Rock and Pop: Coming up - New York singer Darwin Deez plays the Scala, October 26
Published: 21 October
by ROISIN GADELRAB
GEMSTONES, 25 cents a week, chores on the refrigerator, Mushpea the dog, Honda car trips, Discman, In Utero, Metalheadz – a potted history of Darwin Deez’s formative years in his own words.
New York singer Deez is in a van, heading to Newcastle and proving a tricky subject.
If he isn’t turning the questions on his interviewer, he’s taking his sweet time between Every. Single. Utterance.
Take this prime example when asked about his abstract videos: “Em... Err... [10 second pause] I spaced out, what was the question?”
Somewhat contradictorily, Deez professes to be a “very, very, very” impatient person – so, for the benefit of others like him, we shall forego the pauses and deliver the readers’ digest version.
Deez plays Scala with his ultra-hip geeky band on October 26. “We’re going to sing and dance and be in the moment and it’s going to be fun,” he says.
The shows are famous for their inventive dance routines to mash-ups of tracks by other artists in between their own songs.
“We’ve just put two brand new ones in the set,” Deez says. “It has to be a surprise... Is that what you really, really want? That was my hint... I get really enamoured with certain songs and making a dance to them is a nice way of doing something with that love and sharing the music with people. It’s very satisfying.”
He adds: “The stuff we dance to is pretty far away from us but it adds to the entertainment value. If we stuck to one kind of music it wouldn’t necessarily make the same impression intellectually... I’m always tickled by a good mashup.”
And he’s got a plan: “It’s my mission is to make music for people who are not even music fans. I want to make their next favourite song. I also want it to have value to music fans.”
Anyone familiar with the video to recent hit Radar Detector will recognise the colourful indie-flick-style of Deez’ work.
Although he gives most of the credit to the director, it was his idea to hoover up his own shadow and, he reveals, despite the video showing results to the contrary, his disposable camera panorama hat didn’t really work.“It was just a prop but don’t tell people that,” he says. “You see what you’ve done, you go after the truth and you ruin the magic.”
While touring the UK, Deez has begun writing rap music “a stream of consciousness”, he says. “I haven’t written any lyrics in a long time. Not actual Darwin Deez music just hip hop. I just wanted to do something fun. I’ve gotten a lot better this summer. I can get better.”
His videos seem full of joy but is he happy?
“Yeah... that’s my image isn’t it? Don’t be fooled though, I feel all emotions.” But it is this anecdote about plans to prank a friend, which is most telling about Deez’ character: “We were going to hide behind somebody’s curtains and turn the TV on and off so they thought there was a ghost in their room. But we never did it.
“We did steal the keycard but we didn’t follow through.”
Full of ideas but too laid-back to do them? “Yeah, that’s me to a T.”
• Darwin Deez plays the Scala, King’s Cross, on October 26, £10, £7.30, 020 7833 2022, www.scala-london.co.uk