Austinist Interview and Show Preview: DeVotchKa!

DeVotchKa's Tom Hagerman on oohm-pah pah music, not worrying about your day job, and being publicly depantsed (in Austin!).

One of our fav-o-rite bands here at the Austinist is Denver's ultra-eclectic DeVotchKa, a band that skillfully skirts what just about anyone would expect from an indie scene that most often pulls only haphazardly from old world influences. And yes, we mean accordion. We also mean a four-piece band in which every member plays multiple instruments, and not just in that screw-around manner, but actually knowing how to play them. In advance of DeVotchKa's sure-to-be crowd-pleasing performance this Sunday night at La Zona Rosa, we hopped on the ol' internets for a chat with Tom Hagerman, the band's fantastically essential violin and accordion dynamo.

The impression is that you guys are making "adult" music—you don't kowtow to the popularity contest, and it seems you do what you do as a legitimate nod to the myriad cultures of music, not just to enhance your own personal hipness. What about being a little older and having more life experience influences your style?

I've never felt that we were intentionally making music for "adults". We were always trying to make music that had its own place in time or out of it. Our audiences have always been pretty varied. I've seen toddlers bouncing up and down to DeVotchKa and I've had 80 year old men walk up to me weeping about how we reminded them of their childhoods in another country. In that sense, we've "kowtowed" to just about every demographic you can think of; unintentionally of course. When you play the instruments that we play, you can't help but let the vernacular of that particular instrument seep into the fabric of the music that you create. Age has nothing to do with it.

Speaking of instruments, was there ever any hesitance about the "practicality" of your music? I mean, it's not like throwing a violin, Theremin, sousaphone, bouzouki, accordion, guitar, trumpet, etc. together would seem like a natural decision for most people. Did you ever worry this eclectic mix just wouldn't work out? Or were you most always confident that that mix would be, for lack of a better term, profitable?

There was never any real thought as to what instrumentation would work with our band. There is a lot of thought put into the instrumentation of each individual song, but the instruments we play are played because each of us began an earnest desire to learn how to play the instrument. I never had any idea this band would go as far as it has, and it was never a concern to me. At this point I've got kids to feed so it would be a damn shame if this thing fell apart, but you adapt when you have to.

So it's been a long journey for DeVotchKa as a band, from its earliest days to the burlesque shows to the years of being an opening act to, heck, being nominated for a Grammy—how have you adjusted to the hard-earned notoriety? If you could, would you go back and do anything differently?

The only adjustment really is the fact that I don't have to worry about losing my day job every time I leave for tour, or kick myself because I just spent the last bit of my paycheck on a cup of coffee. I don't know what we could have done differently. There are things for sure, but there is no point looking back. I guess I would have learned another language. I hate butchering foreign languages.

You put on one of those live shows that draws a crowd from people just walking by—I, in particular, have always loved that the crowd ends up clapping to your songs without having to be prompted by the band. What about your composition or band makeup or passion lends itself to making fans out of people who may initially be skeptical about your brand of music?

Well, there are two kinds of music; good, and bad, but oohm pah pah music is in the blood of everybody.

Oohm pah pah! People always talk about how unique you are and how indescribable you are, desperately coming up with ridiculously hyphenated genres for your music—but do you yourself consider your music "unique"? Do you try in particular to make DeVotchKa an unclassifiable band, or do you just let fly?

We like a lot of different music. I don't think we are unique in the fact that we play different styles of music. We never intentionally created any formula. If you go to an orchestra concert you could hear pieces written by composers from all over the planet in one evening. If you go to a DeVotchKa show you'll probably hear 4 plus people who have lifted a lot from folk music and composers from all over the planet.

Most music- and film-literate people know, of course, of your role in "Little Miss Sunshine". Do you have any film projects or new albums on the horizon?

Nick (Urata, the band's frontman) has got some film projects on the horizon. There is definitely a new DeVotchKa record on the horizon. We've got lots of things on the horizon.

Anything else you'd like to say? Any particular thoughts or memories on Austin?

Austin is great. Barton Springs is great. The Tosca String Quartet is fantastic. I was once depantsed at a party in the yard of one of the Grand Champeen guys. There are plenty of white vans during SXSW. Home Slice pizza gave us free pizza and T-shirts once. Thank you Home Slice Pizza.