Dan Deacon is the demented young wizard behind last year’s freak-out electronica record “Spiderman of the Rings.” “Ultimate Reality,” his new DVD with video artist Jimmy Joe Roche, is a ham-fisted psychedelic feast of manipulated images from the Governator’s old flicks. Roche and Deacon, college roommates from the Conservatory of Music at Purchase, N.Y., operate in an artist’s collective called Wham City, which consists of fellow grads and new friends from Baltimore, their adopted city.

Deacon unleashed his maximalist onslaught Tuesday at the El Rey (read the review). I chatted with Deacon and Roche on the phone last week while they were driving somewhere outside Austin, Texas:

How’d you end up in Baltimore?

None of us [from Wham City] wanted to move to New York. It’s super-expensive and we wanted to stay on the East Coast. A friend who was living in Baltimore told us it was cheap and that the art and music scenes were pretty wide open. We went down there not knowing what to expect. We barely knew anyone — we had no jobs, no cellphones. We lived very much in isolation. There was a period of tears and smashing things and figuring out where we stood in the world but the social detox paid off. For the most part, the scene here is great.

You use lots of humorous squeaks and samples in your music. What’s the appeal of having those funny sounds embedded in these gorgeous contexts?

I really think those dog-barking sounds are just as beautiful as the glockenspiel. These everyday sounds are lumped into the realm of the silly instead of using them as real elements. So much of experimental music is pretentious and esoteric. I’m striving to create experimental, sophisticated, complex music that’s easy to listen to, that won’t push anyone away, no matter what their level of musical education.

What inspires you?

My personal aesthetic comes from Wham City. We push everyone to work as much as possible; we’re competitive but not in a negative sense. But my personal and musical aesthetic initially came in part from cartoons like “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” “He-Man” and especially “Looney Tunes.” That set the tone that things can be weird: the rapid-fire series of events, every instant utilized for set-up, every character a huge exaggeration, every action hugely blown out of proportion and then the constant scoring. When you’re young and you have no idea about all the cultural references, it makes it even more absurd. That went on to influence the way I think about music. I try to fill up every inch as much as possible, while still showing restraint.

Question for Jimmy: Why did you want to use Arnold Schwarzenegger films like “Terminator” and “Kindergarten Cop”? Me and Dan are both 26 — we grew up with Schwarzenegger throughout our whole lives. We’ve been thinking about Indian ragas and mythology. Schwarzenegger’s mythology is woven into all of his films. And now he’s a governor, a political figure. His films are massive and, in general, films are getting bigger and bigger — more explosions, more CGI. Films are a giant American industry — it’s our major cultural product. Schwarzenegger is in the middle of all that. But by reprocessing his films, making them into DIY, maybe spiritual and psychedelic experiences, we create a new, active relationship with him.

–Margaret Wappler

[Photo: Dan Deacon surrounded at the El Rey. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times]