Southern Roulette

eerhunter are from Atlanta and are good friends with people like Black Lips. They make really clever, druggy garage rock that stands out from all the gay White Stripes tribute bands that are still knocking around everywhere. Can you believe people still fall for that bullshit? We can’t. Anyway, we’ve listened to Deerhunter’s Cryptograms album around 90 times in the last two months (at least if the iTunes statistics on this computer are correct) and it’s still not getting annoying. We’re such fans that we wanted to get closer to the band so we rang them up on the premise of “doing an interview.” They totally fell for it. Vice: What’s the Deerhunter story? Colin: Well, we were basically just skateboarding, going to military school, delivering Chinese food, landscaping, not trying at college, playing Commodore 64 and being boy scouts when suddenly angels appeared before us and told us that we sucked as individuals and that’s why we had to team up with other individuals who sucked and write songs. OK. But why Deerhunter? Moses: It was the only movie none of us had ever seen. Have you seen it now? P.S. I like you. Moses: I saw it this Christmas. It was amazing, fucked up and sad. My favourite part was the Russian roulette scene when De Niro goes back to get Christopher Walken. I think I started crying then. There are lots of great bands in Atlanta right now, do you all know each other? Moses: We’re all aware of each other, but there are so many and it’s a big city so it’s hard to keep up sometimes. But Colin used to live with the Black Lips and they went to high school together. Colin: Yeah, we were living in this big house we had trashed completely. It was called “Die Slaughterhaus.” We used to do stuff like drink a bunch of cough syrup and write country songs and Amon Duul stuff. Really? You played krautrock with Black Lips? Yes. …Amon Duul, how can you even listen to that stuff, and aren’t they like the most hated band in kraut? Moses: It depends on what Amon Duul you’ve heard. Some of it kinda sucks but most of it is amazing. Why do you have all those hateful comments on your MySpace under “Sounds Like?” We got all those outrageous emails when we toured with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. We thought it was funny. Do you have any stories from the road? Moses: We were at this Vice party during SXSW when the balcony railing collapsed and everyone had to evacuate. As we were driving away in our van, people were walking back towards the city from the party and our friend Lou picks up on the sombre mood and starts yelling, “Who died?” at the pedestrians. The next day we heard people say, “I heard someone died at the Vice party!” Colin: This one time we played in St. Louis, in an art house with a bunch of teenagers, one old guy and horrible Raymond Pettibon influenced art on the walls. There was no backstage, no kombucha, no oolong tea, no white tea, no rooibos, no freaking green tea even! Wow, you make it sound like you could get high on tea. Moses: Kombucha tea is the one you should try, it makes you feel funny. It contains fermenting cultures, like, living stuff! Colin drinks it every day. It’s really good, tastes like fruity beer. MILÈNE LARSSON
The EP Fluorescent Grey will be released soon on Kranky.