wikipedia : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deerhoof

Deerhoof est un groupe de rock indépendant de San Francisco, amis avec David Shrigley, qui a d’ailleurs contribué à la pochette du disque « Friend Opportunity » sorti le 23 janvier 2007. La majorité de leurs albums sont sortis sur le label californien Killrockstars. le groupe s’est formé en 1994, est longtemps resté « underground » (il faut dire qu’ils ont un styme musical très personnel).

Colin et Greg Saunier

En Aout 2006, Thom Yorke parlait de Deerhoof dans une interview pour Pitchfork :
[quote ]Pitchfork : Are there any current bands with whom you feel any type of kinship ?

Thom : There are bands I look up to. Like I look up to the Black Keys. I’m really excited about Deerhoof. Liars, they’re fucking great. LCD Soundsystem. Modeselektor.[/quote]
En janvier 2007, Deerhoof revenait sur leur passage en première partie du groupe, dans une interview pour junkmedia :
[quote ]You have been playing quite a few high profile shows lately. What was it like for the band to open up for Radiohead ?

Greg Saunier : “Everybody knows what an uncommon live group they are, and even with years of buildup and knowing there was no way they could live up to the legend, they were so much better than even my highest expectation that my whole outlook on the world had to be immediately revised. But what people might not know is that they are so great in person. All five of them, and everyone in their enormous crew, were all so sweet to us. They really supported our music. If one of John’s pedals got busted, someone from their crew would immediately offer to help. Someone from the band watched us from the side of the stage almost every night. Phil brought us cupcakes. Jonny brought us champagne and offered to play on our album, until he heard some rough mixes and said it already sounded done. Jonny did our light show in Amsterdam. He even used the strobe light which wasn’t allowed. Ed asked us how we got our guitar tone, [because] he wanted to steal it. When Radiohead had a night off in Dublin, and Deerhoof had our own show in a small club, how did Thom spend his free time ? He came to our show and danced like crazy. Colin kept taking our picture and posting pictures of us on Radiohead’s website, and he’d imitate Satomi’s dance during their show. Jim Warren, who does their sound mix, said he’d be happy to do ours as well and went and studied one of our albums to research what we wanted our mix to sound like. I do not expect this sort of treatment from any band, let alone a band on the level of Radiohead. They are disproving every truism about how famous people are supposed to act, and that taught us a beautiful lesson.” [/quote]
En février 2007, dans une interview de Greg Saunier par le NME, il était question de l’influence de Radiohead sur le prochain album de deerhoof :
[quote ]“If you can imagine coming home from a Radiohead concert and 20,000 people are all in tears and everyone loves it ! you turn on your rough mix and it sounds garbage in comparison.

It sounds like nothing in every way ; the sound is not as good, the emotion seems so dim and the overall power of it doesn’t connect. That feeling, while depressing at first was such a great help in a way, to be devastated by music again! that’s how we felt”

It’s not that we ever wanted to imitate Radiohead’s music, but we did want to do something that sounded good AFTER Radiohead. In other words Radiohead put out “Amnesiac” – what’s somebody going to do, not to top it but to respond it as if in a musical conversation ? We treated it like a question, a call to which we wanted to respond in the music world.”[/quote]
Voici quelques extraits du journal du groupe publié sur le site internet, où il est question de leur première partie de radiohead :

[quote ]“[…] But again all nerves dissolved when upon entering the theater, Colin Greenwood immediately comes up and wants to take our picture, treating us like old friends. Thom walks onstage for their soundcheck, spots us, and intones into the mic, “Welcome members of Deerhoof !” Even with years of buildup and knowing there was no way they could live up to the legend, Radiohead were so much better than even my highest expectation, that my whole outlook on the world had to be immediately revised. But what people might not know is how they are in person. All five of them, and everyone in their enormous crew, were all so sweet to us, and such jokers. Colin kept posting pictures of us on dead air space, and he’d imitate Satomi’s dance during their show. Phil brought us cupcakes. Jonny brought us champagne, if we played well. Thom would watch us from the side of the stage. Ed asked us how we got our guitar tone, he wanted to steal it. If one of John’s pedals got busted (a frequent occurrence), someone from their crew would immediately offer to help.

[…] Jonny offered to play his ondes martinot on our album, but then said no when we made him a cd of our rough mixes, saying it already sounded done. We were flattered, but didn’t really agree, and while we spent our days traveling and playing concerts, we spent our late nights sitting at the computer trying to figure out what was wrong with our stupid songs. Like I mentioned before, we had long A-B’d our rough mixes with Radiohead albums. The only comparison more crushing than that would have to be mixing your album in a hotel room directly after a Radiohead concert.”[/quote]