No stranger to rebuilding after disaster, the US band\u2019s frontman Zachary Cole Smith now sees the entire capitalist project as ripe for reinvention, on a surprisingly upbeat new AG Cook-produced album<\/p>\n
Zachary Cole Smith used to be a miserable interviewee. He had plenty to say \u2013 always generous, always voluble \u2013 but spoke with grim introspection, chastising himself and cataloguing his misdeeds with a fervour that engulfed him like his oversized T-shirts. A decade later, the Diiv frontman who materialises on my screen seems well rid of that old self. Suspiciously well rid of it, perhaps. He looks as if he has stepped out of a middle management meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrecisely!\u201d Smith concurs cheerfully, speaking via video call from a back garden in La Ca\u00f1ada, California. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to have a visual language, which is fun. We\u2019ve never done that with what we wear.\u201d The singer-guitarist, 41, wears thick-rimmed square glasses, slicked-back black hair and a pinstripe shirt, its neck clasped by a tie printed with stock market emblems. He has an earnest but pranksterish energy. He uses the word \u201cfun\u201d so many times \u2013 more than a dozen within 10 minutes \u2013 that I suspect he is testing some sort of subliminal PR strategy.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/2e5bc4ec334a008e3b8244887822305376482868\/0_1013_2640_2112\/master\/2640.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=47464123b21e13082a67c1155366d589\" "\\"\u2018There")
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