Greg Saunier Announces Debut Solo Album ‘We Sang, Therefore We Were’

Greg Saunier has long been one of my favorite drummers. His contributions to Deerhoof are immeasurable, both on recording and in the context of a live act. Greg‘s musicality and sheer inventiveness can not be overstated. He also played a pivotal role in me finally acknowledging the importance of earplugs, after I found my head next to his kick drum at the front of a photo pit. A frenetic powerhouse on stage, he is primarily known for his work behind the kit, but, as a new press release explains, “Greg has produced, mixed, composed, or played on hundreds of others (Discogs has him credited on over 300 albums).” Today, Saunier announces his very first solo album, 30 years to the day that Deerhoof came into existence.

On Friday, the internet was overflowing with tributes commemorating the passing of Kurt Cobain on April 5, 2004, but what a lot of people may not remember is that the late musician’s body wasn’t discovered until a few days later. In a new statement, Saunier divulges that, not only was that the day of the first practice for the project which would ultimately become Deerhoof, but he was actually performing in a grunge band, himself, at the time.

“It was 1994 and I was playing in a grunge band in San Francisco,” says Greg. “The two guitarists were literally living with members of the Melvins. Rob Fisk, the bass player, and I had been listening to an AMM CD at home and decided we wanted to give free improv a try. So we came to practice an hour early. That was Deerhoof’s first rehearsal. An hour later our two bandmates walked through the door with the bad news: Kurt Cobain had just been found dead.”

Just as the rise of Nirvana gave way to a seismic shift in the musical landscape, the frontman’s death coincided with a shift in Saunier‘s own personal creative direction. Over the next 3 decades and a respectable 19 albums, Deerhoof has consistently remained one of the most inspired and innovative forces in music. Now, as Greg ventures into his first-ever solo effort, he does so by partially returning to his pre-Deerhoof roots.

He offers the following insights about the creation of the new album, which was undertaken with the encouragement of his bandmates.

“When Satomi, Ed, John and I were chatting between shows in Austin in early December, they encouraged me to make a record on my own, as a way to cope with the restlessness I’ve been feeling,” he states. “It came together quick. Intrigued by the announcement that the new Rolling Stones record was going to sound ‘angry,’ I thought, ‘Good, I’m angry too.’ But when Hackney Diamonds turned out more like cotton candy than punk rock, I ironically went back to Nirvana: not just the clever melodies over massive distortion, but also that dark Cobain sarcasm which still resonates in this age of phony blue-check-washing of fascism.”

Aside from the stray cameo, Saulnier sings and plays every instrument on We Sang, Therefore We Were. Over the years, I have enjoyed his collaborative side projects like Nervous Cop (alongside Zach Hill and Joanna Newsom) and Mystical Weapons (with Sean Lennon), but this is the first time we’re seeing a full-length release that is 100% Greg‘s uncut vision.

We get our first taste of the project with the single “Grow Like A Plant,” the lyrics of which were crafted with a very specific concept in mind.

“[The song] addresses that annoying quirk of the homosapien mind where it thinks it’s made of higher quality molecules than the rest of the universe,” offers Greg. “For millennia civilizations managed to temper this suicidal arrogance with ritual. Until 500 years ago, when a handful of self-appointed experts invented The Enlightenment, proposing that men can solve any problem given enough brooding and/or physical violence; that the cosmos is actually nothing but an inert blob of matter for us to buy and sell. What if this is all wrong? What if it’s humans who are really the mindless instinct-machines, competing for territory, food, and mates, and it’s the plant and animal kingdoms that secretly know how to think and have fun?“

The video for the track was created in collaboration with Saunier’s partner, poet Sophie Daws, who takes on the role of both creative director and starring performer of the “oner.” According to Daws, the concept behind the video was just as intentional as that of the lyrics.

“Just as the song doesn’t stay fixed (in one rhythm, one emotional register), I wanted the dance and my relationship to the camera/audience to shift constantly,” Sophie explains. “In our improvised noise project, New Mom, Greg and I often talk about shifting before any musical part has time to settle — before it registers as a ‘musical part.’ We aren’t trying to find a ‘groove’ in the sense of trying to hit one emotion or tone. Doing so would feel false. As soon as I felt myself trying to seduce the camera, a future audience, a hierarchy, I shifted focus. Sometimes the focus was inward (eyes closed). Sometimes it was outward (eye contact). Maybe sometimes it was on the joy and fun of Greg’s danceable song.”

Check out the video for “Grow Like A Plant” below.
We Sang, Therefore We Were is available for pre-order now through Joyful Noise Recordings.