The Situation I’m spending an evening at Med Mix in the Central District with the Austin, Texas, pop duo Deep Time—guitarist/organist/vocalist Jennifer Moore, 28, and keyboardist/ drummer Adam Jones, 32—who are in Seattle for the weekend in the middle of a two-month tour. They’re both feeding on falafel and dolmas. Moore wears huge, thick-framed glasses and, when she’s not talking, sings along under her breath to the restaurant’s overhead music (Ace of Base’s “Don’t Turn Around,” Snap!’s “The Power”). When “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit’ It” comes on, she cracks a joke: “How do you find Will Smith in a snowstorm? Just follow the fresh prints.”
How They Got Here Deep Time tours in a Dodge van that Moore likens to “a big gray pig.” “When I see it coming or going, I want to slap it on its side, like ‘Good job,’ ” she says. “It’s been around the country so many times.” They stuff the van with their equipment, a little stove, crockery, and groceries (they like to cook their own meals as often as possible), but no entourage. Moore speculates on how they’d ask friends to come along for the ride: “You wanna sit in this thing that has no air conditioning and one functioning door and kind of ruins your hearing?”
Shop Talk The band has been together six years, but their most recent record, a buoyant self-titled full-length released earlier this month, is their first with Hardly Art and their first since changing their name from Yellow Fever. Moore says they’ve had an influx of new fans at their shows since Deep Time came out: “I see new young’uns, and they’re cute, because they pump their fists or dance or, you know, purposely run into their friends while they listen to the music. They’re like puppies.”
Likely part of what gets them amped is seeing Jones simultaneously play drums and keyboard, something he says he started doing out of necessity a couple years ago when they lost a band member. “We just had all these songs written for three people, and we didn’t want to lose all that,” he says.
“I feel like I’m a better musician from playing with him,” says Moore. “How can you not improve when he’s doing that?”
BTW: Moore and Jones’ friendship is going on eight years; they live across the street from each other, and their closeness shows: Moore, the best man at Jones’ wedding, has a curly flop of hair that looks a lot like Jones’. “It’s like if we were both best friends in second grade and we both rode horses and we both had a Topsy Tail in our hair,” she explains. “We just enjoy the same things. And maybe part of that is our hair being like this.”
“We both have a very high tolerance for discomfort,” adds Jones. “Which is good in a bandmate.”
Moore finishes: “Because if he liked five-star hotels and I liked eating dumpster tacos in the gutter and then falling asleep next to them, we’d have a problem!”
They both laugh riotously. “It’d be hard!” says Jones.
