Season 3, Episode 3: “I Sound Like An Alien To Them” ft Satomi Matsuzaki

Narrator: Today’s episode is a little different. It’s a story about living a life, a musical life and a border crossing life, based on saying yes. And how that life led to an epic social commentary set to music.

My name is Meklit and this is Movement, music and migration, remixed.

Deerhoof has been a band for over 30 years. And they have never really done music like everyone else. This year they released the first single Immigrant Songs off their new album “Noble and Godlike in Ruin”, not on Spotify or Apple Music but on Craigslist. You know, that Craigslist where you might find a used guitar amp or bookcase or look for a roommate.

Satomi: Somebody in the band found out that the Craigslist CEO is quite, you know, like, speaks for the equality and you know, he's like politically, you know, like. On our vibe.

Narrator: That’s Satomi Matsuzaki, the lead singer and bass player in Deerhoof.

Satomi: We thought like, wow, it's gonna be so funny if we release our song, you know, through Craigslist instead of like, capitalistic some, you know, the music streaming sites that take away our money. You know what I mean? We just thought it was, it's also funny and it's really Deerhoof style, you know, DIY. Yeah.

Narrator: Releasing a song about immigration on Craigslist is a great example of the band’s playfulness about serious issues. When I spoke to Satomi, she told me that music has been a humanizing tool in the face of the sometimes dehumanizing experience of being an immigrant.

Satomi says her bandmate Greg Saunier wrote Immigrant Songs, with her input on the lyrics as well. With the release, the band wrote: “We tried to express what it feels like to see the discourse around immigration continue to get so twisted.”

Satomi:  You listen to our music and you can tell that I, I'm not from here. My voice it doesn't quite integrate. Maybe that makes people feel like it's a weird music in some way because I sound kind of like a alien to them. You call that name, but then, you know, you realize they're very intelligent, they're sensitive, you know, they are human. You know, that's the kind of mood we are bringing in with the new album.

Narrator: Satomi’s personal experience as an immigrant coming to the United States informs not only this new song and album, but it’s actually intertwined with her whole trajectory of becoming a musician and joining Deerhoof.

Satomi: I never played music before I moved to America. You know, I live, lived in Tokyo whole time and maybe I played harmonica when I was in middle school, but we all had to play harmonica somehow in Japan. So I didn't play any instruments when I joined the band, but I could sing. 'cause you know, Japan, you know, it's like a karaoke culture, you know?

Meklit: Yeah, totally.

Satomi: When I was in high school, like I went to karaoke like every day.

Meklit: Every day!?

Satomi: I know, it's crazy. So I had a three months summer vacation in Japan. So those three months I went to karaoke, like every day with friends,

Meklit: Wow.

Satomi: And it was really cheap. And, you know, somewhere to hang out. And we moved the sofa inside the Karaoke room to make a dance space. And we had, like choreographed dance to the karaoke. So, you know, like if I'm singing, somebody's dancing or yeah, if they're singing and then, you know, rest of us were, are dancing or, you know? Just, you know, fun stuff.

Meklit: This is, it's kind of a lot of work.

Satomi: Yeah

Meklit: Coming up with choreographies is a lot, so how many hours would you spend at the karaoke place?

Satomi: Like six hours.

Meklit: Every single day?

Satomi: Yeah. Every single day. Yeah.

Meklit: Wow. This is like, this is like, it's actually was kind of your training.

Satomi: Kind of.

Narrator: The karaoke training sessions took place in the summers, when Satomi was back home in Tokyo from high school in England. So Satomi already had experience leaving the country when, after high school she met some experimental noise musicians from the US who were touring in Tokyo.

Satomi: And they were like, well, come to San Francisco, you know, and you can stay with us. And, and so I'm like, really?

Narrator: It was 1995, she was in her early 20s, and she decided to take them up on their offer. enrolled in film school in San Francisco and moved across the world and into an apartment with those musicians she’d met. Within only one week of arriving, her roommates introduced her to other musicians who were looking for a singer.

Satomi: They introduced Deerhoof to me and I joined the band right away.

Meklit: Oh wow.

Satomi: And, and here I am. And, you know, after 31 years and still playing music. So it's quite amazing.

Meklit: How do you join a band if you don't play an instrument?

Satomi: Yeah. That's the weirdest thing, because they asked me to sing.

Satomi: I remember like, I was so nervous because, I mean, our first show was like a week after I joined the band, so

Meklit: Oh my God.

Satomi: And it was really loose, you know what I mean?

Meklit: Well, it had to be.

Satomi: They were trying to make me feel comfortable. So they were like, oh, you know, let's just shake the things up and let's just switch the instruments. And then Greg and Rob switched the instruments on stage so that I can feel comfortable.

Meklit: Oh, because then everybody was a kind of a beginner.

Satomi: Yes exactly. Yeah. So that, like, that kind of broke, broke the ice. And you know, I was laughing and kind of, got loose and you know, I had fun. But yeah, it was so, it was so disastrous. But at the same time it was so funny and I enjoyed a lot.

Narrator: Deerhoof had just started the year before, originally it was a duo noise band with Rob Fisk on bass and harmonica and Greg Saunier on drums. Satomi met them at that first rehearsal.

The band would carry that experimental ethos with them as they changed members and played with different sounds over the years.

Meklit: I love thinking about the sense of playfulness in the band being there right from your first show, you know?

Satomi: Yeah

Meklit:That's really cool

Satomi: Yeah

Meklit: And very empowering too. Was did it feel empowering for you?

Satomi: Yeah that I never felt before I joined the band. Like the voice is so, intimate or just, being in front of strangers and, you know, saying, it's, like, so embarrassing, you know? Even though I went to karaoke room every day with my friends. But yeah, it's a completely different experience. And then it was great, you know?

Meklit: Yeah.

Satomi: Like coming out from the shell or something, you know?

Meklit: Mmm

Narrator: At first, Satomi thought being in a band was just a side-interest, but it turned into a career. In 2005, Satomi and her bandmates quit their day jobs to focus on the band. And it paid off.

Since then, Deerhoof has toured with Radiohead, the Flaming Lips, Beck, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They’ve played with such eclectic icons as Yoko Ono, Questlove, Reggie Watts, Konono N°1, Juana Molina, members of Wilco and Of Montreal, amongst many others.

Their albums pull from wide-ranging influences, and have led to surprising performance opportunities. Like in 2015 when the band created site-specific music at the European Organization for Nuclear Research’s Large Hadron Collider, that’s the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator!

Particle physicist James Beacham, said, "Musical curiosity is similar to scientific curiosity and, on a personal level, Deerhoof has inspired me as much as Einstein".

Meklit: And now you've been together 30 years. How do you sustain a band for that long?

Satomi: Yeah, it's, it kind of flew by. We really get along well, which is the very, I mean, really great thing. But also like we, you know, respect each other's creativity. And we still enjoy feeling like, spending time together and create something together. It makes me feel human, you know?

Meklit: Yes.

Satomi: And that keeps me very strong. We went through everything together, you know, and so, you know, my experience is their experience and I feel like, you know, we are Family. And, I mean, because if I'm not in the band, it's not Deerhoof.

Meklit: That's right.

Satomi: So they, we are on the same ship, you know?

Narrator: These days, the band is Satomi, drummer Greg, and guitarists Ed Rodriguez and John Dietrich.

Over the course of their time together as a band, Satomi and Greg have also been married and divorced. So these musicians have said yes to each other in so many different ways, and gained success from those yeses.

Even though Satomi said yes to music and she said yes to moving to the US., music was much more welcoming.

In 2014, Deerhoof put out Exit Only, a song Satomi wrote about her experience navigating the US immigration system to get a visa and a Green Card.

Satomi: I just had so much hard time coming back to US when I had a student visa and like, well, I noticed that how really difficult to come into US, but, when you leave, I just thought when you leave, it's like they don't care. You know, like, hi, you know, like, goodbye, you know?

Narrator: A decade after Exit Only, the band wrote a sequel, Immigrant Songs, that track they released on Craigslist.

Meklit: It opens with I was the driver of the guests to your party. I was the baker of the sweets. For your party. I was the singer of the song. Whose party is it?

Satomi: It, you know, it's like, it could be a wedding band or, you know, I mean, it's, the hire. You know, singer on hire. You know, and then they sing beautiful songs, but they're immigrant, you know? And they, maybe they get, they don't get paid as much as, you know, those privileged people, you know. And that's the irony, you know?

All the, the beautiful music and the beautiful sweets bake, you know, bakeries and, all this. That's what I'm talking about with this strong force, you know, employed people, you know, paid less than what they deserve and, you know, makes this world vibrant and yeah, beautiful. And don't forget, you know, that appreciation.

First it wasn't called immigrant song. It was about immigrants but I think we changed it last minute because of what's happening now. And then we want it to be more like a simple title that people remember what it's about.

Yeah, it's connected in my life and this rollercoaster, you know? Being a immigrant and also, I see people going through this same experience now and I'm a lucky one, that I can stay. But you know, there are people, you know, who are turned away and I feel very sad. And also, uneasy also just wanna, you know, speak out. You know, shout out that, we care. And you care and you know, that's the message.

We thought about, whoa, you know, this, current period where we are going through a hard time. You know, like people feel like threatened or, you know, very uneasy, you know? It's difficult to express and this uneasiness kind of, you know, turned our music into something kind of like beautiful and kind of horrific at the same time.

So, you know, it's not all so joyful, like when you listen to our new album, it's very sharing the feeling of like how we feel about this dehumanization and you know, we are telling the story kind of like theatrical way, you know.

In a way that, you know, starts out really like, you know, atmospheric, we added bird chirping sounds, you know? And then like, ends with noise, like long noise section that sounds like a destruction of the world, you know?

Narrator: You can listen to Deerhoof’s album, Noble and Godlike in Ruin wherever you find your music.

In the weeks since Immigrant Songs has been in my headphones, I’ve been struck by how Satomi’s journey invites us into a very different migration story than the ones we typically hear in the news. She didn’t come to the US fleeing dictatorship or violence, she didn’t walk her way into this country, and she spent most of her years here working as an artist. I don’t mean to say that she didn’t struggle. She did, including through this nation’s labyrinthine immigration system. And that’s why she can sing about immigrant communities with a palpable authenticity. It’s who she is.

Deerhoof’s music crosses borders, much like Satomi’s story. Their “immigrant songs” are a call to question the narratives of migration and of immigrants that we have been handed over and over again. Satomi reminds us to reflect on when we might be awash in stereotypes, and to look for the artists who can sing us out of those dead ends.

This episode of Movement was produced by Emma Alabaster and myself, Meklit Hadero. Our senior editor is Megan Tan. Our sound designer and co-founder is Ian Coss. Our co-creator and podcast godmother is Julie Caine. Our broadcast partner is The World. We are distributed by PRX.