At 5:30 p.m., a tweet appeared from Motourmouth Media:
First 5 writer/blog peeps to call my office can do 5 min interview w Bradford Cox - right now!
At 5:32 p.m., I called. I was put on the phone with the Deerhunter frontman. We talked about his band's appearance on "Conan," Sony shutting down his blog and Disneyland. Then I transcribed. And at 6:13 p.m., this interview was posted. Ah, the Internet.
How did you get talked into doing this?
Well, Instant Netflix is down and I can't watch "Law and Order" so I just figured I'd do this for a few minutes.
I saw you on TV last night - how did that go? That was your first late night TV thing, right?
Well the people at "Conan" are the nicest. It was a real nice experience for us. I didn't feel like we had the best performance. I think we were all pretty nervous. We don't really get nervous too often. I feel like we were maybe in the wrong place. Not, like, "Conan." Their whole crew is great. I couldn't have asked for a better show to play.
Well you just get one song and there's nobody really near you.
You don't get the chance to actually get into the zone and sing the song. I feel like it was just me reading the lyrics to the song off a cue card in my head. I feel like it was a reading of a song more than a performance of the song. And the drums were too loud.
Did you cross paths with those crazy Kardashians at all?
No, we didn't interact with them at all.
That's probably for the best.
I don't really have any comment on them. I'd never heard of them before and they've never heard of me, I'm sure. I don't think those two ends of the cultural spectrum will meet.
So we're approaching the end of the year, and your band's album is going to be on lots of year-end lists...
Don't be so sure!
Well you have a pretty large Internet presence, so you can't be one of these people who says they don't see or pay attention to all the lists.
I look at the ones that get forwarded to me but I don't sit there and seek it out. I don't think our album is going to be one of those stylish ones for people to put on their lists for some reason. You know what I mean? I think people in specialize in writing about indie rock -- and I hate the term -- but I think people are going to think that putting us high is too predictable so they're going to avoid that. I don't think it has anything to do with the value of records. My favorite record of the year is Lower Dens, "Twin Hand Movement."
So you own your bedroom again?
Did anyone ever get in touch with you personally to talk to you or apologize?
I think they tried to. I didn't mean to create a big thing with that. I was simply pointing out that they deleted my stuff without permission. They told my manager it was just straight up a mistake. I guess the thing that bothered me was that Mediafire didn't contact me and ask me to take it down myself. There wasn't a takedown notice. There was a lot of misinformation circulating. Number one, Mediafire allows corporations like Sony to simply delete files at will. They don't even have to ask permission or anything. Mediafire has granted those companies access I believe. I believe. I would love for you, as a journalist, to find out if that's the case. (Ed note: Maybe after the weekend...) Because they didn't serve me with a takedown notice, they served me with a notice that said my files had been removed.
I put those micromixes on the blog. I get served notices all the time and I simply take off the offending song as asked. If somebody really doesn't want me to put their song out there -- I tend to avoid mainstream stuff, sometimes a Dylan song or a Beatles song might show up.
Are you hanging out in L.A. for much longer?
I'm taking my mom to Disneyland tomorrow.
Have you ever been before?
When I was little, but I don't remember it.
So what are you...
The haunted house! The main reason we wanted to do "Conan" in the first place was for our parents. Because, you know, it's hard when you're in kind of a weird band for your parents to understand that you are doing OK or doing well. Because they don't read Pitchfork. So to see someone on TV is … you know what I mean. Unless you're at the stage of your career where you're like Bjork and you can put on a really wild performance that's very iconic. The only point in going on TV is to impress parents or your girlfriend.
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