Dan Deacon is a brilliant Baltimorean maker of electronic music, wearer of sweaters, and hater of the word âwacky.â Heâs currently touring the United States in a converted school bus that runs on veggie oil and has no air-conditioning or heat. We had to reschedule our interview due to cell-phone reception issues, so by the time we chatted, he was stuck in traffic in Phoenix.
Where are you?
Right now weâre outside Phoenix, so we have great reception. Earlier we were in the Petrified Forest National Parkâitâs almost reassuring knowing that there isnât cell reception out there yet.
Howâs the tour going?
The tourâs going great. Itâs surprisingly not stressful and really good. Weâve had a lot of time to actually enjoy the drives and the countryside, or the country itself. And the shows have been really fun. Itâs definitely been a transitional tour, and Iâm excited to sort of jump off from here.
It seems kind of long; is it long for you? I was trying to look at all the datesâit seems like youâre just going everywhere. Were you just in Europe?
I was just in Europe. And the tour is longâitâs not long by my standards, but itâs long for me in my recent history. I havenât done a full US tour since 2009, so itâs been a while, and I figure if weâre going out, we might as well cover as much territory as possible. We tour in a school bus that we converted into an RV. Doesnât really get the best speed going, so we try to keep it under 250 miles a dayâit makes it easier for us to play a lot of stops.
We recently did a feature on men in rockâsort of an answer to Rolling Stoneâs âWomen Who Rock.â We tried to ask men patronizing questions that usually get asked of women artists. So I thought I would give you one: You have the best sweaters in music, obviously. Where do you get them, and whatâs your style inspiration?
The best letters?
Sweaters!
Oh, sweaters!
Yeah, every promo photo of you is in an amazing sweater.
Oh, well, cool. The one that Iâve been wearing currently my brother gave to me. I tend to get them at, you know, the place most people get sweaters: either as gifts or from thrift stores.
All right, dumb question out of the way, I apologize.
[Laughs] Donât worry about it.
I did want to ask about the cover photo on your album. Where is that?
It is in Lake Placid. The back is of Bryce Canyon. My friend Adamâs dad is a photographerâwe stopped at his childhood home when we were on tour. We were watching CSI: Miami and flipping through these photo books out on the coffee table. I got to the Lake Placid photo and I just knew that that was going to be the cover to the album. It was exactly what I wanted. Itâs beautifulâI mean, itâs not like I even had that in my head, like, âOh, I need a photo, I need a landscape.â We hadnât even begun the album artwork and we werenât done mixing the record, but as soon as I saw it, it was like, âThere it is. Thatâs the record.â
And now itâs a flag?
âTis. âTis many flags.
Are you getting submissions for the photo contest yet? Are people sending them in, or have you not started looking at that stuff?
Weâve gotten several hundred submissions. Some of them are pretty amazing, and others are amazing that people would submit themâthatâs the beauty of the crowdsourced Instagram photo contest. It was sort of the labelâs ideaâitâs a fun idea that gets people involved. Iâm really glad we made the flagsâwe sell them at shows for five bucks, and itâs definitely our top seller.
Do you still have any? Because theyâre sold out on the website.
Yeah, I donât know why that is. We made fucking thousands of them. Theyâre definitely not sold out.
Your new album is called America, and itâs being released in the fall of an election year. Is there a connection there at all?
No, I was actually really bummedâit was originally supposed to come out in the early spring. But right when we were in the mastering processâlike almost done with the mastering processâwe realized we needed to go back and re-mix. We kept having issues with the drum levels and certain elements that I knew would haunt me forever, so we went back, and it cost us about three months. Because of that, it had to fit back into the labelâs album schedule. They didnât want to, obviously, release two albums at the same time. One, it put me right up against the Animal Collective release, which I reaaalllly didnât wanna do. [And] itâs not a record about the United States. Maybe itâs serendipitous in a way, but in my mind, ultimately the election cycle is a distractionâto me, United States politics arenât what America is.
I also wanted to ask you about 2013, which you apparently did not believe would ever come and now you have changed your mind.
You mean âYear 0â? No, Iâm just kidding.
[Laughs] What are you gonna do to celebrate in 2013?
I dunno if celebrations are in order⊠Weâre not there yet. If you look at the scope of the universe or civilization, I like to think that everything happens in sine waves, you know, sinusoidal patterns. Sine waves donât have jagged changes, they [have] all these gradual shifts. I feel like 2012 was that year. Weâre starting to reach a very important point culturally where weâre becoming more awareâyou can see that in the Arab Spring and Occupy, and even with the Tea Party. People are becoming more and more fed up with their current system⊠[and] vocalizing on a much greater level their disdain and distaste for civilizations or cultures that theyâre a part of. That is also reflecting in personal change, which is what the record is about. If youâre dissatisfied with the system, donât expect a government or a politician to change it for youâyou have to make the change within yourself. I canât complain about fracking if I want my house to be artificially hot in the winter; I have to come to terms with things like that, and realize what my comfort level means to the discomfort level of other people or the earth itself. Once I start addressing that with myself, I feel like Iâll start living in a greater harmony or balance and I think thatâs what everyone wants to have: balance in their lives. As soon as I become aware of an exploitation that Iâm linked to, it becomes my responsibility to unlink myself from that. Iâm hoping that 2013 will be a year that I address issues past. Like, right now, most of my um⊠resolutionsâI canât think of any other wordârevolve around food and fuel, because my industry requires me to eat shit food when Iâm on the road because of the way itâs structured. Itâs not like I can write Shell gas stations or Flying K and be like, âHey can you guys try more sustainable, organic food and have products that arenât bottled in BPA?â I need to make a concerted effortâand thatâs what we do on this tour, we make a concerted effort. In regard to fuel, itâs the same way. Thatâs why we drive this school bus that runs on veggie oil, so weâre not just fueling the oil industry. That also means our bus doesnât have heat or air-conditioning and those luxuries we take for granted. Thereâve been days on this tour where weâve been drenched in sweat, and Iâm sure by the time we get to Denver on Halloween weâre going to be longing for heat, but those are comforts that we can live without. Itâs just life changes and reflectionsâto me, thatâs what Occupy is about. When I think about these movements, I think about how the banks arenât going to change. The concept of greed and power isnât going anywhereâyou have to find a way so that your life diminishes their power. Thatâs all that anyone can really do.
Do you feel more optimistic than you have in the past?
I feel like optimism and hope are words that are easy to hide behind, or distract. Itâs important to be positive and not to become apathetic and disenfranchisedâwithout optimism or without hope, itâs easy to become those things. And I think ultimately, in a fear-based society, thatâs their goalâto make you non-optimistic and non-hopeful so you end up apathetic and disenfranchised. But I donât know if I necessarily feel optimistic toward the futureâif you were to ask me if I have utopian visions or dystopian visions of the future, I do think the future is going to be dystopian. But predicting the future is a task I place upon no one. Iâm certainly not optimistic when weâre stuck in traffic in Phoenix.
Yeah, I would say Phoenix is not a place to feel optimistic.
If we had been talking when we were in the Painted Desert, I would say, âYes, Iâm so optimistic, we are but a blink of an eye in the earthâs life.â But now that weâre stuck in traffic in Phoenix and Iâm still wearing my thermals, Iâm just like, âFuck the earth, society sucks.â
Iâve read things youâve said about how being weird and different can be commodified, can be its own kind of packaged identity, but then also that weirdos and people who are different are really important to society. It sounds like you have a complicated relationship to being an outsider or being different. Can you expand on that?
Sure. I think when youâre real young, when youâre not a teenager yet, the last thing you want to be is weird. If youâre weird at that age, youâre just fucked. Then comes that time in junior high or high school when people start to identify by how they dress or the music they listen to, and all of the sudden, you start to realize that no matter what you do, youâre gonna be weird or different. I felt empowered by it. But then I remember the first time someone called me a poseur because of the clothes I was wearing. And I was like, âPoseur? What does that even mean? What the hell am I posing as?â I feel like the word âhipsterâ is often used as the word poseur. When people say hipster, it has a thousand different connotations, but I think 9 times out of 10 theyâre basically calling bullshit on somebody. It just makes people who donât fit in to homogenized culture feel either self-conscious about it or empowered by it. I mean, I donât think Iâm a psychopath, but I donât have a normal life. And itâs not that I donât strive to have a normal life, but I certainly donât strive to not have a normal life.
I read something you were saying about how tired you were of being labeled âwacky.â
Well, to me, âwackyâ and âweirdâ are two different things. Wacky is like the mascot painted on the side of a slushy machineâa dogâs wearing a hat, and his tongue is hanging out the side of his mouth, and his eyes are googly, and maybe heâs purple with green dots. I mean, if that were a real-life dog, with flesh and blood, it would be weird. Itâd be weird as fuckâhorrifyingly weird. But âwackyâ has this connotation like, âAnd you donât even need to give a shit about this!â while âweirdâ can have an air of dignity to it. I havenât been called wacky in a long time, so that feels kind of cool.
Your transitional record out of wackiness.
Feels good. Yeah, Iâm sure with the next record Iâll start getting called a tight-ass or something, and then Iâll wish I wasâthe reviews will say, âWe long for the days when this dickhead was wacky.â
Actually, speaking of that, can I ask what your favorite and/or least favorite descriptions of you or your music? Iâm kind of fascinated by the language of music criticism.
I try to avoid any and all press about myself because Iâm the perfect mixture of a self-hating narcissist, so I would just dwell on it way too much. Even the most positive reviews, when I first started getting reviews, I would read them and Iâd be like, âWhat?â Like the word âwacky,â for example. So now I just donât. It creates a feedback loopâit would drive me a different kind of insane.
Can I ask you a favor? I write a column where the music nerds in this office make me listen to really cool albums from the past, because Iâm kind of⊠not cool? So this week, Iâm listening to Siouxsie and the Banshees, and last week I listened to Pharoah Sanders. Do you have any suggestions for my next column?
Does it have to be old?
No! It can be contemporary. Theyâre all record nerds, so they keep giving me really old stuff, but I would love contemporary stuff.
Listen to Ed Schraderâs Music Beatâthe record is called Jazz Mind. Itâs not a jazz record. I think youâd be hard-pressed to find one of those music nerds who heard it, but itâs a sick fucking record.
Is there anything that I forgot to ask you that I should have asked you?
We have this app that I think people knowing about would be beneficial. Itâs made to synchronize all of the smartphones in the room, turning them into one unified light and sound source for the concert. I think at the moment weâre the tip of the iceberg in this game. Itâs been going really well, and Iâm very excited to do it in Seattle; I feel like there are a lot of tech-heads in Seattle. It creates a pretty unique spatial environment for lightâIâm really happy with the results. I hope people know about it. Itâs a free app that they can get for any smartphone, and itâs real fun to do. Itâs called âDan Deacon.â We use it for a couple of songs in the set. Normally just one, because peopleâs arms would get tired holding up the phones for that long. It syncs all the phones, and itâs pretty sick.