Deerhoof - Biography
Deerhoof is a San Francisco Bay-based band that is known for its prodigious musical output and ever-shifting, off-kilter sound. While Deerhoof's sound has changed dramatically since their beginnings in 1994, the band has become influential and is widely respected in independent and underground rock circles.
Founding member Greg Saunier moved to San Francisco after graduating from a music conservatory in 1991. After arriving in the city, he joined a short-lived four piece goth/metal group called Nitre Pit as their drummer. When that band suddenly broke up, Saunier and then-bassist Rob Fisk formed an ad-hoc duo, named Deerhoof by Fisk. Their style was improvisatory, loud, aggressive and stark. In 1995, the duo played at the Yo Yo A Go Go Festival in Olympia, Washington, an annual festival showcasing independent bands. The band caught the attention of Kill Rock Stars label founder, Slim Moon, who signed them to release a 7” single. The duo, lacking funds, recorded the single on a four-track recorder and released “Return Of The Wood M'Lady” in 1995, with a cover illustration by Fisk. The debut 7” would mark the beginning of the band's long-standing relationship with Kill Rock Stars, with the group eventually becoming the best-selling and longest-running band on the label's roster.
In 1996, through mutual friends, the pair met Japanese film student Satomi Matsuzaki, who had just moved to the Bay Area from Tokyo. Though she had no previous musical experience, the members of Deerhoof hit it off with her right away and liked the calm, untrained singing style she possessed. Within a week of being asked to join the band, she was off on a tour with the now trio version of Deerhoof. The group created a unique sound, featuring Saunier and Fisk's noisy improvisatory playing, mixed with a simple melodic sense and Matsuzaki's vocals over the top. The trio released their self-recorded debut album The Man, The King, The Girl on Kill Rock Stars in 1997, again with cover artwork by Fisk. Around the time of making their first album, Matsuzaki began teaching herself how to play bass, which would add to a fuller sound for the band when they played live.
By 1998, the trio expanded to a quartet by adding keyboardist Kelly Goode to the band. With Goode, the band changed their sound to one that emphasized tightly composed songs, foregoing much of the improvisatory sound and noisiness of their previous material. Deerhoof released the album Holdy Paws (Kill Rock Stars) in 1999 to less than rapturous reviews from both critics and fans. By late 1999, with sales of Holdy Paws low and the band losing money, pressure within the group was mounting, and both Goode and Fisk left the band. The two left behind an incomplete third album, actually begun before Goode had joined the group. The album, Halfbird (Menlo Park), wasn't released until 2001, but it displayed how the quartet was becoming increasingly more sophisticated in both their writing techniques and compositional orchestration.
After the exit of Fisk and Goode, the remaining duo of Matsuzaki and Saunier quickly found a new member in self-taught guitarist John Dieterich, and spent the next couple of years crafting a new approach to writing and recording their music. This new version of Deerhoof released Reveille (Kill Rock Stars) in 2002, again self-produced. The changes the band made were apparent in the crisper, more powerful sound of the material, added to the virtuoso guitar playing of Dieterich and Matsuzaki's more restrained and confident vocals. Reveille was received warmly by both critics and fans and would mark a turning point for the band — from this point on, they would receive much attention from mainstream press and critics.
During 2002 the members of Deerhoof had forged a close relationship with Chris Cohen and his band, The Curtains. Cohen was asked to join Deerhoof, primarily as a second guitarist, and Saunier joined The Curtains for several years. Cohen and Dieterich also formed a side-project called Natural Dreamers. Deerhoof spent the next few years working and touring extensively, and produced three albums in quick succession, beginning with Apple O’ (2003 Kill Rock Stars), followed by Milk Man (2004 Kill Rock Stars), and The Runners Four (2005 Kill Rock Stars). Apple O’ emphasized the twin guitars now present in the band, while Milk Man was painted with a wider palette of sounds, and was highlighted by the band experimenting with orchestral arrangements and electronic and computer-based colorings. Milk Man also featured strange, surreal drawings by Japanese artist (and friend of the band) Ken Kagami. The Runners Four was essentially a double album containing 20 songs, and the band worked out all of the arrangements ahead of time for each song together in their practice space, rather than on a computer or while recording. The idea for the album was to give all four members equal say and space within the record, and all four band members are featured as vocalists at one time or another. Another change from their usual working arrangement was to have Cohen and Matsuzaki switch their instruments, with Cohen playing bass and Matsuzaki playing guitar.
Deerhoof also released an EP in 2005, Green Cosmos (Menlo Park), which expanded on the electronic sound featured on Milk Man and featured vocals almost entirely in Matsuzaki's native Japanese. During this time, the group also toured extensively and were asked by the San Francisco International Film Festival to perform a live score to a silent film of their choice. The band chose bohemian archivist and artist Harry Smith's film Heaven And Earth Magic, and performed the score, mainly written by Dieterich, in early 2006. After this intensive period of work, Cohen decided he wanted to devote more time to The Curtains, and left Deerhoof amicably after the film festival performance. Deerhoof commemorated Cohen's time in the band by posting some unreleased tracks recorded with him as a free mp3 EP on their website.
Deerhoof wasted no time and immediately returned to work, contributing to the score of the movie Dedication by first-time director Justin Theroux. The soundtrack was released in late 2007 on Commotion Records. After completing the soundtrack, the recorded their next album, Friend Opportunity (Kill Rock Stars), which was released in early 2007. Friend Opportunity was primarily recorded at Dieterich's Oakland apartment, and featured all three members of the band contributing various instrumental and production duties as needed, stepping outside of their on-stage instrumental roles. The album was recorded between two legs of a tour when the band was opening for Radiohead, and much of the material on the album was mixed while they were on the road. The result was an album that at first listen may seem more pop-oriented than some of their previous material, but that has just as many, if not more, stylistic shifts within and between songs and features a clearer yet even more dense sound. The album sounds like an excellent mix of all of the band's sounds and incarnations brought together in a shinier package. Critical and fan reaction was overwhelmingly positive, and the band toured worldwide through the remainder of 2007. So far the album has proved to be the band's most commercially successful release. In early 2008, it was announced that guitarist Ed Rodriguez was joining Deerhoof as full-time member. Deerhoof released their tenth album, Offend Maggie in October of 2008 (Kill Rock Stars).