Ok, first off- just for curious reasons-about how long have you been growing your beard? Since October or so. Over a year now, but i’ve had a beard in some variation or the other. Well you know, for the last 5 years or so. its been a constant in my life. Its been strange to watch the beard, I mean when I first moved to eattle, it was a very disturbing aesthetic to some people. And within the last year or so, people have been really into them. Its been strange to watch the tides turn so drastically.

Your national tour just kicked off just a few days ago in Boise, Idaho, how was the first show? I enjoyed the first show. We left town hours after the responsible leaving time so we kinda ended up just getting there, setting up, sound checking in front of the audience and i just played but it was fun, nothing too noteworthy happened. 

How do you prepare yourself emotionally, mentally, and physically for a national tour? Uh, I do not. I don’t prepare in any of those ways. I prefer to run pretty ragged. I think that you get better performances. You’re better able to submerge yourself in the experience if you don’t. I think that preparation just makes people boring-its very contrary to the whole point of rock and roll. Cause you know, i am so rock n roll.

 Name 3 things you must take with you on tour that you can’t live without. I just got new shocks in my van to prepare, but yeah, i dont know, i just like to put myself in the hands of the universe.

What makes performing with Fleet Foxes and by yourself different from one another? Well when I’m on tour with the Fleet Foxes, I’m typically playing Fleet Foxes songs and playing drums and touring with the members of the Fleet Foxes. I mean the only differences are really the obvious ones so I won’t go and talk too much enough to bore you.

So your sixth album,”Year in the Kingdom” was released not too long ago. How do you think you’ve grown as a musician since your first record, “I Will Return?” Well, I don’t know. I think that if you listen to those records and could hear a difference or a progression, then you might understand me when i’ve talked about how they’ve progressed. But if you listened to them & they all sound the same to you, then nothing i could say to you can convince you that there was any progression so i think thats its really kind of up to the listener. I mean the differences to me are, well i wouldn’t really know how to tell you unless I knew that someone had listened to the record and they probably have no idea what I’m talking about. I think that some of the themes have a common thread and like i told you some of my worldview have changed. I think the next record is really going to be the most obvious-like changed . Like change and world and world peace I’m (fake sigh & jokes around) just you know i’m  sooo boring. And so there ya go.

Spin magazine described it as “a lone wanderer battling solitude with sound.” After listening to “Year in the Kingdom” Do you agree? [Laughs] Yeah, I mean I don’t think of myself that way when I’m like taking the recycling out or whatever or thinking of myself as a lone wonderer (starts laughing) battling solitude with sound. So no, that may be like a way to perceive. Cause when you take records out, you just kinda presenting a fairly like, pre-mediated version of yourself and thats a very isolated presentation that only takes certain factors into account. I’m very honest, what i do means a lot to me & I only do it cause I’m interested in  bringing some honest assessment of my experience but at the same time but if I actually went out around the way my records were described by music magazines then I’d be an asshole.

 So most say that the sound of your music and tone of your voice, resembles that of Nick Drake-most specifically “Pink Moon”. How much has Nick Drake influenced you as a musician? And are there any others who have had great influence on you and your music? Well, he really influenced me. I think that, occasionally you just hear, when your in your formative years, you hear artists like nick drake where they kinda reinforce your own kind of sensibility and there are certain things and when I first started playing music, it was you know, my music and when you’re young you just kind wonder like, “can this be a real thing? Like, does this make any sense? Does the approach make any sense?” And then you hear certain records, the ones that kinda validate in someway what you’re doing musically and you think “ok, there are people that have gone before me that have pulled this off and maybe i can pull it off too.” And you know, in some level, you can think about it in that way but mostly his music just really moved me but i don’t play guitar like that and i wasn’t really interested in learning to play guitar like that. Its interesting that people compare me to him cause his approach on the guitar is like worlds away from what I do which is more of a weird, rhythmic, minimal sort of mixing style. But i guess there are some like similarities when you boil it all down.

You obviously are a talented songwriter. How do you come up with ideas for songs? And what’s the writing process like? My writing process is more like using a ouija board or something. I just put my hands on the guitar and wait for like a trance, wait for it to come to me. But, creation, I kinda adhere to a slightly, I’m really interested in Kabalah and cults and beliefs that words have meaning beyond just, like creation will just come out of one word that for whatever reason will have power or significance in that moment. I started writing in the fall of that year and the record was done by that year. Originality is important to me in some level but its not my guiding principle, I’m definitely part of…my music only exists cause of music. I don’t have allusions of being original and the music that truly is original, no one really likes it cause they don’t understand it. 

If you could collaborate with any artist, dead or alive, who would it be? Hmm, i would say…I really loved Ray Davies from the Kinks. I would love to just play drums or bongos or anything with that guy.

I would personally choose Charles Manson. He is so good. [Laughs] me and charles manson dueting, i think that would be absolutely terrifying for me and everyone involved. Yeah he’s really good despite the whole homicidal situation (continues laughing).

Name one thing people wouldn’t expect to learn about you? Umm, lets see.. I don’t know (asks his friends in the background) Well sometimes i yell at audiences. I don’t think people expect me to be so repulsed.

What are some of your guilty pleasures? I’m not good at the guilty pleasure questions. Cause I don’t enjoy anything, especially things that are shitty.

Are you more of a lover or a fighter? I think that part of being a fighter is loving things very passionately so i think that i’m both.

What’s one thing you are known to constantly wear? I don’t wear plaid or flannel anymore. I stopped that years ago cause I started to feel like a cartoon character haha. In photo shoots, I like to wear one really really ugly piece of clothing and i actually got hate mail from a few British music magazines for my poor horrible stylistic choices  in certain photo shoots. Yeah like i wore (green) Crocs for this one photoshoot. They pretty much hate them everywhere [but] they’re very comfortable.

 If you could have any superpower, what would it be? And what would your superhero name be? I would be “The Grump” & my superpower would be ruining anyone’s good time.

Any last words you’d like to make across to your listeners? Keep dancing. 

Interviewed by Stephanie Hernandez, featured in Issue No.6 

(Source: titlemagazine.net)

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