• Some indie rock darlings like their influences obscure, but Ed Droste is ready to give props to Madonna and Liz Phair — as well as break the “Heathers curse”.
Ed Droste

8.17.2007

By Kyle Buchanan

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d Droste is one of the out talents behind Grizzly Bear, the Brooklyn-based band that set the hearts of music fans aflutter with last year's critically acclaimed Yellow House. We caught up with him during a break in his busy touring schedule to find out what this fledgling gay icon finds influential.

So, Ed, where are you right now?
I'm in Reykjavik.

Doing what?
I'm on vacation with my boyfriend, actually. We're just staying with other musicians. We've been in the city for a few days and we're going to drive around the country for the next four or five days, which is going to be amazing. I can't wait.

Now, since you have your own blog and Grizzly Bear is definitely an online darling, I wondered what kind of influence you think the blogosphere has over music today?
It gets the word out faster and it gives you the opportunity to reach people who would normally never get to hear your record otherwise. Of course, people don't really buy records anymore as a result of that mentality, but I think for a band like us, it's tremendously helpful. I read blogs all the time, and even being involved in music, I don't think I would know about all the music I know about if it weren't for the blogs.

Do you have certain music blogs or websites that you check out all the time?
Yeah, I read Stereogum and Brooklyn Vegan and Gorilla Vs Bear, Said the Gramophone, I Guess I'm Floating, My Old Kentucky Blog. I guess those are my favorites.

I was reading your own blog, especially all the entries about how much you're loving Deerhunter these days…
Yeah, they're so good!

…and it made me wonder: do you think you're competitive with other bands? Like, if you hear something really great, does it make you want to start writing new songs right away?
No, I don't feel competitive at all, I just get excited when music I love is loved by others. There's music I love that nobody gets or cares about, and there's music I think is the worst shit ever and people hail it as revolutionary, and that really irritates me. If there's a band that I think sucks ass and they're thriving hardcore, it makes me wonder why that is happening. But generally speaking, I'm psyched when things I like are doing well.

But do you think that sometimes in the indie music scene, there's a stigma associated with that success? That whole “I liked them before they were popular” mentality?
If there is, it's stupid. Like, don't be a dumbass! I feel like that attitude is kind of over. It's one thing if Deerhunter was played on mainstream radio and I had just heard it too much and literally could not avoid it, and I was like, “Oh, I really liked it when I didn't hear it everywhere.” But that's not gonna happen.

You've met a lot of fellow musicians. I'm curious as to when you were starting out, is there anyone you met who set a good example for you of how to deal with press, touring, all of that?
TV on the Radio has been really good mentors to us and really supportive mentors from the beginning. And Final Fantasy, he took us on tour and we became really good friends with him. I guess those two were the ones in the early stages that were very supportive and helpful and provided guidance – not that there's really any need for advice on how to handle the press, because they're not exactly paparazzi-style with a band like us! [laughs]

When it comes to your band's profile and longevity, is there any other band out there that you can point to and be like, “Yeah, we want that band's career?”
I think artists like Bjork and Radiohead and Wilco. Pavement, even though they're not around any longer, they had a ton of albums. It's just bands that have put out consistently solid work that I never get sick of. I would just like to have that back catalog that would still be exciting and popular ten or twenty years down the road instead of just the three months after you own it.

Speaking of albums you never get sick of, do you know which album you've listened to the most in your life?
I do. It would probably have to be Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville. It was in high school and the beginning of college, and I know for a fact that I haven't played any album as much as I physically played that one. I still put it on every four or five months and I love it and think it's an amazing album, but I was really, really obsessed with that when I was a teenager.

What was it about that album?
I liked the varying styles in which she would write -- like some songs would sound kind of sketchy and didn't have a chorus and would just come and go. She used a lot of different instrumentation and I love how she overlapped her voice and would harmonize with herself. It was a long, 18-song album that went to all these different places and of course the subject matter was really raw and personal. It's weird to even look at her now and compare her now to how she was then, because it's such a crazy metamorphosis.

Do you remember the first concert you ever went to?
It was when my parents took me to Earth Day when I was really young and I saw the Violent Femmes. I think I was in third or fourth grade, and that was pretty awesome. The first show that I ever bought tickets for was in fifth grade, I went to the Blond Ambition Madonna tour, which was pretty insane. It was the one where she had the cone breasts, which was pretty wild. I've only seen three stadium shows: that one, the Janet Jackson Rythym Nation 1814 tour, and U2's Achtung Baby tour.

So we know what album you listened to the most…what movie have you seen the most times?
Heathers. [laughing] I don't really watch movies more than once, but I think I've seen that movie twenty-five times. I used to know so many lines from it. I remember discovering the insane depths of the IMDb and how you can look up any random character ever and I decided to look up the other Heathers – not Shannen Doherty, but the other two – and one of them died of a brain tumor and she's the one that made the comment about the brain tumor in the movie! I was like, “Whoa, self-fulfilling Heathers prophecy!” And then the yearbook editor guy – you know, the whole movie's about teen suicide – he killed himself in, like, 2001. So it's, like, two crazy Heathers deaths.

There must be a Heathers curse.
It is a Heathers curse! I'm scared to see who's next. Shannen should be really careful.

Do you remember the first rated R movie you saw?
I remember having to convince my parents to see Mannequin, which I think was PG-13 because there was, like, a random tit in it. But rated R? Maybe Robocop. I remember seeing Texas Chainsaw Massacre at a young age and being traumatized by it because it had that “this is real,” gritty, kind of snuff film vibe to it.

Since you tour so much, do you get to watch TV?
I buy it on DVD or download it from iTunes. We don't have a satellite TV or anything, and there's definitely tons of hours to kill. There's a lot of shows I got into as a result of boredom, because I can't read on a bus or van, so I totally started buying shows that I never thought I'd be into, like Battlestar Galactica or Weeds, and now I'm totally addicted to both of them. Crime shows like CSI I can't get into, but I love Lost and Big Love.

How good was that season finale of Lost?
I know! Lost is amazing. I want it to come back immediately, I'm ready for it.

Now as far as personal relationships go, I read an interview where you said your parents were kinda “crunchy hippies,” and…
Really? I did?

Yeah.
That's weird. They're sort of repressed hippies. My mom loves nature and being a New Englandy, kind of frumpy mom-type character. She loves shrimp. My dad is a little less New Englandy, but I think they were totally hippies way back when. I think my dad did a lot of drugs back in the seventies.

Do you feel like more of a hippie compared to them, or are you more conservative?
I don't think I'm conservative at all, but I definitely wouldn't call myself a hippie. Hippies are people that are like, “I don't own a TV” and have long hair and a beard. I'm very liberal politically, but I guess I just appreciate pop culture too much [laughs].

You're also in a long-term relationship. I wondered, since gay relationships can be so different from each other, is there anyone you look to as a model relationship?
When it comes to relationships, I don't try to pattern myself or mimic another relationship. There are people in situations I admire and my definition about what works and what doesn't is always changing as well. I can't really give you a name of someone – I can't just be like “Elton!” – but I feel like I've learned a lot just from being in relationships. It's all about talking and learning and piecing what works and what doesn't work together.



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