For 14 years, the band Deerhoof has been making amazing pop music with just enough of a quirk to keep it under the radar, a precious secret of a rabid few even though their combination of memorable live performances and unforgettable recorded tracks could appeal to so many more. According to drummer/keyboardist Greg Saunier, they’ve visited El Paso once before, albeit long ago, for a pretty memorable show. Eight full-length albums and innumerable EPs later, Deerhoof are coming back to demonstrate why they’re still going strong and have fans around the world including big name musical peers like The Flaming Lips, Radiohead, The Roots and TV on the Radio. They perform at 8:00 pm tonight at Club 101; tickets are $12 at the door and opening bands include Experimental Dental School at KIT. Here, Saunier discusses how the band has accomplished all this yet stayed true to their unique sound and style.

Although Deerhoof has been around for quite a while building up a solid core fan base, the band's remained pretty much under the wire. Do you prefer that state to one of massive pop culture recognition?

I don't have anything to compare it to but I can say it's been incredible to be in Deerhoof. It might seem to some people like we are underground but for me our success has far surpassed any of my expectations. I don't know wide our recognition needs to be before it gets considered "massive" by the press but to me it feels huge.

How do you and your bandmates work—both collectively and individually—to keep Deerhoof's sound evolving?

I don't actually think it evolves. It's more like we just start over from scratch with every record, really with every song. Everyone in the band writes songs on their own and with four totally different backgrounds to work with, variety is not our problem. Making it all fit together is the bigger challenge sometimes.

Have so many years of consistent performing taught you how to translate the sound of your albums into live shows? Sometimes your performances are much more kinetic than one would expect given the albums, while other times a track that's very bombastic on the record comes off pretty stripped down on stage…

We've never really been the kind of band to try and make our concert sound like the records. Touring a bit with The Flaming Lips was an amazing experience because they are just obsessive about it. But for us the songs are pretty simple and loose. We play them differently from show to show. And a lot of times the songs are basically rewritten for the stage. We have often felt more like a Deerhoof cover band when we go on tour. With our latest record "Offend Maggie" we tried for the first time to really make a record that would sound the same when we played the songs on stage. I think some of the songs on there came pretty close. Whoever comes to the show in El Paso can be the judge!

Despite all the time that's passed and different phases of your music, what would you say is the common thread of Deerhoof's sound and style?

Sometimes I'll go back and listen to something we recorded in the past and I will start to hear some kind of thread like you say. If it is there, it's probably an accident more than anything. We have the greatest fans a band could ever ask for because they don't demand any particular musical style or sound from us. We have always changed what we do and they seem to revel in the surprises.

Do you like performing more for fans who know you and your music or those who've never been exposed to your sound before?

I really like both to be honest. It's a big challenge in either case. When we've opened for Radiohead or The Roots or Wilco, it was all about making a good first impression on people who came to see bands that sound very different from us. But playing your own fans is daunting too, because they have high expectations and they can tell when you screw up. And we feel like we can never phone it in with them, they want to see a lot of energy and hear a lot of on-the-spot improvisation. But at the same time they are so supportive, and the smiles and singing and cheering make everything click. The audiences we've been playing to on this tour have been the most enthusiastic we've ever seen. I guess I'd have to give the edge to performing for our fans!

Have you ever played in El Paso before? If not, what are you expecting? If so, what was that previous experience like?

We played El Paso once, about nine years ago, back when I was doing Deerhoof's booking. I was very on the ball, and months in advance I somehow got the telephone number for an El Paso promoter and she set something up. On the night of the show, driving into town, we were starting to get pretty nervous because we had never played El Paso before. When we found the venue it only got worse—there was no marquee, no poster, no flier anywhere that said anything about our show. We started to wonder if anyone in El Paso other than the woman behind the bar knew anything about it. We timidly introduced ourselves to the bartender, who not only had never heard of Deerhoof, not only didn't know there was a show that night, but also had never heard of the promoter that I had talked to on the phone. We tried not to let that get us down, and went to load in our equipment. We set it up. We waited. An hour after the show was supposed to have started the promoter still hadn't arrived and the only person there, the bartender, did not know how to turn the PA system on. So we packed up our equipment and put it back in the car. Just as we were about to leave, the promoter drove and said "What are you doing?" We loaded it all back in and she turned the PA on. By about halfway through the first song the promoter had left. By about 3/4 of the way into the first song, the bartender had walked over and turned the PA off, and that was our first only El Paso show up till now...