Deer Tick

John McCauley, the man behind the Deer Tick moniker, was born and grew up in Providence, RI. He's wanted to be a crooner, entertainer, songwriter, and performer for as long as he can remember and is self-taught on drums, guitar, piano, and pedal steel. He also took electric bass lessons in his teens. He started recording his own compositions while still in high school, making his own CDs and selling them at gigs. He also began touring during his high school years, and since graduation he's built up a sizeable following in the Northwestern states performing solo, as a duo with drummer Dennis Ryan, and with a small band. McCauley's music fits loosely into the singer/songwriter/folk category, but the pop, rock, blues, and country influences he brings to his music add complexity and depth to his tunes. His first CD, War Elephant, came out in September 2007 on Jana Hunter's Feow! label and has won him comparisons to Townes Van Zandt, Neil Young, Gram Parsons, and Ritchie Valens.McCauley grew up in Providence, RI, not a place known as a hotbed of creativity, but the local scene is diverse and lively and many will recall that Talking Heads did get their start at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. McCauley avoided the town's mainstream rock scene in favor of a small underground group of a few hundred intensely creative people centered around an art space called AS220, a non-profit community arts center with live/work studios, galleries, a performance space, community darkroom, and a bar and café. A network of private parties in warehouses and basements gave McCauley his first chance to develop his unique artistic voice in a supportive environment. As a child, McCauley liked dressing up like Roy Orbison, and the desire to make music and entertain people never left him. Orbison's Mystery Girl album remains one of his favorite CDs. Other seminal experiences include seeing the California Raisins claymation shorts on TV — McCauley has the Raisins tattooed on his right arm — discovering the Traveling Wilburys' "Handle with Care," and seeing the Ritchie Valens biopic La Bamba and collecting the Los Lobos singles from the soundtrack. When he finally scored a copy of the original "La Bamba"/ "Donna" single sung by Ritchie Valens, the single's haunted, gritty sound intensified his decision to become a performer and songwriter.McCauley taught himself bass and drums with the idea of starting a band, but could never find a guitar player he liked. He finally picked up a guitar and learned some basic music theory from a Beatles fake book, learning chords and voicings as he worked his way through the hefty volume. He started writing songs and was soon performing them at any venue that would have him. Even while he was in high school he was traveling throughout the Northwest, singing and playing, often without amplification, belting out the tunes with just his voice and guitar. The experience gave his vocals an inimitable raw power that comes across even on record, an elemental yelp that really gets under a listener's skin. He's also something of a joker, amusing audiences with his comical between-song patter, but as he said in a recent interview: "I've seen so many people play with virtually no stage presence and it's a bummer. I don't want to watch that. Besides, my songs are too sad to sing one after the other and not tell a few jokes." Since graduating in 2004, McCauley's been a full-time touring musician, handling most of his booking and promotion on his own. McCauley also got into recording and producing his own songs as a young age. He produced Jukebox Whore, 11 songs recorded at his apartment and in his parents' basement when he was 17 and 18 in 2005. He recorded Split, a collaborative album with New Hampshire bass player Nat Baldwin in his parents' living room, that same year for a small tape-only label out of Providence called Tabel. Later that year he put out a three-disc Complete Recordings package that included everything he'd recorded using the Deer Tick name. Next came Greatest Hits, a prototype of War Elephant that he put together to sell during his fall tour of 2006. Last year, McCauley took the plunge and recorded War Elephant, financing it himself and co-producing with Wax and Wane's Ari Schenck. The tracks alternate between songs on which McCauley played everything and songs with Nat Baldwin's band the Bohemians — Baldwin on bass, James Falzone on Wurlitzer electric piano, Sine Jensen violin, and Brian McOmber drums and percussion. The album's dark, disconsolate vibe, a product of McCauley's distressed vocals and the sparse backing tracks, puts it in a hard-to-pigeonhole category all its own, although it loosely fits into the eccentric Americana style pioneered by Devendra Banhart and Vetiver. Jana Hunter, another songwriting maverick, met McCauley a few years back. When she heard the finished tapes, she offered him a deal with her new Feow! logo. And in case you're wondering, the name Deer Tick was chosen a few years back after McCauley discovered a deer tick burrowing itself into his scalp. He likes the mysterious, slightly ominous connotations of the words. Like his music, it suggests experiences and events that are slightly out of the ordinary and maybe a bit disquieting.