Desaparecidos: The Happiest Place On Earth

“Some of it is kind of like a magician shifting the focus to something else but a lot of it is just our attention span. As a nation we’re always asking, what’s the next big thing, I don’t know, it’s interesting.”

Denver Dalley’s thoughts on America’s mainstream media seem just as critical in a week where audiences saw Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmermann, get off a murder charge, the life of a teen heartthrob cut short by heroin and alcohol and a military judge refuse to dismiss an aiding the enemy charge against whistle blower, Bradley Manning, as they were more than a decade ago when recording Desaparecidos’ first and only album, Read Music/Speak Spanish in the week following 9/11.

“It’s funny, a lot of times if we want to find out what’s really going on we will tune into another country’s news source,” the Desaparecidos guitarist tells down the phone from his parents place in Arizona, where he’s house-sitting and taking care of the dog.

“A lot of the time we will go to The Guardian or something outside of the filtered American media. [American news networks] love to push stuff to the back burners and keep the focus on things like…don’t get me wrong, by no means am I making little of this but the big story right now is the death of the actor from the TV show Glee, [Cory Monteith] which is a tragic thing and I take it very seriously but I think there is way more press right now for that than say, Bradley Manning. If it’s not directly a news story about that then there’s stories about the public’s reaction and the future of the show and then there will be a little follow up piece like, ‘Oh, by the way, the Bradley Manning trial.’ It’s kind of like when you’re a reading a newspaper, that’s front cover but the Bradley Manning story is on page five.”

Twelve years after laying down tracks like, What’s New for Fall, Greater Omaha and The Happiest Place on Earth, slamming American consumerism, urban sprawl and military culture, there’s certainly no lack of stimulus for new material for the five-piece. Since reforming for a one-off show in 2010 that saw the band play alongside fellow Saddle Creek Records acts like Bright Eyes and Cursive to protest against one Nebraska city’s anti-immigration laws, Desa have released four singles, rallying listeners through frontman Conor Oberst’s typically emotionally charged lyrics in Anonymous and The Left is Right whilst taking aim at the face of some of America’s ills onMariKKKopa – these guys have never been ones to shy away from a cause.

“We had always hoped to be a band where people enjoy the music but when they really listen to the lyrics, it inspires them to go and look something up online or start a conversation with someone or maybe even take a stand,” says Dalley on the band’s strong political voice.

“Like, the idea that we could be the catalyst that kind of started something in play. I think that while I do love a lot of pop music, a lot of the time you can listen to an entire song and not really walk away with anything. They’re just saying, ‘Baby, Oh, Baby’ or whatever, which is great and don’t get me wrong I love those songs, but [I love] the idea that you can educate and ideally not in a preachy way, that you could kind of use your medium to spread the word and inspire people to do the same. It used to be that the pen is mightier than the sword and now it’s sort of like the computer keyboard is mightier than the pen.”

With a third seven-inch due to be released around October and finally talk of a second album, Desaparecidos will finally make their maiden trip to Australian shores in November for Harvest Festival. Dalley says he’s keen to see the band keep the fine form they’ve had since jumping back on stage again.

“So far every show we’ve played since we came back has been so incredibly fun. I think that the ten years that’s gone by that’s allowed this album to kind of get out there and be downloaded and passed around has built up a lot of excitement so the crowd has really been getting into it and we feed off that and it kind of goes back and forth and it’s just a really amazing chaotic live show. There are a lot of points where the crowd’s singing louder than we are. It’s so inspiring. It’s truly an honour. I couldn’t be more excited to be coming to Australia.”

Check out Desaparecidos touring with Harvest Festival throughout November and keep an eye out for more details on the band’s sideshows.