by RAF KATIGBAK

The music of San Francisco rock band Deerhoof has been compared to everything from a spirited, joyful, goofy indie cartoon rock-opera to a kaleidoscopic mutant of freaky, cultish prog-rock. Over seven full-length albums in about as many years, the band has risen from no-wave obscurity to global indie-rock notoriety. While last year's Milk Man injected their frenetic sound with a new subtlety and relatively subdued texture, live, Deerhoof shows continue to be a battle between high art chaos and pure candy pop accessibility. It teeters between the spastic instrumentation of duelling guitarists John Dieterich and Chris Cohen, the constantly (de-) evolving drum patterns of Greg Saunier, and the refreshingly sweet vocal counterpoint of Japanese-born bassist and frontperson Satomi Matsuzaki. With a new, Japan-only EP, Green Cosmos, slated for release this month, the band shows no signs of slowing down. The Mirror recently caught up with drummer Saunier over the phone on route to a gig in Minneapolis.

Mirror: At your last show in Montreal, a few of my friends described your drumming as inspirational - that's a pretty heavy trip to lay on you, no?

Greg Saunier: (laughing) When something like that happens, it just reminds me of the times that I've felt that way about music, or anything for that matter. A lot of times, if I see a concert that really inspires me, my first feeling is basically complete devastation and a feeling that it's time to quit. Then after a little while, I'll recover and feel that much more inspired, like I was shown a window into something bigger and better, beyond what I had been able to envision before.

M: Hmmm, sounds new-agey. I've noticed you're always reluctant to name Deerhoof's influences. What are you afraid of?

GS: (laughing) It's just hard to even start going down the list. First, there's the list I know about, where I consciously say to myself, I'm gonna put on this Miles Davis CD right now and, in that case, I'm gonna say, Miles Davis is my influence. But what about the other 99.999 per cent of my existence, where the sound in my ear is not something that I've chosen? For instance, right now it's the sound of the tires rolling along this Wisconsin freeway, it's the sound of my snare rattling in the back of the van, the sound of your slightly pixelated sounding voice coming through the tiny little speaker of my cell phone. Who am I to say that that isn't an influence? It's still going into my brain.

M: Dude, you're blowing my dome.

GS: And that's only counting sound! Who is to say that the way one plays music is only influenced by sound? Of course we all know that's not true. It's influenced by feelings and nutrition and weather -

M: - and William Shatner.

Hooked on TJ Hooker

GS: Wait, how do you know about William Shatner?!

M: Well, he was born here, and they've named buildings after the guy -

GS: I'm completely Shatner crazy! Actually, we turned on the television three nights ago at 3 in the morning, and Shatner suddenly appeared. He was doing a commercial for a local personal-injury lawyer. It was so hard to watch him do this commercial, you could tell it wasn't supposed to be funny but it was just hilarious. Comedy really was his strongest suit.

M: Shatner's Has Been record last year was off the chain. He's got that great signature style -

GS: Right, the classic Shatner-ism. Like, he'll say the first two words of a sentence and then there's an incredibly long pause and then he'll say the rest of the sentence and the beginning of the next sentence, all in a really big blur. It's as if he read the script and realism was just not his main interest. It's about taking the script and performing it in an almost musical way, regrouping the structure and changing the rhythm of it, pushing it far beyond wherever it was meant to go. I find it's very much the way that I feel my mind works. People laugh at him because he's overperforming, but that's what I like about it, the exaggeration of it, or that sense of trying to wrench every possible drop of intensity out of every line.

M: Just like Deerhoof.

GS: That's what I'm saying - he's definitely an influence. But Satomi doesn't let me bring my Enterprise shirt on tour anymore because it's starting to get holes and stuff.

With Nedelle and Dead Bush at la Sala Rossa tonight,
Thursday, May 19, 9 p.m., $5

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