Deerhunter's Bradford Cox Talks About His Lifelong Love of "Beautiful," "Christ-Like" David Bowie

Photo by Matt Lief Anderson

Late in the day yesterday, I spoke with Deerhunter and Atlas Sound’s Bradford Cox aboutthe death of David Bowie. Bowie has been an enormous influence on Cox’s life. He expounded on the legacy the man left him personally and to the world at large.

Beyond Nostalgia: A Conversation with Deerhunter's Bradford Cox

Photo by Ryan Stang

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.