Deerhoof are a band from San Francisco. Their style, though extremely eclectic, blends noisy guitars, catchy pop hooks, and the distinctive, sugary-sweet vocals of Satomi Matsuzaki. They began in the mid 90s when bassist Rob Fisk recruited drummer Greg Saunier, a classically trained musician with two degrees in music. Searching for a vocalist they recruited Japanese film student Satomi Matsuzaki, who had no musical experience whatsoever upon joining the band.
After their first three abrasive, noisy and experimental albums, Fisk departed from the band, and guitarist John Dietrich stepped into his place. With this three piece lineup the band released Reveille, which received critical acclaim, before Chris Cohen of The Curtains joined to play guitar for their next two albums, the rawer styled Apple 'O and their concept album Milk Man, before switching places with Matsuzaki to take up bass on his last, more pop oriented album with the band, The Runners Four. After this Deerhoof continued as the same trio they had been on Reveille, releasing one album, Friend Opportunity, which was their biggest commercial and critical success up to that point. They were then joined by guitarist Ed Rodriguez.
Their first album with Rodriguez was 2008's Offend Maggie, before 2011's Deerhoof vs Evil. Their most recent album, released in 2023, was called Miracle-Level.
Deerhoof continue to tour constantly, and release new material at an astonishing rate.
Deerhoof provides examples of:
- Avant-Garde Music: They take inspiration from avant garde music, along with almost every other genre out there.
- Cover Version: Has a cover of "Midnight, The Stars, And You" in tribute to The Shining.
- Epic Rocking: "Look Away" clocks in at 11:45.
- Genre Mashup: They're experimental indie noise pop/rock with a dash of avant garde.
- It seemed throughout the 2010s that they'd gotten into a comfortable garage rock groove. Enter Future Teenage Cave Artists, an unforgivingly dirty album of badly-recorded drums, guitar parts recorded independently of each other, and a Mozart cover.
- Lead Bassist: Satomi is a Type B.
- Textless Album Cover: Breakup Song and Offend Maggie.
- Word Salad Lyrics: Lyrics like "Baseball is cancelled, E.T. is running late" and "I cover all of the walls with sad dollars" are just the tip of the iceberg.
