The best little ragtag gypsy band
The genre-defying DeVotchKa will play at this weekend's Bacchanalian Music and Beer Festival.
Published Oct. 14, 2008
For many a young graduate, the post-college trek across Europe is the apex of self-discovery. It's an escape, a cultural immersion (or just a lot of foreign beer-tasting). It's a flurry of sights, sounds and one-night stands. Maybe it's even a last chance to stall before inevitably succumbing to graduate school. But what if you can't afford it? Follow DeVotchKa's lead.
"We did the next best thing and brought the sounds to us," sousaphonist Jeanie Schroder says.
DeVotchKa could easily fit under the "world music" tag - and that's where they're often placed. Their music undoubtedly finds a home in World Market stores across the country, situated right next to the organic potato chips, the rainstick and the Beers of the World display. Incorporating elements of classical music, big brass beats, mariachi medleys, some vagrant-gypsy-carnival noise and an ounce of influence from "Italian-according-playing uncles," their sound is unlikely for a band out of Denver. But they manage.
"There is such a rich history of European music involved in the instruments we play that it would be impossible to not draw on that background," multi-instrumentalist Tom Hagerman says. But how they got there - how that background developed and became the agent that fueled DeVotchKa's rich, polyphonic perspective - is different for each member.
Somehow, they met in the middle. Schroder left a Civil War re-creationist band to join up with DeVotchKa. Hagerman is a trained classicist. Vocalist Nick Urata, who also pulls shifts with guitars, piano, trumpet, theremin and bouzouki - the latter two recalling deep histories with Russian and Greek music - is the grandchild of a Sicilian and a gypsy. And percussionist Shawn King, raised by polka-playing Lithuanians, ditched a punk past to study the horns of Mexican mariachi music.
"I think we all gravitated toward them in different ways," Hagerman says of the varied and unique instruments in DeVotchKa's lineup.
Hagerman's father started him on piano lessons in the second grade with something a little different in mind than the immediate and musical consequences of picking up an instrument.
"I think he thought I would become a brilliant mathematician or something of that ilk by starting me in music lessons," he says. And it might have worked out had Hagerman not deserted a life in the halls of academia for DeVotchKa. Still, he gives credit where credit is due. "I owe my father all of the credit with my early music education," he says.
After getting his start with the piano, Hagerman switched to the violin at age nine. Eventually, he found himself enamored with tango music but still working on a musician's budget. Hagerman then decided to settle for the accordion - skimping out on the bandoneon, an instrument essential to Argentine tango but that would've burned a hole in his pocket to the tune of a couple thousand dollars.
"I picked up the accordion when I was living in New York City for a while and found it in a pawn shop," he says. "So to keep a long story short - too late - poverty gravitated us to the various broken toys."
While six years as a band had them still waiting for their big break, DeVotchKa managed to garner rave reviews. Appearances at clubs and word-of-mouth got them known as the best little ragtag gypsy band you've never heard of.
Then came the dancing girls.
"There seemed to be a time in Denver when there was a burlesque revival movement," Hagerman says. "We were a bit of an anachronistic band, and burlesque is also a bit of an anachronism."
A promoter in Denver, Hagerman says, was interested in bringing a burlesque show on the road.
"They thought we would be a good house band for the dancers," he says.
But they don't miss it all that much.
"It becomes sort of an adult version of a Disney show after awhile," he says. "You'll be seeing us in Vegas 20 years from now doing that same show."
That was 2003. It was one year before the release of How It Ends, which included a little track that would change everything when first-time filmmakers Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris stumbled upon DeVotchKa on a Los Angeles radio station. Landing on a quiet, heartbroken tune called "You Love Me," they found in DeVotchKa's sound the signature tone of their movie. That movie was "Little Miss Sunshine." Soon, the members of DeVotchKa found themselves writing the score for the Academy Award-winning film and adapting previous songs - some even from the burlesque days - to fit the script.
Since, DeVotchKa has seen some changes. They're no longer just a backing band. Hagerman could buy himself that bandoneon if he really wanted to. And no one questions them anymore when they bring an upright bass and a few violins into a rock club.
"We've been through a lot with each other over the last 10 years," Schroder says. "The musical trust we've developed only comes with playing together for such a long time."
But they're not throwing in their sousaphones any time soon. There are, even post-big break, still questions about the band's direction and dynamic, and there will be tiffs here and there. But as DeVotchKa has done in the past, DeVotchKa will do again.
"Problems are fairly predictable and resolvable with enough foresight and communication," Hagerman says. "Although I can tell you, drinking four gin and tonics in a half an hour in 115 degree heat in the middle of the desert, then chatting about the band's direction is a bad idea. And, I might add, predictable."