_{Deer Tick
Photo: Rich Ferri}

Deer Tick returns to Payomet

by G.W. Mercure

Most of the interview with John McCauley from Deer Tick could have been spent just letting him share anecdotes. It would have been all the same to him. For example, there’s this tale from the band’s last performance on the Outer Cape: “We raided their pantry and grabbed a bunch of burger buns, condiments, and stuff, serving trays, and all this stuff. And we just made ketchup and mustard sandwiches, like just dozens and dozens of them, and just walked out on stage and just started throwing them into the crowd. I guess I got [guitarist] Ian’s dad. I got him right in the head with one.” 

Deer Tick will return August 22, if you’re vindictive and dressed for a cookout. They just released their newest studio album, Coin-O-Matic, in June, and the set represents a songwriting maturity for McCauley. 

“I’ve never really taken this kind of narrative approach to songwriting before, so it just wasn’t what I was doing a decade ago.” McCauley is referring to the local lore and cultural touchpoints that the band used for Coin-O-Matic, a departure from McCauley’s usual self-examination and personal narratives. He found it a worthy challenge. “I think it’s more difficult [to write an external narrative], but it’s more satisfying. If you’re successful in kind of creating a world or building something entirely out of nothing—there’s something about the work that you put into it that just feels better when you’re all done.” 

Coin-O-Matic is Deer Tick’s ninth studio album and their first self-produced project. The record functions as a gritty, character-driven homecoming that trades pure confession for vivid regional storytelling and working-class lore. “With Coin-O-Matic, every song was kind of done in service to this bigger idea that we’re making this kind of nostalgic Providence-based record.”

Deer Tick and Providence are as intractably connected as Kendrick and Compton. McCauley created Deer Tick in Providence back in 2004, initially operating the group as a solo project. Early performances took place in local spots like AS220, where McCauley mixed aggressive folk picking with unpolished rock vocals. Bassist Christopher Ryan and drummer Dennis Ryan joined the lineup around 2006, followed by guitarist Ian O’Neil in 2009, codifying the four-piece. Two decades of touring have elevated the band into a national act, yet their catalog remains tied to the scuffling, defiant identity of their hometown.

McCauley is aware that a lot of fans want to keep swimming in the water under the bridge. He takes that as a kind of responsibility. “That’s why I hold myself to a higher standard now. If I’m going to put something out and it’s not going to occupy the same place in people’s emotions, then it better be fucking good, right?” A rich environment, 20 years of touring, and all the talent in the world will, at the end of the day, not write songs. But decades of attention to the practice, studious curiosity, and a lot of repetition will produce something McCauley identified immediately: “I feel like a craftsman, you know. And a craftsman wouldn’t say that the first cabinet he ever built was the best cabinet he ever built, but I bet when he finished that first cabinet, he was pretty fucking proud of it!” So has he achieved his goals as a songwriter?

“I don’t know. I mean, the target’s always moving, and my ideas of what I want to do and where I want to go with this thing, they change and they morph with you as you get older. I’d still love to reach more people with our music, and that’s something we’ve never given up on… But I don’t think I have any unrealistic expectations either.”

McCauley is a dynamic singer with an uncommon, Axl-Rose-like ability to shift his voice into a harder timbre without altering register or pitch. He’s also an energetic and widely influenced guitar player. And he’s a very successful songwriter who continues to mature at the craft based on what he wants to give his audience. Is he ever identified as one of these over the others? 

“When I read anything that’s been written about our band, it’s always with the assumption that Ian plays all the guitar or all the guitar solos or something, and that’s just not true. We split our duties up pretty evenly, and he can do things I can’t do, and I can do things he can’t do.” 

Does he identify himself as one of those over the others? “I just sit around and noodle on my guitar more than anything else. So, to me, I’m just a guitar player. I’m cooking dinner with a guitar slung around my back, I sit in front of the TV with a guitar, I sit at the piano holding a guitar.” 

When the band takes the stage at the Payomet Performing Arts Center in North Truro, expect a mix of those special old tunes so cherished by Deer Tick fans, and a good cross section of the fine new album. As well as some seasoned guitar sizzle, and, maybe, the fruits of a recently raided pantry.

Deer Tick performs Saturday, August 22, 7 p.m., at Payomet Performing Arts Center, 29 Old Dewline Rd., North Truro. For tickets ($37 – $55 in advance) and information, call 508.487.5400 or visit payomet.org.