“Sorry, I’m chewing on a carrot—what was that?” So starts our latest interview with John McCauley, who has fronted his alt-indie group, Deer Tick, for about a decade and a half. From his home in Nashville, McCauley discusses Deer Tick’s latest release, Mayonnaise, a companion to 2017’s dual albums, Deer Tick Vol 1 and 2. The third installment of the series is a compilation of alternate takes, covers and new tunes—not quite a full new effort, but certainly something worth the time of Deer Tick’s fans.
McCauleyalso speaks on his band’s yearly after-parties during NewportFolk Festival in their home state of Rhode Island, when they welcome a numberof planned and unplanned guests, plus his relationship with Dave Grohl (whichincludes covering Nirvana tunes with the drummer/Foo Fighters frontman) and whyDeer Tick—while older, wiser and maybe less destructive—certainly haven’t losttheir sense of humor.
I’llhave to apologize in advance for this question, because it’s not one I usuallylike to ask, but just under the circumstances—why is it called Mayonnaise?
It’skind of an extension of Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, in a way. So it’s kindof the next logical step with the artwork, you know? I’m not gonna go there,because we vowed never to say the K- or M-word while talking about Vol. 1or 2.
Wasthat a decision the band came to together?
Yes.And it really frustrated our label and management, which is mostly why we didit. [Laughs.]
Yeah,exactly—that’s the goal, right?
Yeah.Frustrating people that care for you and look after you. [Laughs.]
Sowas the plan always to do this trilogy of albums, or was Mayonnaise moreof a coda after the first two?
Wejoke about just releasing condiment-themed records for the rest of our career.We’d probably get into some pretty weird ones after a few—relish. No, I guessoriginally we were going to do an all-covers record and call it Mayonnaise.But it’s been done by so many bands, so I thought we could make it acompilation of some unused stuff from Vol 1 and 2. We have a fewalternate versions on there. (The record actually ends with “Too Sensitive ForThis World”—there are two at the end that are supposed to be bonus tracks, butI don’t think our label ever made that clear enough. I think it would make muchmore sense if you stopped after “Too Sensitive.”) But we thought we’d mix itup. We’d record some covers, ones that we had been doing on that tour. Record acouple of new songs, you know, a little bit of everything.
Andthe new songs, were those part of the sessions for the two volumes, or werethey newly recorded?
Thesong “Old Lady” was recorded with Vol. 1 and 2. Everything elsewas done in Nashville with Adam at his studio—Adam Landry, who we’ve done a lotof records with…
*Holdon one second—I have a problem with my daughter here. She won’t take a nap. [Laughs.]She’s making grunting noises because she doesn’t want to wear her socks.*
Yeah,I mean, I guess if people still bought records, some may see this as a cashgrab. But since that’s not a factor, we just thought it would be a fun thing toput out. There’s not a whole lot of thought put into it—it’s stuff for our fansto dig into.
Wereany of the tracks you included in this album inspired by some of the new waysyou were playing the songs on the stage?
Thetwo alternate versions that appear in the record, “End of the World” and “LimpRight Back,” those are probably the most drastically different versions, as faras instrumentation goes. The covers—I mean, my way of picking covers for us todo is usually, “I have a song in my head I need to go play it 100 times withyou guys so I can move on with my life.” With “Pale Blue Eyes,” we had beendoing that one for a while, and that’s the version we’d come up with on ouracoustic tour a few years ago. So there’s some slightly odd instrumentation onthere—like, bouzouki and electric mandolin and stuff like that. And the newsongs, those were some riffs and whatnot that we had worked on before recordingVol. 1 and 2 were just left unfinished, so we turned them intosongs.
Hadyou played those live on the tour?
Ithink we started playing them last summer, once we finished recording them.They were pretty brand new when we recorded them.
Afterpresenting the sort of dichotomy of Deer Tick with an acoustic record and anelectric record, and then translating that with the tour, do you think you’llcontinue that with upcoming tours?
Imean it’s definitely more convenient to just travel with electric guitars. Wedo the bulk of our stuff electric, but we always take a few acousticinstruments with us too and throw in a little acoustic section in the middle.That seems to work well for us, so that’s what we’re going for. I think maybe a90-minute/two-hour set every night and just doing everything we can in thattime without taking an intermission. Twice as nice tour. I think it will beless focussed on strictly acoustic material. But yeah, all our toys will bethere with us, and we’ll see that we get around to using all of them.
Howmuch preparation and planning does the band usually go through before tours?
Usuallyit’s all talk through email and stuff. We pitch each other ideas about what wewant to do for a backdrop, how we want to approach the set, what instruments weare bringing, is there a dress code… And our tour manager, Tuyet [Nguyen],helps a great deal with that. She can kind of see the big picture when I comeup with an idea like “I want it to look like a living room. I want furniture.”
Sois there going to be a dress code on this upcoming tour?
It’spretty loose. I think it’s more of a color scheme.
Youguys aren’t going to all wear white for Mayonnaise or anything like that are you?
Notcompletely white, no. Definitely not—those clothes would get dirty too quick. [Laughs.]
Let’smove on to Newport Folk, which you guys always have a lot of fun with. Is thereanything you can say about this year’s Deer Tick & Friends shows?
Allthat stuff is still—it comes together so last minute. But, the lineup this yearis pretty great. A lot of familiar faces, a lot of people that we haven’tplayed with before that we’re gonna approach. I don’t know. We’ll see whathappens.
Anymajor highlights from the shows in the past couple of years?
Lastyear, Brandi Carlile played with us out of nowhere. We hadn’t even spoken withher about anything, and she just happened to be there and [Newport FolkFestival producer] Jay Sweet convinced her to get up on stage. I don’t know who—itmust have been her idea to do [Radiohead’s] “Creep”but, you know, we all know that song. That’s the kind of stuffthat can happen.
Arethere frequently impromptu surpriseslike that, when the band didn’t even know it would happen?
Yeah—yeahthe year Jackson Browne sang with us was a surprise. That happened all lastminute. You know, if Matt Vasquez end up on stage without his shirt on,knocking stuff over, that’s usually unplanned. [Laughs.]
Andthis year and going forward, are there any bucket-list people that you wouldlove to join you for one of the Newport shows?
Iwould love to do something with Patti Smith. I would love to get Dave Grohl tothe Newport Folk Festival for the first time.
Thatwould be great. Could you talk about your relationship with Dave Grohl?
Davejust kind of emails or calls me out of the blue, and usually it has somethingto do with Nirvana.
Howdid you first meet him?
WhenI was 10 years old. But he doesn’t [remember]—I was just a fan. I had him signmy copy of In Utero. Years later, when I actually met him, I told himthat story he thought it was pretty funny. I met him a couple of days beforethey were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I walked into arehearsal studio and there they were, Nirvana—minus Kurt [Cobain], obviously. And we jammed. It was totallysurreal.
Obviouslyyou guys hit it off enough for him to call you up about future Nirvana stuff,so that’s pretty cool.
Yeah,it’s cool as hell. I don’t really do it for any other reason than Dave asked meto do it. It’s absolutely an insane thing to do—an unrealistic thing todo. [Laughs.] But yeah, I learned that when Dave Grohl is trying to getin touch with you, you better answer the phone.
Doyou just get a text from him, like when he brought you on during the surpriseNirvana reunion at Cal Jam last year?
Yeahthat’s what happened last time almost exactly a week before. Dave is a prettyexcitable person, so it was like “John!!!” With three exclamation points.
Movingon to the Deer Tick documentary, Straight Into a Storm, how has theresponse been to that and how was it revisiting old footage and memories?
Iwas at the New York premiere, and it was pretty funny. I mean, you forget a lotof details, and then they just come flooding back. There’s some footage in thatof stuff from 10-plus years ago that I don’t even remember. Given my trackrecord, I guess that’s not too hard to imagine. [Laughs.] At first itseems very uncomfortable and embarrassing, you know? There are other people inthe theater laughing, and they get it, somewhat at least… I really don’t knowhow to feel about it. There was a certain point while making it that I justwanted it to stop but…
Yeahthat makes sense. I was reading through a feature that Relix did around the two albums in 2017, and one quote thatstuck out to me was when you said, “Maybe we don’t run around as much or gethurt as frequently on stage, but we still put on a show.” I thought that wasvery honest and telling, and I’m curious how this has continued to work and howyou see the response from some of the fans that have been with you throughoutthe years.
It’salways changing a little bit as we change. I think now we’re definitely morefocused. So, the people that come for the music, maybe they enjoy it much morethan, say, the people who show up to see what crazy thing we might do. But, you know, every now and then things happen. I mean, we’restill Deer Tick. We still drink. We’ve cleaned up somewhat [laughs]but when it comes down to it, we’re still the same people.
Here’san example of how we might do something totally unexpected but now we’re ableto really put more thought into it: The last time we played Denver was aroundHalloween, so we turned the whole stage backdrop into the downtown of SouthPark, and we all dressed in character.
Whatcharacter were you?
Iwas Stan. Our guitar tech dressed up as Towelie. I mean, I’m a huge fan of theshow. For the changeover—because we were doing the two sets—over the speakerswe played the “Fingerbang” song from [season 4, episode 9], and we all changedour outfits into the white outfits from the episode. And Dennis [Ryan], who wasChef, came out as Darth Chef from the episode where killed him off. [Laughs.]It was well-researched, and I think we pulled it off pretty well.
Anyplans that you want to talk about coming up in Deer Tick land in 2019?
Nobig plans. Recording a little, working on a movie soundtrack—but I gotta be alittle hush hush before that.
Haveyou guys done that before?
I’vedone it a little bit, but the band, no. So that’s cool, and it’s given us a lotof ideas for our next album, too. I mean, it’s in the very early, early, earlystage. But not much—just excited to go play some shows again.
