DIIV Want To Suck Nick Grimshaw’s Dick

After kind of a dry patch in exciting guitar music, that nobody really wants to admit to, Brookylnite Zachary Cole Smith, formerly of Beach Fossils, struck out on his own to cobble together the band DIIV (pronounced "dive" pedants). The final product - part shoe-gaze, part grunge, part really obsessed with all things nautical- have, in less than a year, accidentally created one of the most lauded debut albums of 2012, Oshin.

Not that they seem to give that much of a fuck. In the most ADHD interview ever, I talked about playing live and Nirvana comparisons a little, then about golf, fellatio and doing acid in the woods, a lot.

Noisey: Can you say that again, I didn’t have the recorder thing on turned on…

Colby (drums): So, we're driving in Hackney…we see this, fuckin’ bum ass kid drinkin’.

Bailey (guitar): He wasn’t bum ass…

Devin (bass): He was definitely a scumbag.

Colby: He was drinking shit wine, going through the trash, looking for clothes and we were thinking about inviting him into the band just because he would fit in with us, y’know.

Bailey: He could play keyboards!

Colby: Yeah, he probably knows how to steal a keyboard.

Erm do you think he would be good for the band because he adds something you don’t have?

Colby: No, he accentuates most of our qualities.

Zachary (vocals): He fits just right in. There’s a game that some of my friends like to play called "Homeless or in DIIV?". You look at someone on the street and you say: homeless…or in DIIV? And usually it’s one of us.

Colby: It’s hard, man, you see this guy walking down the street [pointing at Bailey] picking up clothes, wearing them out of fuckin’ dumpsters and shit.

Bailey: I’ve done that before.

Colby: Exactly, I was driving by and I was like…

Zachary: Oh shit! That guy should be in DIIV! OH YEAH HE IS! Oh shit, wassup Bailey?

Have any of you ever been homeless?

Colby: There’s a difference in being homeless and being a road dog.

Zachary: I guess right now, technically we’re homeless but more or less we’re road dogs.

Colby: I mean I’m spendin’ fucking rent right now and I’m not even there.

[In the distance, someone is playing golf]

Zachary: Do you see this? This dude over here pitching golf balls n shit.

Bailey: It better be a 9-iron…

Zachary: Why?

Bailey: Because they go shorter.

DIIV: Whoaaaaaa…

Zachary: That fuckin’ sucks. Fuckin’ horrible.

Colby: YOU SUCK!

I don’t know how I’m going to transcribe this…

Colby: You can cut some of this out.

Zachary: He can’t. It’s in our contract. That whole radio session we just did, that entire thing is on there.

Colby: Really? The radio?

Zachary: The WHOLE thing. We just did a radio session.

Who’d you do it with?

Zachary: Simon Van Leeuwen, We just couldn’t play our own songs. Oh yeah, and Grimmy. He sent me a Facebook message!

Devin: Yo, you wanna suck that D?

Zachary: I hope so.

Who’s your top radio show host to…

Colby: To fuck?

Erm…

Zachary: Fellation? Fearne Cotton, no, Annie Mac.

Colby: What was that one I saw last night? The younger one?

Bailey: BAILEY!

Colby: You know what? I’m gonna go with Nick Grimshaw.

Devin: I don’t think I particularly want to fuck Nick Grimshaw.

Bailey: I want to go with Bailey…

Oh you mean Bailey, the one who does the drum & bass show?

Colby: Yeah!

Zachary: Yeah, his name’s just Bailey and his name is Bailey too, so…

Bailey: Yeah, that’s me.

So is that something you look for in sexual partners?

Bailey: Yeah, same name. I only fuck people with the same name.

Colby: Like how you carry a picture of him with yourself. He has a 9 PM wank session every Wednesday so he has to keep it on him.

Bailey: Yeah, that’s true.

[Phone rings]

Zachary: Is that your alarm, wake up sound?

Colby: Yeah that’s my alarm, yeah. That sound makes me want to kill my phone.

I have a theory that it’s not actually the sound that bothers people; you just get conditioned to hate it because it wakes you up.

Bailey: Yeah my father said that, when I was a kid my dad used to wake me up and one day he was like ‘I’m not going to wake you up anymore because you’ll fucking hate me. So he stopped doing it. But I still hated him. [Laughs] Oh shit, is he going to hear this? I love my dad now, we’re friends again.

Colby: Look, homeboy’s really golfin’ in, he’s actually fuckin’ going for it…WHHHOOAAAAAA, it’s on the green!

Bailey: He’s got a good swing.

You seem to know a lot about golf, talking about 9-irons and swings and birdies…

Bailey: I do, yeah, I have clubs.

Colby: He’s got 9s, he’s got 45s, a 33… we got gats, stay strapped.

Bailey: I went golfing on an actual course twice, but one time it rained and uhhh… you know how the grass is cut really short?

Yeah, then when it rains it gets really slick, so you slide all over it. What are they called, they’re made of plastic and you spray them down with water?

Zachary: A slip-n-slide! Yo I had one of those when I was a kid, but the lawn wouldn’t grow, so it was all knobby and shit. I’d do it and I’d fucking have bruises all over my chest.

Bailey: We didn’t have an actual slip-and-slide, we just took a what’s it called…a tarp. What do they say in England? You know, a tarp. Yeah, we’d take a tarp, have a hose sprayin’ at it…

Colby: YO, back in the projects, we put it down the fuckin’ stairways and did it. Muthafuckin’ slip-n-slide down the Subway and shit.

Ha, are you experts at ballin’ on a budget?

Colby: Mmmm. Not ballin'. Just budget.

OK, I need to ask some music questions. So, you've said before that Nirvana’s "Dive" is about you guys…

Devin: I didn’t exactly say that, but I was tripping on acid and I alluded to that.

Colby: That song that says "Dive in to me"? It’s actually about Devin, because a lot of people fuck him in the ass.

[Laughter]

Colby: [Singing] Diiiivvveeee inn meeeee

Devin: Yeah. I like to get my shit pushed in.

[More laughter]

Devin: I wonder what Kurt would think about all this. He’d probably think that we’re Nirvana nerds.

Have they been as big of an influence as internet musos make out?

Zachary: The way that he put together his band, is the way that I want to put together my band.

Colby: I’m gonna start my own shit called Butt Fighters. And we’re going to suck so bad.

You can’t be any worse than the Foo Fighters?!

Colby: Oh I don’t know, I can try, man. Hopefully someday I’ll be worse than them, if I try reeeeally hard.

Are you planning on dying young?

Zachary: He is! [Pointing at Bailey]

Bailey: What!?

You’ve decided for him?

Bailey: Sometimes I think about it, in a cowardly way, the way I freak out about the future, and you know like, being an adult. Right now I’m not an adult yet, well, technically I am, but, I’m not.

When are you an adult?

Bailey: When you make more money than you spend.

Zachary: There’s like three characteristics, right. One is, like, having a kid, one is having a relationship and then there's something along the lines of owning a property. So a lot of people, in our demographic, have one, and maybe two of those but not all three.

Bailey: I have a girlfriend, who, if I wanted to, she would like marry me tomorrow.

Zachary: You lucky son of a BITCH.

Well you’re in the country with the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the western world. Kids aren't that much of an achievement.

Bailey: True, but fuckin’…

Zachary: Butt-fucking? THAT’S the solution to teenage pregnancy.

Bailey: My cousin has two kids and she’s like 18 or something. But I consider her more of an adult than I am, because she has a house.

Zachary: Is she hot?

Bailey: Err… she’s the opposite of hot… and her frickin’ husband. They’re not married, but, her babydaddy is like the ugliest person on the planet.

What do the kids look like?

Bailey: Well… they’re also… uhhh… I don’t want to say anything about her and the babies… they live in the south… so they’re fat… and it’s pretty bad, BUT, she has a house though… and she like… she has… she’s an adult, and she can't even buy beer.

So, Devin, I hear you wouldn’t have joined the band if Cole wasn’t a scorpio. Why’s having astrological similarity to your band important?

Devin: I never thought I was going to be in a band, then Cole approached me about it and I just thought it was right. After doing his astrological reading and his charts and stuff, I figured it was like the perfect opportunity. I’ve been playing music for a while, I just never met the right people up until now. It’s the first band I’ve ever been in.

Does astrology rule every aspect of your life?

Devin: Just about.

Had any other big astrology lead decisions?

Colby: The weird thing is, he can’t jerk off unless the moon, is like, in its third trimester. He takes that shit seriously, man. He can’t shit unless mercury is like rising.

Zachary: Which it always is.

Sweet. So, there’s been a lot of hype around your album…

Colby: [Laughs] Wait, lets cut through the bullshit, the hype, what’s up with that?

I think, because you’re a guitar band and last year was such a dry period with everyone declaring guitar music dead.

Colby: Definitely man, all the riffs!

Zachary: People look at guitar bands and they say, "I can do that", and that’s why they’ve been so big since the 50s. Like, "I can go to Sears, buy a guitar and I can do it".

Colby: I feel now, more than ever, having a good live show is important, a lot of hardcore bands are getting crazy press and shit. Y’know, you got Trash Talk and Ceremony.

Zachary: Eagulls…

Colby: All that shit is growing, like, super big. It's all about the live show, no one makes money off of selling records anymore, you have to be entertaining. If all you do is tap some shit on your fuckin’ iMac or whatever, no one’s gonna wanna go watch your shit.

Zachary: I’d watch somebody with an iMac, carrying that shit ain’t easy.

Colby: [Laughs] You know what I’m saying though, doesn’t that make sense? You want to go see a band that actually fucking shreds and has fun and people are flipping off the fucking speakers and stage diving. Anyone can sit in their fucking room and write. But to actually make it translate into an entertaining fucking show, it doesn’t happen that often.

Bailey: The only dude who killed that was John Maus, when he just played the songs and the place went fucking crazy.

Zachary: Punching himself in the face. John Maus is cool.

Colby: We played with him in Toronto, it was soooo good. Plus I was on mushrooms.

Zachary: What was that drug experience that he said that he did?

Devin: I said "I’m on an eighth of mushrooms", then he said "That’s NOTHING! I did… 40 hits of acid!" [laughs]

How many hits of acid have you lot done?

Devin: At once the most I’ve ever done is actually probably 15. In one night.

Colby: G-T-F-O.

Devin: At Josh’s party. It was after a John Maus show, actually. It was so intense.

Bailey: I took a handful of liquid acid once, but there was no way to know how much it was, y’know? It was just like "Hey man you want this?", it was at Bonnaroo, and I was like "Fuck it" and I just licked it.

Zachary: Our friend took acid and he went crazy, he was institutionalized.

Colby: Me and my girlfriend took acid the other day, we woke up, we were really tired, took acid, went back to sleep, so that when we woke up we’d be tripping.

Devin: That sucks though.

Colby: No, it was awesome.

Is that usually how you start your day?

Colby: Usually, get the bong out, you know how we do it. Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, this dude, he went missing, it was in the news, and we didn’t know.

Zachary: He told his friends, he was at a festival and goes "I’m going swimming".

Colby: Then nobody ever saw him again for TWO days.

Bailey: They were like, "Oh whatever he’s tripping"… he'd fucking joined the Rainbow Family…

The Rainbow Family?

Zachary: The Merry Pranksters.

Bailey: It's these guys that just take a bunch of acid and bum around in the woods, selling arts and crafts and that’s like their life. They’re like…

Colby: Pieces of SHIT [Laughs]

Bailey: Yeah they do suck.

Why’d you hate them so much?

Colby: I got hippy parents, man, I come from northern California, that shit’s God. Grateful Dead are basically like… bigger than the governor up there. Fuck that shit.

Jerry Garcia…

Colby: Jerry Garcia and Dehr Bear. Pieces of shit.

Bailey: Same in Vermont. That’s why the one thing I don’t like about Vermont is that you see that fuckin’ Grateful Dead bear everywhere.

That’s the one and only thing you don’t like about Vermont?

Bailey: Yes.

What are your favorite things about Vermont?

Bailey: My favorite things about Vermont? My girlfriend is from Vermont, ummm…

Colby: Ben & Jerry’s is too, dog.

Bailey: Yeah, fuck Ben & Jerry’s.

Colby: C'mon, Walter White’s Heisen-Brrr-g Crunch? Holy fuck dude.

What do you have against Ben & Jerry’s?!

Colby: They started doing that Greek yoghurt, frozen shit. That shit’s not hot.

Zachary: They sold out.

Bailey: Yeah fuck Ben & Jerry’s and fuck frozen yoghurt. Vermont is cool though dude.

Zachary: They got maple syrup.

I thought that was a Canadian thing?

Bailey: No, Vermont’s famous for maple syrup too.

Colby: Have you ever been to the States before?

I’ve been to New York and LA.

Colby: There's all you need to go. Avoid the rest of it like the fucking plague. Avoid the middle part, except for Chicago.

Zachary: And Minneapolis. Chicago’s cool.

Colby: What? When we were in Chicago you were like, "this is the city that was frozen on tour".

Bailey: Have you ever had deep dish, Devin?

Devin: It looked like Bushwick.

Colby: Yo, deep dish pizza SUCKS.

Zachary: Isn’t the cheese underneath the sauce?

Devin: Deep dish is my shit.

Colby: Dude, have you had real Chicago deep dish?

It looks like a heart attack in a pan.

Colby: New York pizza’s the best because it’s thin, and if you do it right the cheese and the sauce, like, mix together, so you can’t really tell the two apart. That’s the jam, but deep dish? Nah.

Bailey: [rapping] That’s the shit Colby don’t like.

Colby: [rapping] That’s the shit I don’t like. Chief Keith… fuckin’ Chicago. [Laughs]

Are we being cut short now?

Tour manager: Uhhh I think we should… round up… yeah.

Bailey: We gotta go?!

Alright, have you got any closing statements; we’ve not followed my interview plan at all.

Colby: I want to hear the edit that you do. I wanna hear what happens when you trim the fat!

I’m just going to take the most controversial moments.

Zachary: "FUCK BEN & JERRY’S!"

Colby: The headline's going to be: "DIIV want to suck Nick Grimshaw’s dick". Yo, so I just went to try and piss over there, and there’s some fool just sittin’ right behind those bushes, like…

Zachary: Making sure you don’t piss?

Colby: No, he didn’t even look at me, he was just sitting there.

Devin: He’s taking a shit, dude!

Did you have to piss on him?

Colby: Nah, there’s another dude over there in the bushes. I’m gonna try piss on him.

Zachary: He might give you head if you do that.

Colby: This is easily the best interview we’ve had.

Thanks guys! BYE.

Listen to their debut album Oshin in full below, then go stalk the guys on their Facebook and Twitter.