Rhap Session: Bradford Cox (Deerhunter, Atlas Sound)

   

As the theatrical vocalist of Deerhunter, Bradford Cox is known for making dramatic punk statements—donning ill-fitting dresses, for instance, or fake-fellating band members on stage. For all that confrontational bluster, the self-proclaimed “true queer art punk” is entering a new, calmer phase in his career. He’s busy talking up Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See but Cannot Feel, his forthcoming solo debut under the moniker Atlas Sound (out in February) . The album is an ambient slice of laptop-sculpted dream-pop, and Cox will be touring behind it with a live band comprised of Kranky labelmates like Brian Foote (Nudge), Adam Forkner (White Rainbow) and Honey Owens (Valet). 

Rhapsody spoke with Cox in New York before tagging along to catch an in-store performance by one of his favorite bands: Kiwi pop icons The Clean.

On what it means to be a “true queer art punk”
"That makes me think of David Wojnarowicz. The B-52s. Benjamin Smoke. I think of punk as being a queer thing. It’s ambiguous. I can say,' Punk is queer.' It’s a queer concept. And you can say, 'What do you mean by that?' And I will say, 'I don’t know.' I can be accused of sloganeering. [But] it’s a concept that I feel strongly about. Why is punk queer? Well, it is to me because I had a queer impulse from early adolescence. On a simple level, it takes balls to face that impulse. You’re designed to think it's unnatural or something. I think that punk rock is unnatural. It’s going against nature.

Like hippies, who I grew up resenting ... a lot of the reason I resented [them] was because I was a sickly kid, and nature treated me pretty poorly. Nature f*cks up constantly. Kids are born without limbs. Kids are born dead. Nature is not a perfect thing. I don’t believe in putting your faith in imperfect things. Punk to me was rejecting that. ... It’s a little bit nihilistic. It feels comfortable. And it’s a big loud distraction that keeps you safe from self-doubt. It makes free expression seem valid."

On what punk rock actually is
“The one thing I’ve always been devoted to is my personal concept of what punk rock is. It ties together Dada, Surrealism, stream of consciousness. Doing away with self expectations, worrying about audience expectations, worrying about what anybody’s gonna make of anything, and just allowing things to exist. I don’t think there’s [an] aesthetic criteria for punk. I think Laurie Anderson was punk. The Velvet Underground were punk. There’s a lot of punk rock in early black vocal groups, the doo-wop era. Punk is just a stupid word ... [but] it’s a word, an idea that I hold really sacred. It’s religious to me—it’s what ties Robert Mapplethorpe and William Burroughs. It can be anything. It’s just freedom, a liberation.”

On  Deerhunter vs. Atlas Sound
“I’ve always thought of Deerhunter as a punk band, a drone punk band. The whole concept behind Deerhunter is to create an ambient garage band, a band that could create garage rock and ambient music simultaneously. I’m never gonna get tired of that, but there’s also other things I want to do. I’m really interested in electronic music, experimental music. I’m really interested in girl groups. The Everly Brothers. Golden age of pop, the '50s. I’m just as interested in Elvis Presley as I am in Steve Reich, you know? Or house music. When I play from a solo angle, I feel a lot more liberated to make everything a collage of all these different ideas. Whereas if I told my band, 'I want this to sound half like something from the Kompakt label and half...like primitive rock’n’roll ...' We’ve tried to do that before, with specific songs ... [but] it’s a little bit easier to do that on your own.”

Check back in February for the full interview with Bradford Cox!