Deerpeople is coming to rock Club 156 in the UMC this Friday night. The indie band from Stillwater, Okla. has released one self-titled EP, with another on the way. They recorded at Bell Labs Recording with Trent Bell, who has worked previously with The Flaming Lips. Deerpeople have played shows all over the Midwest, including a show at Oklahoma’s Buffalo Lounge at SXSW 2011.
(Courtesy of Hear Nebraska)
Brennan Barnes, the lead singer, spoke to the CU Independent about touring and making music.
CU Independent: Have you guys ever played at universities or on campuses before?
Brennan Barnes: We’ve done quite a few on-campus stuff, just because we live in a college town. We live in Stillwater, where OSU is. We did a thing at OSU-Tulsa, and we did some OU stuff, on their campus in Norman. Not really out of state.
CUI: Do you guys like playing to the college crowd? Is that more your scene?
BB: I mean, of course. We [the band members] are all college-aged. It would be weird if we either had teens or old people coming to our shows. It’s fun to have people your age at your shows appreciating your music. I don’t even care if they appreciate our music, I just want people to dance.
CUI: Are any of you guys OSU students or past students?
BB: I think at one point we’ve all gone there. Kendall graduated in December and Julian graduated last May. Derek graduated a couple of years ago and now works on-campus.
CUI: Have you guys done any large tours or just mini-tours around the area? Where have you been playing lately?
BB: We tend to just do these little mini-tours. And it’s fun to do these three-day things. Our booking agent lives in Missouri, so he’s been routing us through Missouri and Kansas and Nebraska a whole lot. In fact, we have our biggest draw outside of Oklahoma, in Lincoln, Neb., surprisingly enough. I don’t really understand why or how, but we tend to have a pretty big crowd there. We have been to Colorado a couple of times, we’ve just never made it to Boulder.
CUI: Is there anywhere you’ve really wanted to play, that you haven’t gotten the chance to go to?
BB: There’s tons of places I want to play, I want to play Japan really bad. I’ve never gotten to go there, you know? Sometimes I feel we can’t go to the places I want to go because there’s nowhere in the Midwest that I necessarily want to go, aside from Chicago or something, but even that … it’s not the best. I really want to go somewhere with a little bit more of a liberal attitude, so that we can dress like women, or cover ourselves in blood and do stuff like that and not offend people.
CUI: You guys just have the one EP, what’s next recording-wise?
BB: We have finished everything up on the second [EP]. It’s in mastering right now, so we should have it out in the next three or four weeks.
CUI: Do you have plans for a full-length album? Or are you going to tour behind this new EP for a bit?
BB: I’m working currently on a full-length that I’m pretty proud of. So I want to put this EP out, so that people don’t forget about us, and then release a full length fairly shortly after that.
CUI: What is the writing process like for you guys?
BB: The way that we’ve always worked, from the very beginning, is that I’ll write the skeletons of these songs … and then everyone else comes in and just fills in their whole parts. I really like working like that.
CUI: Who are your greatest influences?
BB: I listen to really upbeat stuff, I’ve been into Yeasayer lately. A lot of our influences overlap, but there’s also a lot of stuff that sticks out. I like crazy stuff, like The Apes… and really weird, almost post-glam stuff. It’s funny, our guitar player, Alex, who is a fantastic guitar player and a crucial member of this organization, listens to shit. We’ve made fun of him for this for years. His favorite bands are like 311 and Dave Matthews Band. For a while he was into Jason Mraz. Julian listens to Jonsi and Sigur Ros and Bjork. He’s really into Icelandic bands.
Check out Deerpeople this Friday at Club 156 in the UMC at 8 p.m. Tickets are $8 pre-sale and $10 at the door.
Contact CU Independent Breaking News Editor Isa Jones at Alexandra.i.jones@colorado.edu.
