Exclusive: Duane Denison Partner in His New Band D2 Archipelago Says LP, More Gigs Likely
After The Bad Penny loyal unexpectedly made our recent piece, “Jesus Lizard Guitarist Duane Denison Ignites ‘Challenging’ New Jazz Trio With Ex-Silver Jews, Lambchop Members,” the most popular post on the site this month, we decided to roll up our sleeves, start scratching our head even though it serves absolutely no purpose, dig deeper into the trio. And the truth. Because we roll that way sometimes.
And wouldntyknowit, we found out some more info on the recently birthed project that is D2 Archipelago, by touching base with drummer Brian Kotzur, formerly of Silver Jews. We chatted him up about everything under the sun, really.
Are you surprised by the strong level interest D2 Archipelago is drawing so fast?
Yeah. We played a couple of shows in Nashville, and they went really well, and people seem to be really excited about this project. I think people are just excited to see Duane get back out playing again and stuff – like the Tomahawk tour right now. We’re psyched to do whatever. When Duane’s tour is over, I think we’re going to probably record. I know we’ll record and play some shows.
What was it like a set opening for Echo & the Bunnymen at in Nashville a couple of months ago? That isn’t exactly something that happens to a new band.
That was fun. One of my one of my friends was like, “I wish my band’s second show was opening for Echo and the Bunnymen.” But it wasn’t really our set. Echo and the Bunnymen were looking for a three-piece jazz band to open the show. And so it was, like, “Oh, well, that sort of fits what we’re doing. [We’re] not necessarily like straight-up jazz but definitely got some elements of jazz and swing.
But Duane did have the The Denison/Kimball Trio [which he maintained concurrent with the Jesus Lizard], right?
Yeah, that’s right. I think that he really loved doing that, and now he’s getting back to something [similar]. I think that he’s thought about that project for a while. I don’t want to be putting words in his mouth, but I think he thought about it for a while. And now he’s thinking about what he could do now.
Have you known Duane for a while?
Yes. We met – God, at least 20 years ago, when he moved to Nashville from Chicago. I was playing in a bunch of local bands around here. I was in my early-to-mid 20s, in some local bands with the dudes I went to high school with. That was same way I met [Silver Jews founder] David Berman. We were trying to be the Butthole Surfers and Mr. Bungle [featuring Mike Patton, who later formed Tomahawk with Denison] at the same time.
We actually hanging out with Duane in 2003, something like that, when he was playing with Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers and Hank Williams III right after [the] Jesus [Lizard]. He ended up going on to do Tomahawk, but we’ve done some other projects together: The Unsemble with [bassist/electronics player] Alexander Hacke from Amsterdam, who came to Nashville [to play with the band]. Ipecac put [Unsemble’s self-titled debut] out [in 2014], and we were going to tour, but it didn’t really come together. It’s improvised, dark, noise stuff.
But this is probably the furthest we’ve got with one of our projects. Hopefully, when he gets back off this Tomahawk tour, we’ll do some some stuff. That’s what we’re planning on doing. This interview is probably the first time anything has been said about most of this.
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Meanwhile, we’e still trying to figure out what “D2 Archipelago” means. We all know that an archipelago is a loose series of islands that forms chain in the water. But D2? Could it be a Denison/Kimball Trio reference? (Another sorely overlooked Denison project, that one featured late-career Jesus Lizard drummer Jim Kimball and third member Ken Vandermark, maybe Chicago’s greatest avant-garde musician of the past 75 years.) Perhaps D2 Archipelago is a kindred project of sorts to D3, given their music similarity? Much less like, it’s a nod to one of Nirvana’s best outtakes, “D-7.”
The third member of the band, Matthew Swanson (Lambchop, David Kilgour), was a big more reserved in his comments when The Bad Penny caught up with him Thursday:
“I suppose the D2 project is still in something of an embryonic stage at this point in time, and I might be a little hesitant to speak with any authority about what Duane might be envisioning for the near future,” he said. “I predict a couple more live appearances at some point, hopefully some recording as the seasons pass. It is moving at a leisurely pace, nothing too intensive so far. “
Denison didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. We’re pretty sure he likes us, though, so our fingers are crossed that he gets back to us and our egos will be bruised if he does not.
Keep up with Kotzur on Instagram.
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