Beyond Nostalgia: A Conversation with Deerhunter's Bradford Cox

Wading through swampy Atlanta traffic en route to Bradford Cox’s home, I start to think about the first time I encountered Deerhunter face-to-face. It was at a 2007 show around the release of their breakthrough album Cryptograms in which the band essentially destroyed a tiny Brooklyn venue while Cox lurched about the stage in a dress. There was a hysterical, desperate energy—something queer in the truest sense of the word—that separated Deerhunter from all of their mid-oughts peers. Their music was equal parts noise and beauty, layers of reverb and feedback wrapped around pristine pop executions. As a frontman, Cox was both volatile and unnervingly frail. Back then, it looked as if he might collapse at any minute.