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When in Roma
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“We’re virtually homeless,” says Nick Urata, frontman and founder of DeVotchKa, a band only occasionally based in their native Denver, Colorado. “We pretty much live in our van, but that’s what we signed up for.” Like most musicians, Urata and his gang are on the road more often than not, in keeping with their links to gypsy culture. Apart from leading the somewhat unstable, borderline nomadic existence that comes with touring (and being gypsies), the band draws from the melodies and instrumentation of old Eastern Europe, stitching it together with Greek, Latino and American sounds, the latter both traditional and contemporary. But unlike that other “gypsy punk” outfit, Madonna’s buddies Gogol Bordello, DeVotchKa carry it off with a bohemian sophistication and reckless romanticism, creating an aesthetic that has attracted fans far and wide. Most know DeVotchKa for their Grammy-nominated soundtrack for the 2006 dysfunctional-family film Little Miss Sunshine, but they’ve also released five albums since 2000, the most recent being 2008’s A Mad & Faithful Telling, along with the popular 2006 EP Curse Your Little Heart. The band has another movie soundtrack in the can, for I Love You Phillip Morris, a gay dramedy starring Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor (to be released next February). “The story is amazing, and it’s true,” says Urata. “It’s a great film, I’m really proud to be a part of it. It’s essentially about the tragic comedy of life, Little Miss Sunshine was sort of in that vein as well, and our music seems to fit in that category. The world might seem like it’s falling apart, but in the acceptance of that, there’s a joy.” A sad DeVotchKa song called “How It Ends,” which also appeared in the trailer for the 2005 film Everything Is Illuminated, was recently revived for the game Gears of War 2. “I was always a fan of the first game—I don’t know if I should be admitting that,” says Urata. “When I first got the offer, I was like, how is this gonna work? The game deals with the last remaining members of humanity fighting this alien race, and it’s actually visually stunning, it’s really gorgeous and dark. The main characters’ loved ones have been wiped out, and in one scene they’re reminiscing about what Earth used to be like before this thing happened, and that’s when they use our music. It has nothing to do with the actual gameplay, but it’s cool. It’s sentimental.” Fresh from touring the U.S. with David Byrne, DeVotchKa are dividing their time between gigs and “banging out skeletons of songs” for a new album, one Urata hopes will be “bigger and better” than ever. As for this weekend’s show in Montreal, part of the Jazz Fest, the band will revisit their gypsy roots—back in the late ’90s, they wore costumes and accompanied a vaudevillian variety of performers, from half-naked ladies to creepy clowns. “We’re gonna have a local Montreal circus artist join us on stage for a song, since Montreal is a centre of that sort of thing,” says Urata. “We like to keep our ties to the circus world, when we can.” AT CLUB SODA ON SATURDAY, |
