DIIV

DIIV is the ongoing project of Zachary Cole Smith, who is already established in the New York music scene through his work with Beach Fossils, Darwin Deez and Soft Black. Smith forms the group in Brooklyn in 2011, first as a solo project, and then expands it into a live band with Devin Ruben Perez, his childhood friend Andrew Bailey, and Colby Hewitt, formerly the drummer in Smith Westerns.

Early releases and debut album

The band first releases the single Sometime as a 7-inch on Captured Tracks in 2011. Its debut album, Oshin, follows in 2012.

Line-up changes and later albums

Colby Hewitt leaves the band in 2015 because of his drug addiction, and Ben Newman, formerly of Banda Suki and from North Carolina, joins as drummer the same year. DIIV’s second album, Is the Is Are, is released in 2016 and reaches number 81 on the US Billboard 200. The release is followed by an Australia tour in February as part of St Jerome’s Laneway Festival. The band later cancels the remainder of its European tour because of an urgent health issue.

Deceiver and Frog in Boiling Water

In 2019, DIIV releases its first single in more than three years, Skin Game, and announces the album Deceiver, followed by the singles Taker and Blankenship. Devin Ruben Perez has left the band by the end of 2017. In 2024, the group announces Frog in Boiling Water for Fantasy Records, with Brown Paper Bag as its lead single. The title is taken from Daniel Quinn’s metaphor in The Story of B and refers to the slow collapse of society under end-stage capitalism. The band describes the album as a set of snapshots of modern life and what that collapse feels like.

Style

DIIV is associated with shoegaze, dream pop, lo-fi, psychedelic and surf rock.