How Deerhoof was inspired by David Graeber’s ideas

Deerhoof is an American musical group formed in San Francisco in 1994. Beginning as an improvised noise punk band, Deerhoof became widely renowned and influential in the 2000s through its self-produced albums.

Drummer Greg Saunier, who co-founded Deerhoof in 1994, quoted David Graeber in an interview.

“The album [Love-Lore(2020)], Saunier says, was inspired in large part by a 2012 article in The Baffler called, “Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit,” by David Graeber, which essentially makes the case that modern, contemporary times do not look as we were promised.

The album was inspired in large part by a 2012 article in The Baffler called, “Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit,” by David Graeber, which essentially makes the case that modern, contemporary times do not look as we were promised.

There are no robot butlers, no flying cars. If anything, poverty and inequality is worse. The only ones with flying cars (private jets) are the super rich. So, the substance of Love-Lore consists of songs or bits of music that speak to such unfulfilled expectations and wishes. In the same breath, Saunier notes, the album points to the idea that people shouldn’t, in fact, look to technology or other “gods” for hope or relief. We should make it ourselves.

“The answers have always been there,” he says. “It’s possible for humans to have sustainable priorities in a way they organize themselves.”

Three years ago Greg Saunier said about the album Miracle-Level (2023): 

David Graeber spoke of an “industry of hopelessness,” and I see every day that he was right.

“Hopelessness has to be created. Especially when a population starts getting wild, uppity ideas that they deserve better. The 2020 protests were the biggest ones in US history. We’re in a golden age for labor organizing that has yet to even peak. It is striking terror in the hearts of the handful of jerks who feel their outrageous wealth or power threatened. David Graeber spoke of an “industry of hopelessness,” and I see every day that he was right.

And it’s a billion dollar industry, built into the way history is taught, or economics, or anthropology, the kind of discourse that’s allowed on TV. It’s power keeping the poor so busy, stressed, and hungry that they get demoralized. It’s bullshit artists like Trump and Biden stoking fear of black and brown immigrants.

The industry of hopelessness doesn’t tell you “stop protesting” or “stop striking.” It’s more sophisticated. It tells you that your neighbor across the street will never have the courage to stand up to bosses and landlords. It tells you that your neighbor will never want a society without armed cops. So no matter what you or I might wish for this planet, too bad, because “Joe Blow will never understand,” or “This is just the way the world works,” or “Capitalism and violence are just human nature.” They want you to forget that Joe Blow was the one out in the streets shouting “Black Lives Matter.” He wants higher wages. He wants gun control and legal abortion. He thinks the Pentagon budget is too big. He knows politicians don’t represent us. He wants money out of politics. He knows that generosity, creativity, and love are just as much human nature as competition, coercion, and brutality.”

Both albums were released after David’s death, but David Graeber’s music library does contain Deerhoof’s Future Teenage Cave Artists (2020).