The Indefinable, Indescribable DeVotchKa
A Q&A with Jeanie Schroder 

Denver-based band DeVotchKa have spent the better part of this decade as the city’s best-kept musical secret. Slowly but surely, the band’s singular blend of rock, world music, mariachi and any number of other influences, coupled with a wildly dramatic live show (often featuring belly dancers, trapeze artists and other performance artists), gained the quartet a devoted Front Range following. Well, a band this good couldn’t stay a secret for long. Thanks to acclaimed performances at various festivals around the country and a prominent spot on the hit Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack, DeVotchKa is poised to take the world by storm in ’08. In March, the band released their fifth CD, A Mad & Faithful Telling, which sees them refining and perfecting their trademark sound, as well as adding a few interesting sonic elements to the mix. It’s filled with darkly-hued, frequently gorgeous music, and it may well be their best work yet. Denver.org chatted with multi-instrumentalist and longtime Denver resident Jeanie Schroder on the eve of the album’s release.

VISIT DENVER: Judging from the press clippings on your Web page, writers seem to struggle for the right way to describe DeVotchKa. There’s “drunken mariachi,” “gypsy punk,” “eastern European balladeering,” “eastern bloc indie rock,” even “tango sousaphone rock,” just to name a few. Do any of these descriptions sound accurate?

Jeanie Schroder: They all do! They all work in some respect. We usually just tell people that we’re a big mixture of a whole bunch of things, that it’s this eclectic mix of different styles. The “gypsy-folk-punk” thing we get a lot and, well, that sounds OK to me!

VISIT DENVER: Writers just seem to end up calling you “indefinable” or “indescribable.” Can you tell us a bit about how this indefinable, indescribable sound developed?

JS: It kind of grew as we started playing together. All of the band members come from pretty different backgrounds and we all have pretty wide ranging musical interests. There’s classical, mariachi, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll, burlesque, eastern European music – it all got blended together somehow. When we started out, we didn’t really know that many bands that were doing the same thing, but we’ve since discovered some like-minded groups. Gogol Bordello and other bands have similar ideas – kind of that circus-y sound, or the drunk-at-an-Italian-wedding sound.

VISIT DENVER: It’s been almost four years since your last full-length CD of original material came out. What took so long?

JS: [Laughs] Well, we’ve just been so busy traveling, playing shows. We’re not the type of band that is good at writing on the road, so it was hard to get the material together while we were touring. But we recorded a covers album a few years ago that was great in terms of getting us ready for this newest album. We played with some of the string players who are on A Mad & Faithful Telling, so that got us excited about recording our new songs. I’m really happy with the way the album came out – I think as a band we keep moving forward. This one is pretty different from our previous albums – the lyrics have a different tone and we’re using a lot more keyboards and strings. That’s just what we’re into these days – I have no idea what else we’ll get into in the future.

VISIT DENVER: DeVotchKa has really grown in popularity in the last few years. Did you feel added pressure when you were writing and recording the album, knowing that there was an audience out there, eagerly awaiting new music from you?

JS: Yeah, I think so. There’s always a worry that after you make something that a lot of people enjoy that the next one is going to be disappointing, that you’ll make a stinker. I think that’s part of the reason this album took so long – we didn’t want to create something that was rushed or forced. We recorded the album partly in Denver and Boulder, but also partly in Tucson, where we’ve recorded a few of our other albums. It’s nice down there because the studio has all kinds of strange and interesting instruments to play with – but it’s also wonderful because you’re away from your day-to-day life and all of the commitments you might have. You can focus on the music.

VISIT DENVER: Tell us a bit about your own musical background.

JS: I actually started out playing the flute in my high school orchestra. But there were about 400 other people playing the flute, so I ended up trying out the tuba and the sousaphone – those instruments really spoke to me. And I’m so glad I made the switch – I don’t think I’d be playing music today if I stuck with the flute. I went to DU after high school and started playing pretty much with whoever I could, and then picked up the double bass. I think I played every kind of music imaginable, but when I found DeVotchKa, I was like, “Here’s the band I want to be in!”

VISIT DENVER: The band’s live show has become legendary over the years – how did DeVotchKa’s brand of visual spectacle develop?

JS: All of us had the desire to do something theatrical and dramatic – we weren’t particularly interested in being one of those bands who stand on stage, don’t move and look as though they’re not having any fun at all. And early on, we started playing shows in the burlesque scene, so that really added to our sense of theatricality. It’s fun to put on a show, really.

VISIT DENVER: You’re playing Coachella in May – are those gigantic festivals fun for the band? Do you ever get stage fright playing in front of hundreds of thousands of people?

JS: [Laughs] No, I don’t really get stage fright. When you’re up on those stages, you can’t really see how many thousands and thousands of people are watching you. Or you just try not to think about it. Those shows are fun though – it’s great to play for audiences who might not be familiar with you, and to really try to win them over. The only problem I have at the festivals is sometimes those stages just seem enormous! I feel like I’m a mile away from the rest of the band.

VISIT DENVER: Is the Denver music scene a nurturing one for up and coming bands?

JS: Oh definitely, I think it’s a thriving place for bands right now. There are a lot of incredible musicians in the city doing a lot of interesting stuff. We love a bunch of the local bands, and we always like to play with them. We just did a show with Everything Absent or Distorted, and they’re great. I love Bela Karoli, too.

VISIT DENVER: After the new album comes out, it looks like you’ve got a bunch of touring to do all over Europe and the United States – but no Denver show! When can Denverites expect to see DeVotchKa next?

JS: I don’t think it’s been announced yet, but it looks as though we’re co-headlining Red Rocks at some point in August. I’m practically a Colorado native, so playing there is really special to me on a personal level. We opened a show there last summer and it was just incredible – so many amazing musicians have played there, and it’s such an amazing thing to be playing there with the rocks on both sides of you, this mass of people in front of you and the stars up above. It was definitely a highlight.

Get more information on DeVotchKa music and upcoming concerts at http://www.devotchka.net/.