The shuffler: Singer and
multi-instrumentalist Nick Urata, head whirling dervish of DeVotchKa. The
Denver-based band spent the last 10 years slowly amassing a reputation for
crazed, extravagant live shows and a strain of music that's as uncategorizable
as it is instantly recognizable. Built from bits of mariachi, gypsy folk, and
the primordial jangle of Talking Heads and Violent Femmes—not to mention
Urata's quavering, alien voice—DeVotchKa's new Anti- Records full-length, A Mad & Faithful Telling, follows the group's Oscar-nominated score for Little
Miss Sunshine and
a 2006 EP titled Curse Your Little Heart that featured oddly gorgeous covers of
songs by Frank Sinatra, The Velvet Underground, and Siouxsie & The
Banshees.
Señor Coconut, "Showroom Dummies"
Nick Urata: I got this album a couple of years ago; it
kind of represents the changing of the guard from my CDs to my iPod. Like a lot
of people's collections, this sort of came to me. We used to only have a CD
player in our van, so we were all forced to ride around and listen to the same
albums. I think it kind of informed the way we approached our recording
projects, thinking about them as an entire album. I have to say, I kind of miss
those days. I guess this whole Señor Coconut album is him doing Kraftwerk songs
with this totally electronic Latin percussion. [Laughs.] I don't know who Señor
Coconut is, but I love him. We're all huge fans of Latin percussion. Our
drummer [Shawn King] studied a lot of it, or at least experimented with a lot
of it. To hear something like this is really inspiring. It also really brings
out the heart of those Kraftwerk songs. They had some really great hooks.
The A.V. Club: Does DeVotchKa approach doing
covers in a similar way?
NU: I like to hear people take the essence of the song,
and twist everything else involved. We tried to do that on our covers EP. I
don't know if it worked.
AVC: Do you think that EP surprised any of your
fans?
NU: Yeah. I certainly still get asked about it all of
the time. I think that covers EP was kind of an experiment, just taking our
favorite songs from all these different years. We started playing them every
night on tour, and every night, I'd notice something else cool about the lyric
or the melody. It really astounded me how they stood up to the test of time,
the repetition.
Leonard Cohen, "Take This Longing"
NU: Well, what can you say about Leonard Cohen?
Actually, I have an interesting story about how I learned about Leonard Cohen.
When I was really young, I was playing in a rock band and we opened for this
guy in a small bar in New Jersey. The guy turned out to be Jeff Buckley. I hung
out with him a little bit after the show, and I told how jaw-droppingly
beautiful his song "Hallelujah" was. I had no idea who Leonard Cohen was at the
time. He kind of looked at me and said, "Get everything you can by Leonard
Cohen." So it was a doubly great experience: I got to hear Jeff Buckley sing
"Hallelujah" in front of, like, four people, and I got his personal
recommendation to search out Leonard Cohen. I've been a huge freak about those
guys ever since.