Geographer - Mike Deni- Interview

Interview with Mike Deni aka Geographer

As you can tell by the interview below, I love the band Geographer. Which, as of now, Geographer is actually the moniker of Mike Deni, which made it easier to get on the phone with “the band” recently, now that it’s just one guy. One very talented guy. His new album is due in December of this year, but until then, enjoy the misleadingly upbeat new single, “Love Is Madness,” which was co-written by Kevin Ray of Walk The Moon. I had a great time chatting with Mike and look forward to went he can tour again (crossing fingers, 2021).


Interview with Geographer


Interview With GeographerAimee:
So first of all, I’m a longtime fan. Love your music.

Mike:
Thank you!

Aimee:
Yeah. Ghost Modern album is one of my faves… It was on repeat that year. I just remember listening to it so much.

Mike:
Ah, that’s awesome.

Aimee:
Yeah. But for those who don’t know you, tell me a little bit about your band, Geographer.

Mike:
Well, I started in San Francisco, I think in 2008 officially. I had been playing open mics for a long time there, just basically trying to get my footing into becoming a musician somehow. And then I met a bunch of awesome musicians. We started a band that kind of morphed into, over the course of many years, what Geographer is now, which is just basically a solo project at this point. It kind of started out as more of a band concept, but then me being the only one who could continue on, I just sort of kept the mantle going.

Aimee:
That’s awesome. I mean, I know you have a bunch of albums. How many albums? There’s a lot, right?

Mike:
Yeah. So my first album is Innocent Ghosts and then that was kind of a self-released, under the radar thing. But then the big moment for me was Animal Shapes, my first EP. And that has “Kites on it, which was sort of a big success in the college market. So that kind of started my career. And then I put out Myth, my first full album. Then that started my touring life and I’ve been touring ever since. I got another couple of EPs after that. And then, this album that’s coming out in December will be my first full album since Ghost Modern, which was, I think, five years ago.

Aimee:
Wow. Yeah. I was kind of looking back and Spotify makes things a little weird in terms of trying to figure out which is an album, what’s a song. But I know you have a new single called “Love Is Madness.” Can you talk about that?

Mike:
Sure. So… I recently moved to L.A. from San Francisco. I use to sort of be like, “San Francisco for life.” But I just really needed a change. I was stifled and just spinning my wheels basically. And I had been coming to L.A. a lot to write with other people, just for various projects and I really enjoyed doing that. So then I just decided to move down here so I could actually be a part of a music scene because the San Francisco music scene was, well, it’s there, but it’s just very small. I felt like I knew everybody.

Aimee:
Sure. Compared to L.A., yeah.

Mike:
Oh God, yeah. So I did move down here and then I met Kevin Ray, who’s the bassist for Walk The Moon. And we became friends, we wrote a couple songs together. And then one day he came over and showed me the beginning of what became “Love Is Madness.” It was just this little riff he was working on, on his computer. And I just loved it so much, so we started working on that. And yeah, I had just been dumped at the time and I was in a really bad way. I almost canceled the session, which is so funny to me now because the song would never exist.

Aimee:
Wow.

Mike:
But yeah, the power of music prevailed again and helped me through that day. It’s sad to say that some of the best songs, they really do come from a place of just pain. And as an artist, you always hope that’s not the case, so you can have a nice life. But the proof is kind of in the pudding there.

Interview With Geographer

Aimee:
That was one of my later questions, but I’m going to ask it now. I feel like your music feels very dreamy and poppy, but then you listen to the lyrics and there’s a lot more there. Do you do that on purpose or is that just the way it feels right to you? Or, how does that happen?

Mike:
Yeah, that has always interested me as well. Because I think a lot about my personality versus the music that I create. Because my personality is like, I joke around all the time, I mean, I’m definitely morose and my humor is very dark, but I think a lot of people who know me would think of me as a sort of fun, happy person. But the people who truly know me know that I’m also really depressed. So I think that’s like what-

Aimee:
Sounds like me.

Mike:
Yeah, ha. And probably a lot of people.

Aimee:
Absolutely.

Mike:
But it sounds like what my music ends up being, where the outward appearance, the initial impact that it has is fun, happy, dancey. But then when you get to know the song better, you see that the lyrics are actually very thoughtful and sad and sometimes brooding. So I didn’t do that on purpose, but whenever I write, I guess, yeah. I guess I look to music as a release and an escape. So that’s why I create the music. So I always want to make something moving. And a lot of times that’s a happy sound, but then when it comes to writing the lyrics, at least for my own projects, but I have no interest in writing about joy. It’s the most uninteresting emotion that we have. And also there’s no reason to write about joy, you just feel joy. But when you’re feeling sadness or heartache or disappointment, you need to do something with that or it’s going to eat you up. So I think that’s why those are the themes that I gravitate towards. It’s just confusion about existence itself, basically. Like what the hell am I doing here? What is this, what are these feelings? Why are people the way they are? Why am I the way I am?

Aimee:
Right. And then I know, and I’m not sure if it was in June or if it’s continued, but that you were donating proceeds from the song to 8 Can’t Wait. Can you talk about why that’s important to you?

Mike:
Well, I think I may change what I’m donating it to. Just because there’s a lot of discussion about whether 8 Can’t Wait is better or 8 to Abolition is better. Basically, it’s about defunding the police versus reforming the police. And I personally feel that, even if the police are defunded, which would be amazing, it’ll take a long time. And in that interim period, there need to be reforms. So that’s why I think 8 Can’t Wait is still really important, even though when you look at it from a broad point of view-

Aimee:
It’s not enough.

Mike:
Yeah. It’s still giving money to the police, which is the opposite of the end goal. So, I feel like my fans, if they’re using their streams as their means to donate, I want to make sure that I’m doing that justice. So I think I’m just going to donate to Black Lives Matter because that’s certainly an organization that everybody can get behind.

Aimee:
And that’s wild that you say that because I initially had gotten behind 8 Can’t Wait. I’m fairly pragmatic about these things. And I still agree it’s a right first step, but I kind of had the same reaction from people and then a change in direction… Because I did a sale of prints but ended up doing exactly what you said, where I’m donating to Black Lives Matter directly.

Mike:
Yeah, exactly. I mean, with my own money, I’ll do whatever I want, whatever I think is best. But I don’t know, it’s really not that much money obviously, because we don’t make that much money from streams, but it’s something.

Aimee:
The point is that you’re making an effort.

Mike:
I think that’s important. I’m not Ariana Grande but I do what I can. And I think it’s important to show people that even if they just give a dollar somewhere, it’s important.

Aimee:
Right. Right. And so you’ve mentioned touring and I’m sad that I’ve never seen you live, but I do know you play a lot. First of all, how have you been handling kind of the stay-at-home, not touring, not playing situation?

Mike:
It’s been really interesting to watch the change in me. Where first, I had to cancel this tour. And that was a huge disappointment because I had a whole album release planned around it. I had to postpone the album. So now I have 15 songs that I’m just sitting on, which is always very hard for me to do. But then I tried to see the silver lining. Now I can put out a single every month. So I can put out seven or eight singles versus just three, which I think is awesome. Because I love all the songs as individuals so much, but really it’s funny because the ones you’ve put out as singles are really the ones that people tend to gravitate towards. It’s like you really are guiding it. So it’s kind of sad to me because a lot of times my favorite songs are not the ones that the distributor or the label or even me, would want as singles because they’re just not singles. But they’re my favorite songs on the albums and now there’s an opportunity for me to showcase those. But yeah, I mean, I really miss that connection with people in general. But also, I’m a very socially anxious person, so I think the quarantine has been less hard on me than most people. But I still do thrive off of human interaction, but safe human interaction. In a mental way, not in a …

Aimee:
About to say, apparently we ARE same person.

Mike:
Ha. Yeah. Because to me, the concerts are the safest way for me to interact with humanity in a positive way. Because I’ve rehearsed it, I know it’s going to be great and they came there because they love it. It’s a great recipe for a wonderful situation.

Aimee:
Totally.

Interview With Geographer

Mike:
And yeah, I miss that. But I’ve coped with that by doing the weekly live stream, just free on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. So every Monday I’ll play for an hour and a half and I just take requests. So I’ll just play whatever people want. I basically see it as, it’s a service to people who feel like they want to hear some Geographer and then it’s also a service to me because I just love singing. I’m kind of singing now more than I usually do. And I feel like I’m not rusty on my instrument because I’m constantly learning new songs, going into the back catalog and relearning songs I’ve never played live. It’s been really fun. It’s a good way to tick off the weeks as well.

Aimee:
I was kind of looking back and I’d seen that you’d done a live stream, but I didn’t realize it was every week. So now I’m going to need to put it on the calendar.

Mike:
Yeah. Every Monday at 6:00 PM PST.

Aimee:
Okay, great. And then also, I noticed that you do play a lot of instruments. What do you play and which do you enjoy the most?

Mike:
Oh, well my favorite instrument to play is the saxophone and I think that’s probably the instrument that I’m technically best at. I mean, I don’t it play very often, so my chops are not what they used to be. But I basically studied jazz for the first half of my life, jazz saxophone. And yeah, I think it’s my favorite to play for a couple reasons. One is that it just sort of puts me back in the place where I was when I was a child. And the saxophone was the thing that made me special because I was so crappy at so many things in school, but I was the best saxophonist in every grade basically. And I think that did just enormous things for what would have been a withered self-confidence otherwise. So, that makes me feel good. It’s just sort of a sense memory of just all those happy hours, jamming with my dad or getting lessons or taking a solo in middle school. And then, also I think it has a really nice sort of hypnotic effect on the body too, where you’re breathing really deeply and then it kind of resonates in your chest. It just feels great. So I love playing the saxophone, but basically synthesizers are my true love and passion and just anytime I sit down in front of my computer and just started tweaking with synthesizers, I just get very peaceful feeling.

Aimee:
That’s nice. That’s cool. And obviously that kind of comes out in the music.

Mike:
Yeah.

Aimee:
And who are some of your biggest influences, musically?

Mike:
Hm, well, I like to say that my three dads are Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon and Thom Yorke.

Aimee:
Interesting.

Mike:
Then my uncles are James Taylor, Kat Stevens, Fleetwood Mac, Crosby, Stills and Nash. And then my aunts are Kate Bush, Joni Mitchell, yeah.

Aimee:
Love that.

Mike:
But then I guess contemporary, I don’t know, I’m not super influenced by contemporary people. I’m very inspired by them, which I think is important because I think the more distance temporally between you and your influences, the more unique your music will sound. I think when I was starting out, I wanted to be Interpol, I wanted to be Arcade Fire. And I think I just wrote sort of crappy songs because I was just basically imitating them, which in the end was a really worthwhile practice because it taught me how to make songs. That’s the perfect way to learn how to write songs is just, well, first to cover people’s songs and then to copy it, try to write it. But then you’ve got to be yourself. So I don’t know. Also, I studied writing in college and something that stuck with me was one of my teachers said that everyone is influenced by things. And all art is essentially a copy of something else, but the trick is to copy so many things that are so disparate from each other that no one can draw one link to one thing and then you make something that feels new. So that’s what I’ve always tried to do. And I try to stay inspired by different kinds of music. I’m really into a lot of Japanese 80s music now.

Aimee:
Really?

Mike:
Yeah. Like Yellow Magic Orchestra and it’s many offshoots. But they use the same synthesizers that I’ve always used, which I really like Yamaha Synthesizers. But I don’t know, I’ve never really heard them used like that in music. And I don’t know, it’s very inspiring, just new sounds, new sensibilities.

Aimee:
Cool. And it’s funny the thing you said about your art teacher, my jaw dropped because I studied graphic design in school and had a lot of art classes. And that was one of the things that I learned in school too.

Mike:
Oh cool.

Aimee:
Yeah. I mean, it was literally almost, not word for word, but basically that sensibility has been a big influence in my life as well in terms of, there’s imitation, but then there’s learning about it and then creating something new from learning from the past, that kind of feeling.

Mike:
Absolutely. Yeah. I really value that instruction.

Aimee:
Right. So kind of a fun question, do you have any guilty pleasures during COVID? Something that you just kind of fell in love with or have been doing as a new ritual habit, meaning good or bad?

Mike:
Absolutely. I started out so strong. I wasn’t watching anything, I was just making stuff, I was taking photographs, making videos, writing. And then as time dragged on, I was just like, “Okay.” And then I started watching The Criterion Channel, it was only good movies. I was like, “Yeah, I’m filling my brain with just good stuff.” … But now I’m just on to just watching just crap all day.

Aimee:
(laughter)

Mike:
But I mean, well, my favorite crap is, I got into Dark on Netflix, which is really cool, the first two seasons. It’s a German super intense Stranger Things.

Aimee:
Yes, so many people have recommended that!

Mike:
It’s so good. And then Search Party, which is on HBO now, is really one of the most uniquely funny shows I’ve ever seen.

Aimee:
We’re going to have to watch it. We don’t have HBO, but there’s a couple things, like we haven’t watched Watchman yet and-

Mike:
Oh God. That’s good and very topical.

Aimee:
Right, exactly. Yeah, we missed it when it was free on Hulu or whatever. I was like, “All right. We’re just going to have to get a subscription for a while.”

Mike:
Yeah. Just subscribe to everything now. But oh, one thing I really do love that I feel a little embarrassed about is I love World War II documentaries.

Aimee:
Oh my God. We are the same person.

Mike:
Oh, really?

Aimee:
You’re freaking me out. I’ve seen all of them.

Mike:
God, I just love them.

Mike:
Yeah. I don’t know what it is. It’s just thinking about that time and how horrifying it was and I don’t know, something about it. Yeah, I learned all about the Falklands War on YouTube the other night as well. Have you seen that?

Aimee:
No. And I’m also a Forensic Files person, so my husband always asks me to not kill him in his sleep.

Mike:
Hey, it’s good time to die in your sleep. Is that what you tell him?

Aimee:
Ha ha! No. But anyway, OK, I know you have the album coming out in December.

Mike:
Yep.

Aimee:
And then, obviously a lot of things depend on how COVID goes, but are you hoping on a tour or do you have any…

Mike:
Yeah. I mean the plan now is to be touring around the same time that I was going to tour this year, next year. Because people wanted to reschedule for the fall, everybody was doing that. And I don’t know, I wanted to play it safe. So I set our perspective dates for March of 2021. Now that even seems slightly unlikely. So I’m kind of on tenterhooks about that, but what can you do?

Aimee:
Right.

Mike:
But it’s really hard to reschedule a tour because if you imagine the entire music industry, rescheduling tours. And then there’s 20 bands vying for the same date and they’re all bigger than you, it’s pretty tough. So you want to stay on top of it and you want to make sure that you… It’s kind of like gambling, I guess. Because it also sucks to tell your fans to look forward to something and then you have to cancel.

Aimee:
Absolutely. And I remember you coming through and I know I had wanted to go but missed it; I’m based in Denver. Do you remember where you played last time?

Mike:
Oh, Denver is one of the best cities in America for me, it’s awesome. We played at Lost Lake.

Aimee:
Oh man, such a great venue.

Mike:
Yeah. Last time was awesome, sold out show. It was crazy, great.

Aimee:
I cannot imagine that you wouldn’t sell out Lost Lake, for sure.

Mike:
Yeah.

Aimee:
But yeah, I’ll be sure to watch for it when you come back.

Mike:
Okay, awesome. But yeah, other things for people to look out for is just a single every month from the new album. I’ll be making merch soon. But right now my mom is hand sewing Geographer masks. If anybody wants to buy one of those, they’re up on my website, geographermusic.com/masks. And they’re all unique, she’s basically just making them and when they sell out, she makes more. And I got to tell you, they’re very well made. And I’m donating portion of those proceeds to NAACP.

Aimee:
That’s awesome. Mom masks are gonna be all the rage.

Geographer COVID Masks

Many thanks to Mike for taking the time to chat! Be sure to check out all my other interviews and music posts.

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