REGRESS IN LEATHER

REGRESS IN LEATHER

Greetings from DETROIT

Zoos of Berlin prove that big rock ’n’ roll dreams are only as old as you are

Joe Casey

This past February, I found myself at On the Rocks Bar & Grill in nearby Madison Heights to commiserate with Trevor Naud, member of the Detroit band Zoos of Berlin. The bar was chosen for its ambience—they have sumptuous brown leather booths, a growing rarity around here as older bars vanish or inevitably devolve into brightly lit Apple Store-esque echo chambers hawking shitty brews with cloyingly ribald names. They also have, to my great surprise, dollar chicken wings—another affordable rara auis sorely missed by a frugal fatman such as myself.

So, ensconced in the ancient leathers of the past, me with my wings and he with a quesadilla, we rambled over the nearly 20-year history of Zoos of Berlin, a singular group in the recent life of Detroit music. They are a band, at least to my chicken-fat-clogged mind, that occupies an interesting position both firmly outside the prevailing trends and surprisingly central to a lot of what was musically important in Detroit over the past few decades.

Zoos of Berlin, whose first show was in 2006 at the long-defunct Belmont Bar in Hamtramck, certainly aren’t a band any music snob worth their jean jacket would claim sounds like Detroit, especially during the time when garage rock haircuts and a passing knowledge of the Nuggets boxed set ruled the mile roads. Often described as “urbane” or “sophisto-pop,” Brooklyn Vegan slipped in the dagger, calling them “a little foppish and often fancy.” Putting on a Zoos of Berlin record, one readily hears neon, Bowie, signs warning “ELEKTROZAUN!,” motorik, cabaret, and 1970s tailored tuxedos. So, exactly like their name.

But as guitarist and co-vocalist Trevor explains, their formation began in the most Detroit of places, discussing the most Midwestern of bands: “In the late ’90s, I worked at a deli on the Eastside on Mack, Yorkshire Food Market. A party store with an attached bottle shop. I worked with Ben Blackwell, later of the Dirtbombs and Third Man Records. Every day a kid named Daniel would come in for a pack of Camels and a Coke, and we hit it off talking endlessly about Guided by Voices.”

That friendship with bassist and co-vocalist Daniel E. Clark would solidify over the next couple of years in another quintessential Midwestern activity: dicking around in a minivan. “We’d drive around for hours,” Naud explains. “Listening to music, chainsmoking. We’d both been separately demoing music and quickly started collaborating. To this day, we largely write all the lyrics and vocal parts together. Often sharing song sketches back and forth, building upon them, honing in on things.” Time spent in other short-lived bands would sharpen their limited skills, but it was their eventual meeting in 2002 with drummer and recording engineer Collin Dupuis that truly marked the beginning of Zoos of Berlin.

The story of the band can be precisely traced through the three distinct buildings they have occupied. This topographical triangle would be considered a highlight on a looser Detroit driving tour less inclined toward the wholly historical. A booze cruise that forgot the address of Motown or United Sound might accidentally end up at one or all of these three locales. The first spot Zoos of Berlin found themselves circa 2006 came through Collin Dupuis. Currently a sought-after engineer and mixer with albums by Lana Del Rey, Yves Tumor, Angel Olsen, and others under his belt, he was working for techno legend Carl Craig at the time.

“IT’S FUNNY HOW THE THINGS YOU DO FOR ART WHEN YOU’RE YOUNGER ARE EQUALLY STUPID AND BRADE.” —TREMOR NAUD

“We recorded our first EP at Carl’s studio called My House of Trouble, located in the then-desolate Milwaukee Junction. It was also the headquarters for his imprint Planet E Records,” Naud says. “He’d let us use the space after hours, sometimes while he was traveling for gigs, and he liked what we were doing.’’

This led to a collaboration with Craig on a David Bowie covers compilation, and a moment that would seem over-the-top in a treacly musical biopic where an up-and-coming band has their first bmsh with stardom. “There’s a YouTube clip of Carl Craig DJing Love Parade [in Dortmund, Germany] in 2008. A ways into his set, he starts mixing in Zoos of Berlin. You hear Dan and I singing over this heavy 808 beat in front of an ocean of people. According to Wikipedia, there were 1,600,000 attendees.” Having your music appreciated by gurning, pilled-up Germans: What’s more Detroit than that?

Come 2009, and the band has recorded and released their debut album, Taxis. More important to our tour, they had built their own studio and practice space in the infamous Russell Industrial Center. Located off 1-75, the 2,200,000-square-foot, seven-building complex, designed by Albert Kahn in 1915, was, like most buildings in this town, originally the home of some long-forgotten auto manufacturer. Before 2017 it was the place for a band to record, an artist to squat, or a drug party to be fueled. My band Protomartyr’s limited time there was marked with broken windows in the winter, strange sex parties on the other floors, and the overbearing feeling that around every corner there was a 50/50 chance to either run into your favorite local artist or your least favorite local scumbag swinging a knife.

“The elevators never worked there, and we were up on the third floor,” Naud remembers. “It’s crazy to remember how we all built the studio out of wooden pallets. A separate room in our small asbestos box of a practice space for the drums. Even crazier when we had to dismantle it all in one day years later. ”

Commiserating about both the utter insanity of the Russell at that time, and its uniquely creative hothouse atmosphere, seems to be de rigueur for musicians of our vintage. The inevitable crackdown and evictions by the city in 2017 ruined both the fun and the dereliction.

“It’s funny how the things you do for art when you’re younger are equally stupid and brave,” Naud reflects. This thinking could be applied to the typical mindset of the touring, but still realistic, Detroit band. “We toured as much as possible for the next couple of years. Getting as far as we could on weekends and time off from our jobs. We hit the Midwest hard. Also, like a lot of bands before us, we thought the key was New York City. Touring back and forth from there every weekend."

I nod sagely. It certainly seemed like a good idea at the time. Chicago and Toronto are closer, but the pull of New York on a Detroit bumpkin has been there at least since Stevie Wonder sang “Living for the City.” A second album, Lucifer in the Rain, followed on a small Los Angeles-based boutique label, Time No Place, in 2013. They carried on touring whenever they could. Keyboardists came and went without drama. Side projects were released without drama. Pitchfork wrote about them, and the algorithm burped.

A third album, Instant Euening, was self-released in 2016. It had the mysterious luck of one song, “White Cloud,” achieving randomly high streaming numbers. “My first thought was like, okay—so is someone using this in a dumb commercial that we don’t know about? Which is sort of a sad reaction,” Naud explains. “Just weird. But the money from that paid for the next record."

That brings us to the third locale on Holden Street, another studio built from scratch in another dilapidated structure, locally called the Recycle Here Building. From bottle shop to recycling center in two decades.

“We called it the Zoodio. Don’t laugh." (I do.) “The roof would leak until Collin tar-papered the whole thing,” Naud says. “We never stopped working, the money from one record would immediately go into the next one. We, I especially, believe it’s worth putting out a physical copy. Whether it’s a lathe-cut [202 l’s Here and There Fading and Riding] or the new one [2023’s Busy With People].”

They added Matt Howard from Javelins during these years, and although the touring became less and the life commitments grew, they seem to have the same animating spark from all those years ago. “We’re realistic about the realities, but the creative flow between me and Dan and the other guys hasn’t ended. There’s no need to stop."

Of course, there’s always a new place to call home. The Recycle Now got fixed up and Zoos of Berlin moved on, once again dismantling what they built and starting over. The Zoodio set free. Apparently Recycle Now is now “an affordable space for artists” and called Dreamtroit? Perhaps Zoodio isn’t such a dumb name after all.

The wings, quesadillas, and beers are done, and “bar bingo” is about to begin at On the Rocks, so it’s time to wrap up our talk. I am effusive with Trevor over my love of Zoos of Berlin, how those who know, you know, know. I try to persuade them to play out more, damn the responsibilities and get back on the road. Trevor Naud takes a moment and laughs, seemingly embarrassed about what he’s about to say.

“I’ve been talking for an hour about how realistic we are as a band, but I’ve been seriously thinking the next thing we should do is do a theater piece with excerpts of all our songs, new songs even. I found a place in Hamtramck and have been passing detailed notes about stage designs, costumes, everything."

He goes on to show me this all on his phone, and he is not kidding. It’s like leather booths and chicken wings to me. It all seems truly left-field and wonderful, imbued with the exact thing I appreciate about a band like Zoos of Berlin. It’s funny how the things you do for art when you’re older are equally stupid and brave.