Head Shot: Darwin Deez

Darwin Deez was relatively unknown in the United States until the release of his self-titled debut in February of this year and a tour around the country. By that time, his record had been out in the UK for nearly a year and in that span, he had become somewhat of an indie-star over there and for good reason. His music is very upbeat and poppy, somewhat reminiscent of The Strokes with a very fun and energetic live show. Darwin and his band brought that show to a jam-packed Johnny Brenda's on Tuesday night and we had the chance to ask him a few questions about summer, airplanes and life, before the show.

Phrequency: Since it's so hot out today, I thought I'd ask—are you a summer or winter kind of guy?

Darwin Deez: I'm definitely a summer guy. I don't mind being too hot. I hate the winter. When I first moved to the North East, I first moved to Connecticut. I went to Wesleyan University for a year and it was the worst year of my life. I think part of that was the early winter, early nights like 4 pm was sunsets, which I never experienced and it was really bumming me out.

I think I was like I was experiencing that sad-seasonal disorder, depression thing. I was definitely depressed and there was a lot of causes. One of which was, I wasn't making music; one of which was, I was reading a lot of depressing philosophy by (Friedrich) Nietzsche.

Phrequency: I recently saw on your Twitter that you were on nine planes in 11 days. Tell me about that. Where were you going?

Darwin Deez: We were in London, we had a show in Vienna so we went from London to Vienna then back to London then back to New York. And then to three different cities in Brazil and back through San Francisco and Los Angeles. Then I went back to North Carolina. So it was a lot of traveling but I think it was actually worth it in the end.

Planes are alright. I got a lot more used to planes in the last year. Some of the flights that we were on last year were so fucking long. I hated it. Flying to Japan, flying to Australia, I really hated, but after I did that, you know, six hours across the country is like nothing. So that was cool. I liked getting stronger in that.

Phrequency: So after spending all that time flying around then going on tour in the states, how do you travel?

Darwin Deez: Well, right now we have this Honda mini-van and a 5x8 trailer for our shit. It's so well designed. Four doors, it's old. It's a 2000 so it doesn't have the new sort of fancyness to it and I've felt like I needed any fancy stuff, but I'm sure it'd be nice(laughs). This car, we drove it around the country twice and we paid 3000 dollars for it.

At one point, in the middle of the second tour, we broke down in the mountains California, north of San Francisco and we had to spend upwards a $1000 fixing it so we should add that to the sticker price of what we paid. But during that time, we rented a Suburban, which is huge and popular car. We rented that just to be able to not cancel our San Francisco and Los Angeles shows. So we drove down and did those shows in the Suburban. We were so happy to be back to this old, sort of beat up, two-tone Odyssey. We love it a lot.

When there's four of us, we actually get a little bed situation going on in the back like a little rat's nest, but we're actually touring with six at the moment. Four in the band, our bass player's girlfriend and videographer.

Phrequency: Does the van have a name?

Darwin Deez: The van? You know what? We bought it from another band called Ghost Cube, this sort of metal jazz trio and they called it Betsy. So I guess we call it that. I don't know. I don't really name things.

Phrequency: Alright. Going back to Twitter. I saw that you tweeted something along the lines that tour makes you stir crazy sometimes. Like how so?

Darwin Deez: I remember when I tweeted that. I was in London. Spent a lot of time in England last year, too much time I guess you could say. And it's been a really cool experience to get to know this foreign country and everything. But the thing about tour, it prohibits me personally from being to write music for the most part and I'm all about that. All about writing and creating. That's what makes me OK.

It's amazing. I'm such a little prick, child, bastard, kid, bitch or whatever, existentialist or whatever, sensitive spiritual moth because I swear one day everything's great and the next day I'll just feel like, "why am I here? I have no purpose being on Earth," and it's strange feeling that takes, I try to prevent it from taking me over but it's definitely there, percolating. And I'm thinking that and I'm wondering that and it boggles the mind that I can split so quickly to that. But I can only conjecture that it has to do with that I'm not writing. When I am writing, everything is cool. So that was an issue I was having after being on the road for a year and half.

Phrequency: When you come home and have time to think and write music, does it just flow?

Darwin Deez: We'll see what happens. I've never actually been on tour this long. So I don't know if there's a backlog or what. I actually had a lot of fun and I feel like I got some creative juices flowing when I was making my rap mix tape, Wonky Beats. That was really cool, productive and really positive use of my time. It put me back in touch with my self.

It's a weird thing being out there. When things are going well for a musician, it really changes the tenure of your life because you go from being connected to your true self, creativity to being cut off from your true self by the logistical impossibility of recording and making music. And surrounded, at the same time, by all these people who are in to what you've done and they feel a love for you. That feeling is real for them, but for you as a person, it's this very toxic dangerous kind of thing. It's based on something you've made and it's very easy to affect you.

Phrequency: Going back to the Wonky Beats, that was done out on the road. How did that come about? Did you just start messing with samples or… ?

Darwin Deez: Yes. Well… Cole(Smith, bandmate) and I got really into the Das Rascist mixtape and those guys, I know Victor (Vazquez aka Kool A.D.) from college; I knew him years ago. He sort of reemerged as this Pizza Hut guy and that song is so deceptive because, well fun is part of their thing and taking things lightly, but they're really talented. I was really inspired by their raps. I just figured it would be a fun way to get the juices flowing and I was missing that.

I like those kinds of challenges where it's like, "Ok, everything has to be this," or those kind of limitations. I always find that the limitations bring out the creativity in me and bring out the best in me. So having the limit or concept of only sampling from this one movie(Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Family) was totally inspiring to me and I had a lot of fun. I just got in the groove of writing rhymes.

I didn't think I could rap. I didn't think I'd be any good at using Logic, which is the new software that I was sort of learning at the time. And so I figured, "Who cares? It's a rap mixtape. You can do whatever you want and just let it be fun and it can be bad and bad is good." And that was the whole thing with Das Racist. Like bad is good. Poor quality is cool and feels exciting in a certain way.

Phrequency: Do you see yourself doing something similar in the future?

Darwin Deez: Oh, yeah! It was too much fun not to do again.

Phrequency: Cool. Are your thoughts on the next record?

Darwin Deez: I'm definitely thinking about it. I think the trouble is there's no use thinking about it, really. It's just a matter of, you have to go in there and see what comes out and then you think about it. But I'd love to think about it. I have lots of thoughts about it.

Phrequency: I know you have seen a lot of success over in the UK and you're just starting to gain some here. How does that feel to be so popular over there compared to just getting started here?

Darwin Deez: I kind of miss it. I miss England, strangely. Although, the weather is terrible. I don't know. It feels like a lot of my soul is over there or something. It's not my home. I'd never move there. Unless... I guess I could move there. It's really tough. I think London would be the only place or Manchester is really cool. I wouldn't go all the way over there to just to live in Manchester. I would have to live in London, but I hate London because all the streets are all curvy. It's the opposite of the grid plan and it's so frustrating to me.

Phrequency: You live in New York now?

Darwin Deez: Actually, I'm between houses. I was planning to move to Asheville (North Carolina). I'm hoping it to be a Brooklyn away from Brooklyn. I have a lot of friends there, really good friends, deep friends from the past who I never really spent much time with who are nevertheless really cool, important, close special people to me. So that's cool. That's a good option for me. I just want to focus on being creative cause that's what's important.

New York is just really annoying and stressing me out currently. It's like so expensive for everything, so much attitude there, and there's like, I don't know. There's a lot of night life, a lot of stuff going on which is cool.

Phrequency: Do you think moving to Asheville will influence you to make a folk record?

Darwin Deez: It definitely will. I think there could be some banjo, yeah. There could be some banjo. I can think of at least one banjo that belongs to a friend of mine and it's just hanging on a wall. I'll probably pick it up at some point and that could lead to it being used. So yeah, it's funny. You're very open to suggestion as an artist. You're very open to the suggestions that are around you. It's not so much the power of the place, it's just like the fact that if it's easy, you might as well do it.

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