When Deer Tick frontman John McCauley saw a video of New York City police officers using aggressive tactics on some Occupy Wall Street protesters, he responded the best way he knew how. By playing a show.
At the end of September, Deer Tick played a free show at a small club in Brooklyn. McCauley said the set wasn’t to take sides on the issues brought up by Occupy Wall Street, but the band wanted to shine a light on something they thought wasn’t right.
| Onstage |
| Deer Tick |
| Where: 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW |
| When: Doors 7 p.m. Sunday |
| Info: With Virgin Forest and Dead People; $15; 930.com |
“The NYPD has been using some pretty questionable and brutal crowd control tactics,” McCauley said during a recent phone interview. “That was more of our thing with that. We weren’t necessarily taking anybody’s side.
“It’s a disturbing video.”
Deer Tick is on tour in support of its new album, “Divine Providence,” which drops Oct. 25. The Rhode Island five-piece performs at the 9:30 Club on Sunday.
“Divine Providence,” Deer Tick’s fourth full-length album, has a distinct, raw sound. High-energy, gritty and with a touch of bombast, “Divine Providence” is a rock ‘n’ roll album. And that was the band’s intention.
“I think we just kind of wanted to do something more rock ‘n’ roll,” McCauley said. “I hear a little bit of the Stones and the Replacements and the Kinks, stuff like that, throughout the record. I guess it’s just kind of reflective of what we’re listening to lately and what we’re mostly interested in.”
“It has a live feel to it,” the singer-songwriter and guitarist continued. “It just has more energy and it’s not so polished like some other stuff that we’ve done. It’s more like how we sound live. We weren’t trying to make it sound any certain way. That’s how we play.”
Aside from a few shows this summer, this is the band’s first tour since last spring. McCauley revealed he prefers recording to touring.
“I like being in the studio,” he said. “If I could, I’d be in the studio every day. I don’t know anything about recording. I need someone to hold my hand.”
While Deer Tick is on the road, it looks like the band’s alter ego. Deervana, is dormant. Deervana, of course, is Deer Tick’s tribute to Nirvana.
“We still do Nirvana covers and stuff,” McCauley said. “We’re not going to do Deervana sets any time soon. We did that, it was fun, and before it got out of control we called it quits.”
