Ray Heekin on Drums, Deerhoof, and the ‘Epstein Belly’ of Hollywood
After a decade of shaping their signature “feral baroque pop” sound, Visitation is back, and they’re leaving the past in the dust.
The brainchild of singer/songwriter/drummer Ray Heekin, the group has just dropped ‘New Age To The Bone,’ the first single from their forthcoming follow-up to 2022’s acclaimed Computers.
The track is a cosmic plea for reinvention, shifting from sparse, eerie verses into a stomping climax of four-part harmonies and noir-ish saxophone.
To match the sonic dichotomy, the accompanying music video pulses with darkness and bursts of scrolling karaoke text.
We caught up with Heekin to discuss the raw instinct behind the new material, why he wants his music in Rush Hour 5, and how channelling the spirit of Jimmy Buffett might just save us all from the “coloniser shit” of modern life.
HAPPY: What’d you get up to today?
VISITATION: Oh, this and that. I tried not to look at my phone too much. Colonizer shit.
HAPPY: What were the inspirations for the music video?
VISITATION: I guess I wanted it to look the way the song sounds. There’s near silence between every couple bars in the song, so the video goes black between visual events.
And then of course I love some scrolling karaoke lyrics at the bottom of a video.
HAPPY: What does ‘feral baroque pop’ mean to you, and how does it manifest in the music of Visitation?
VISITATION: That’s something my friend John [Touchton, synth artist Severed + Said] said once. He called us feral pop. I think the feral thing comes through more in the live performance than the recordings.
Playing live these days I’m just banging on a drum kit and yelling the songs over a backing track. And then I like to throw Baroque in there because there’s always some strings somewhere on a Visitation record. I can’t get enough of string arrangements.
HAPPY: If ‘New Age to the Bone’ was to be included in the soundtrack for a movie, which movie would it be and why?
VISITATION: Any new 3D IMAX blockbuster. Forget all the art films, I’m not interested. Just throw me straight into the Epstein belly of entertainment industry hell.
I’m ready. I’ll go to Bohemian Grove. Just put my music in Rush Hour 5. I don’t want to have to work a job anymore.
HAPPY: What can audiences expect at one of your live shows?
VISITATION: To see an honest man pounding away at his drums as best he can, makin’ his way in this crazy world the only way he knows how.
HAPPY: Could you explain the title ‘New Age to the Bone’?
VISITATION: I’m fascinated by all things New Age, as an umbrella term for everything in our culture from Enya to cults to Terry Riley to yoga retreats and crystals.
On the one hand it’s an absurd corner of our culture, but then under the surface all those things really are an earnest attempt at reinventing how the world works and what spirituality is, basically trying to recreate spirituality in the aftermath of religion.
But then it comes across so corny viewing it through capitalism, it comes out as like head shops with incense and posters of fractals. I think our lives are full of that dichotomy where the artificial hides something real.
And I guess I took all that, made it a George Thorogood reference for some reason, and called it a day.
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HAPPY: As a drummer fronting the band, how does your perspective as a percussionist shape the foundational rhythms and overall arrangement of a song?
It really does shape everything for me, writing the songs as the drummer. I’ve been happiest recently with stuff I’ve written just sitting down at the drums, no mics, no speakers, nothing electronic, just yelling a song idea over the drums to myself.
It leaves all the melodic arrangement to the imagination, and you instantly get the rhythmic feel for the song. I think some of my favorite music is stuff that you could summarize with a single vocal line and a drum beat. If a song is good in that form, it’s gonna be good fleshed out.
HAPPY: What did you learn from making the lush Computers that you applied or reacted against with this new material?
VISITATION: I think Computers was lush like you say because it was clean, it was precise.
My friend Jesse Mangum who produced it runs the best studio in Athens, Georgia called The Glow, and it’s a joy working with him there because it’s like being in Stax or something where you’ve got a control room, live room, college student intern running cables, I mean a nice proper studio.
And being a studio whiz, Jesse is best when you let him work his magic, and his magic is in full, realistic detail. So then as we pile stuff up, string sections and synths and everything else, he can maintain clarity.
But that being said, that son of a bitch also reined in my instinct to blow things out and distort and compress the shit out of everything. So just as a kneejerk reaction this new record is gonna be absolutely raw, and I will never speak to Jesse or his family again.
HAPPY: With the new album underway, what’s the primary artistic itch you’re trying to scratch with this next phase of Visitation?
VISITATION: The drum thing I think. More drums, drums up front, multiple drum kits. Maybe sloppy fills, too. The last record wasn’t sloppy. I’m always trying to rip off my favorite living musician Greg Saunier [drummer for Deerhoof]. I love how sloppy he is.
He’s almost more of a performance artist than drummer, like he’ll do a fill that is literally funny, but then he’s also an amazing technical drummer. Actually now that I think about it we might need to remix “New Age to the Bone” and bring the drums up. Thank you for asking that.
HAPPY: Lastly, what makes you happy?
VISITATION: Just being alive. Just think of Jimmy Buffett, whatever made him happy, that’s what I’m about.
Chilling with my family, strumming the guitar, sparking a doob, not being dead. Not that the readers of Happy Mag need me to convince them that being alive is where it’s at, but maybe it’s just good to have that out there on the record.
Like maybe an ICE agent will read this interview on my phone at the airport and be like oh, Jimmy Buffett, okay, this guy’s not bad.
