What’s In A Name?

You’ve got to love Warren Defever. You ask the guy a few simple questions about his band, His Name Is Alive’s new album and gigging plans, and in no time at all he’s yakking away about UFOs, wooden penguins and his 20-piece Moog collective.

As undiscovered crazy mavericks go, Defever’s out there with the best of them. His music straddles so many musical genres – sometimes within the same song – as to make Beck sound like a one-trick pony; add lyrics about copulating rabbits in Michigan cornfields and ice the cake with the silken vocals of Karin Oliver, and you’ve got a unique and practically unmarketable act.

The stylistic restlessness has been there ever since Defever formed the band with his old high school chum, Karin Oliver. Their debut album, Livonia, was named after their home town in Michigan, which is situated just outside of Detroit. Eerie atmospherics were the order of the day on that release, but by the time they reached their third album, Mouth By Mouth, Defever was splicing rustic folk textures with raging electric guitars and writing songs about Van Gogh’s severed ear, with the odd Big Star cover thrown in for very good measure.

Then came last year’s Stars On ESP, by which time a proper band had formed. The single, ‘Universal Frequencies’, was The Beach Boys viewed through LSD lenses, while ‘This World Is Not My Home’ boasts a soul-cleansing gospel choir.

The new album, Ft Lake, may be just as idiosyncratic as before (’50s rock’n’roll / smooth electro pop/blues-wailing guitar grooves/ whatever you’re having yourself). Where did the title come from?

“There was a Civil War fort that was abandoned after the war. Eventually it fell into a state of great disrepair. I don’t know if it was because the original army engineers didn’t do enough research but it sunk gradually into its own lake. So now there’s this lake with a Civil War fort at the bottom. I think that represents our album!”

But, as the ancient Greeks used to say, if you keep making top records, the world will beat a path to your door. . . or at least phone you up once in a while. Defever turned down the chance to score the soundtrack to Jerry Maguire (though he did allow them to use one old song) because he didn’t want to have to deal with Hollywood suits with fax machines in their cars.

For his own part, his plans for the American launch of the new album in Detroit consisted of a hell of a lot more than just routinely playing the songs by rote to a static audience.

“They’ve been trying to break down the barrier between the audience and the performer for a long time, which is something I’m interested in,” says Defever. “One of the things we’re gonna have is games, which are gonna be going on while we play. One of them is called The Mystery Grab. You go behind the big screens, you stick your arms through the holes and the host places something in your hands and you’ve got to guess what it is. Another game has these wooden penguins on hinges. You throw a little octopus at them and try and knock them down. It’s really noisy because it’s all made out of wood but the audience has to come right on stage to play it.”

If you like the sound of this, you ain’t heard nothing yet. Defever is also known locally as the man who conducts the, ahem, Mystic Moog Orchestra.

“This consists of 18-20 people all playing Moog synthesizers. The rule is there’s no music: no one is allowed to play notes or rhythms. No melodies, just electronic sounds indigenous to the Moog synthesizer, all played at an incredibly loud volume. When you hear it, it’s just beautiful. It’s amazing when you see them all together. It’s like a science laboratory.”

• Ft. Lake is out now on 4AD.