On their third LP Deceiver, Brooklyn-by-way-of-Los-Angeles band DIIV leaned more toward the heavier side of the shoegaze spectrum. Where tracks on their latest album, 2016’s Is The Is Are, featured jangly reverb-soaked guitars and gorgeous vocal melodies, Deceiver turns on the distortion petal, sounding more like My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless than Slowdive’s Souvlaki. Perhaps this makes sense, as the band teamed up with producer Sonny Diperri on Deceiver, whose production credits include the likes My Bloody Valentine, Nine Inch Nails, and Protomartyr.
Ahead of the album’s release later this week, the band sat down to talk album leaks, Emperor’s New Groove, and living in a construction site in the latest installment of the Indie Mixtape 20 Q&A.
What are four words you would use to describe your music?
Good, better, excellent, outstanding.
It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?
The single album that ultimately saved the world from certain doom.
What’s your favorite city in the world to perform?
Mexico City.
Where did you eat the best meal of your life?
Colin Caulfied: Ceviche Lima, Peru.
Zachary Cole Smith: I’ve been making some good stuff lately.
Andrew Bailey: All you can drink sake.
What album do you know every word to?
AB: Dead Prez — Let’s Get Free and Nas — Illmatic
CC: Beach House — Devotion
ZCS: Cocteau Twins. All of the albums.
What was the best concert you’ve ever attended?
AB: Method Man and Redman in Miami, and Sigur Ros in Athens, Greece.
CC: Aphex Twin.
ZCS: Dave Deporis at Glasslands.
What is the best outfit for performing and why?
AB: Sweatpants, goes without saying.
Who’s your favorite person to follow on Twitter and/or Instagram?
CC: Catatonic Youths.
AB: Azaelia Banks.
ZCS: @whasbubblin
What’s your most frequently played song in the van on tour?
Depends on the tour; there was a Red Hot Chili Peppers tour, an Ariel Pink tour, the Marshall Mathers LP by Eminem tour, a Grimes Art Angels tour, a lot of radio.
What’s the last thing you Googled?
AB: A podcast host who interviewed us to see if she was standing outside of the building near us.
ZCS: “Grimes album leak, Alex G album leak”
What album makes for the perfect gift?
DIIV — Deceiver. You can’t afford not to buy it.
Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?
A construction site, a lot of bars, underneath the van, a garbage-filled apartment in London with a mouse living in my pillow
What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?
ZCS: I went to a tattoo party in Minneapolis where someone made a tattoo gun made out of an electric toothbrush. Everyone had to get a tattoo. I just said put something on my back but don’t tell me what it’s gonna be. It was a castle.
CC: A llama because people tell me I look like Kuzco from Emperor’s New Groove.
What artists keep you from flipping the channel on the radio?
Oldies and boom bap.
What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you?
ZCS: Saved my life; his name is Ed Lacy. He told me “I’m only doing this for you because someone did this for me.”
AB: Paid for me to go to rehab.
What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?
AB: Don’t go to college.
CC: Stop worrying so much.
ZCS: Cut your f*cking hair.
What’s the last show you went to?
AB: Dead Tooth.
ZCS.: Storefront Church.
CC: Orville Peck
What movie can you not resist watching when it’s on TV?
AB: Friday.
CC: The Big Lebowski.
What would you cook if Kanye were coming to your house for dinner?
Who is Kanye?
Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?
Kanye.
Deceiver is out October 4 on Captured Tracks. Pre-order here and see the band live this fall.
