I think you described the current Deer Tick’s performance on War Elephant in 2012 well. That also is your most singer-songwriter-styled album and so much of it was recorded by yourself. But when the current version of the band plays it the album almost receives a jolt of energy—a rock-and-roll band’s interpretation of those songs.

The good thing about this version of the band is that every song is like treated, respected as it deserves. It’s not like every single song gets turned into a rock-n-roll mess. It is the same thing with the albums we are going to cover.

Throughout the run you have a bunch of different special guests sitting in and guest musicians have always been a big part of Deer Tick’s shows. How methodical, if at all, were the guest choices and did you let special guests like Taylor Goldsmith or Robert Ellis choose which nights they would join you?

We just kind of sent a bunch of emails to a bunch of our friends and just kind of told them what was going on and asked them if there were any shows they’d like to be a part of. So yeah, it’s random special guests playing. [Laughs.] It’s kind of a busy time with the holidays. Everybody kind of picked whenever they were available so it’s kind of random. There are a couple nights where we haven’t put together any special guests, but our thoughts were, “Yeah, so whatever.”

You are also playing with a true hero of yours, The Replacements’ Tommy Stinson. They were a huge influence on Deer Tick and you opened for them a few months ago during their reunion run. Have you ever played with Tommy before?

I’ve never played with Tommy before. I have gotten drunk in his hotel room with him before but this is the first time he will have played with us. Deer Tick opened for The Replacements in Forest Hills, N.Y. in September which is something I never thought would happen. Tommy is going to play with [most of the other members of Deer Tick]. They are going to back him up and play together a bit.

Two of your most unique shows leaned more in the band’s acoustic, roots direction. In February, you played a sit down, mellow mostly acoustic show at Jazz Lincoln Center and this summer you played a more restrained but still powerful show on the mainstage at Newport Folk Festival. What makes Deer Tick want to reflect?

With the Lincoln Center show, we kind of wanted to joke around like it was our MTV Unplugged set. We just had fun with it and, considering the setting and all that, we wanted to just strip everything down and use the room—the background and kind of sift through the songs. The background was the sixth band member.

And then with Newport this year was like our first time on the mainstage so we thought we’d try to represent each record as much as we could, just showcase our career and the career that finally got us to the mainstage.

*I thought the sailor uniforms really were the nice summation of all that in those Newport years. *

It’s pretty funny, but it wasn’t really my favorite uniform. We went to this place that was the only tuxedo rental place I could think of right off the top of my head without looking in the phonebook. And it’s like we’re all high school kids going to get their outfits for prom and shit. They were really kinda cheap. They aren’t actual sailor outfits but then I had that hat so it kind of gave the illusion of it, the sailor outfit. In actuality those were some really cheap tuxedos.

They felt very classy for the moment.

Yeah, well it felt like without my hat on it just looked terrible. I love Newport, I have been going since I was a kid [when I saw Los Lobos, featuring current Diamond Ruggs band member and past Deer Tick producer Steve Berlin]. I wish I got to spend more time at the festival this year. Unfortunately, really, I was mostly in downtown Newport for our annual after-party thing at Newport Blues. We had more guests than usual this year so we spent a lot of time rehearsing during the afternoons. I’m looking forward to going this year because this year we’re not playing. I think we’re still going to our after-party things but it’ll be way more laid back for us this year so looking forward to that.

Though Deer Tick has never outwardly been the most reflective of bands, you have celebrated your songbook on several occasions and these shows will definitely spotlight a bunch of your favorite bands and less obvious influences. In early 2015, you are releasing your second Diamond Rugs album and then you are going to take some time off the road. Does this more reflective period make you want to start work on the next Deer Tick album or is this a good time simply to look back without worrying about the band’s next step?

Yeah, Diamond Rugs stuff but that’s not going to take up too much of my time this year or next year. I actually almost forgot we made that record it was so long ago. Diamond Rugs will release their second new record, Cosmetics, on February 24 [via Sycamore Records/Thirty Tigers/RED]. [In addition to McCauley, the band features Deer Tick’s Robbie Crowell, former Black Lips singer Ian Saint Pé, Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin, Dead Confederate’s Hardy Morris and Bryan Dufresne of Six Finger Satellite.] It was the same idea as the last one. We all got together in Nashville, Tenn. at Playground Sound Studio with Adam [Landry] and Justin [Collins]. Ian really took the lead this time.

I don’t know what we’re doing. We’re not really planning any tour dates for the moment. I think the plan is to go into the studio in a few months and work on some ideas as a band. We’ve never really done that before. This is the first time we have been able to do that—write without a deadline. So we are going to go in there and see what we come up with.

I don’t think we can look back on the past year without mentioning your performance with Nirvana at St. Vitus after the Rock and Hall Fall of Fame induction. Looking back what are your thoughts on that show and can you give us a rundown of how it came to be?

It was surreal, I still can’t believe it happened. I am such a big Nirvana fan and they are definitely my favorite band. We had been doing the Deervana thing and Dave Grohl had heard of us. But when they asked me to do it, it was like I had been caught red-handed. It was almost embarrassing [Laughs.] He emailed me himself. I got an email from him on April 1st—April Fools’ day—and I thought it was a joke. When I found out it was real I was like, “Oh no, I’m busted.”

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