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It was in those aimless drives that lyrics for the instrumentals took shape.
May the last long year be forgiven, Pecknold sings in Featherweight, all that war left within it.
The bustling Can I Believe You?
AccompanyingShoreis an hour-long nature documentary shot by Pecknolds friend Kersti Jan Werdal around Seattle and Washington State.
Together, he hopes the film and album will provide comfort to anyone understandably having a rough year.
Youve just dropped a new album on extremely short notice.
Youve never done that before.
In July, I was like, I know I can get this done.
I felt like November is a question mark.
2021 is a question mark.
Talk about the significance of the autumn equinox.
Therell be a quarter moon rising on the 23rd.
Those were weird cosmic coincidences that made it feel almost inevitable, like it had to be that day.
Sometimes you get a notion like that, and if you stick with it, itll pay off.
Doing the opposite of that became this fun challenge.
IfCrack-Upis long songs that have these jagged transitions, this would be shorter songs with really smooth ones.
The next one will be its own world.
With this one, I wrote all the songs and the lyrics and recorded all the vocals.
Thats always been the case in Fleet Foxes.
I feel like theres a natural progression.
It hasnt been … And now, heres the house remix.
Or the country album.
I love the idea of being tasked to write something for someone in a certain style.
I would love to try more stuff like that in the future.
On the song Crading Mother, Cradling Woman, you sample the Beach Boys.
This is definitely the most studio rat, Brian Wilson-y, overdub-y of any of our records.
That approach is what made me want to get into the music in general.
It had this egalitarian wonder that was super inspiring to me as a teenager.
I rememberIn UteroandUnplugged in New Yorkcoming out, which I loved.
I remember him dying and hearing about it on the radio.
But [Kurt] was the most melodic songwriter.
His chord ideas were always super interesting.
Theyre as complex and as engaging as anything regardless of how quiet or not the arrangements are.
It was like, Heres the next Beatles, and theyre from Seattle.
Who are your other Seattle music heroes?Calvin Johnson and Phil Elverum and K Records stuff.
Everything I did or wanted to do had to be judged by that.
That was the canon.
You worked onShorefor two years.
I would love to still be tweaking this stuff.
Sunblind is a great addition to the pantheon of songs about listening to other songs.
It was such a joy to be back to work after three months of lockdown.
I was meeting new people, and ideas were flowing.
It could be positive.
I feel excited to be a sponge again.
That changed in the last couple months.
Theres a kind of nature documentary attached to the album that hits at the same time.
So I was like Hey, heres a free hour of therapy or something.
If you like it, enjoy it.
I hope you enjoy it.
Do you feel the need to make your art conversant to the times its being released into?Yeah.
There are songs about missing my friends and missing the dead.
I dont feel that way anymore, and that made its way into the lyrics.
All the lyrics grew out of realizations or observations about this thing were all going through together.
Theres no song thatsaboutlockdown, but all of the ideas are completely related to this year.
I still want to improve and get better at things.
But you could confuse complexity with improvement sometimes.
I have done that, where as long as a song has 400 instruments, then its an improvement.
Thats the trajectory of a lot of great bands.
Its how Steely Dan gets toAjaand Yes starts making pop music in the 80s.
I was thinking of [Neutral Milk Hotels]In the Aeroplane Over the Seathe other day.
Its not necessarily interesting chord-wise or structurally, but the melodies are so incredible that it doesnt matter.
Only one person could have done that.
I loved growing up in the Northwest, but I love the city as well.
I need some form of stimulation.
I have trouble after two weeks anywhere.
I get a little bored.
As far as making music that has a pastoral quality, something about that feels timeless to me.
Judee Sill and Joanna Newsoms music has this sylvan quality.
Pastoral music doesnt feel as tied to time.
For me, Fleet Foxes has always been this transportive experience.
The world around me dissolves when I settle into a record.
Is that by design?For sure.
Thats a world to escape into.
Ive always loved music as this escapist thing.
Thats an important function that it serves.
My friend Kersti Jan Werdal is a filmmaker who recently graduated from CalArts.
Weve known each other for a long time.
She told me shed be going back to Seattle to see her family for the month of August.
I asked if she could shoot some footage for the album along the way.
You stayed in New York City in the spring, right?
That was the most intense few weeks that Ive ever experienced.
Ill never forget being in an empty Manhattan, empty of cars, parked or on the street.
All you heard was constant ambulance sirens.
I wanted to stick around.
It was really intense, and it would pass through here the fastest.
Population density is high here.
Potentially, it could get back to normal here sooner than it did in other places.
I wanted to stay put, and I had this half-finished album.
I havent really fully processed the intense shock of those early weeks.
Im glad it was and is happening.
Another wild part of being in Manhattan for all this was having that right outside your door.
How are you doing on that front?The album has been a wonderful distraction for me.
I was definitely struggling before that.
Once its out, therell be a bit of whiplash and a processing of some stuff.
Its just been one thing after another.
Ive been lucky to have this album distracting me for the last couple months.
Im probably in a bad place, but I dont know it quite yet.
Theres no time to figure out what kind of a place were in.
I wanted it to have songs about people I loved and people I was a fan of.
I guess its a way of literalizing the act of what happens when youre making music.
Thats what youre doing when youre making an album or writing songs, at least in my experience.
How someone lives on through their music, and how their lessons carry though, is super inspiring.
We were in Seattle doing what sounded fun, in a slightly transgressive context.
That felt funny and fun and the tiniest bit punk in the context we were coming from.
Everything that happened after that, the folk boom thing.
I was having to reckon with what to do about that.
It might be the only way the future turned out how we imagined.I agree.
Like, the Taylor Swift album Aaron Dessner produced.
Genres are completely collapsing, andfolkloreis a special expression of that to me.
The music has this placeless quality but then its also very identifiable.
Her voice and her songwriting are distinctive.
Someone like Post Malone is super post-genre.
Im a big fan of his.
Im not super involved in it, but I think its cool if its done right.
But then youll hear, like, a rock band using trap beats, and it sounds corny.
It just has to be done right, I guess.
Im stoked to have some time to experiment.
I needed to have that vinyl odyssey and thatPet Soundskind of thing.
Theres a song onShorecalled Young Mans Game where you sing about getting older and finding peace in your limitations.
I spent seven or eight years on tour.
I dont own a house.
Im definitely ready to get a dog and to find a new way to think about aging into music.
I think its an older millennial feeling, this agelessness.
Were trapped between generations.
Were kinda staying that age in some ways.
Its an interesting time for sure.
