Robin Pecknold Quotes

I don't really hang out with anyone. I'll hang out with my band ... but I don't have any friends aside from that.

I was raised up believing I was somehow unique.

The notes sound like they're coming from inside your mind... It was the closest thing to a psychedelic experience I've ever had.

I'm looking forward to doing things more intuitively in the future, just going with whatever happens and not immediately categorizing it as potentially good or bad or original or whatever.

At the end of the day, for people in this position, you just need to make something that feels like you're expressing yourself honestly, something that you'd want to listen to. The rest of the aesthetic is kind of bullshit, and I don't mean that in a negative way - just that it's a choice.

Speaking for myself I have influenced with lots of John Coltrane, Van Morrison, Joanna Newsom, Mississippi Records compilations, Simon & Garfunkel, Duncan Browne, Judee Sill, Sublime Frequencies releases, Ali Farka Touré, John Fahey, Flower Travellin' Band, Sagittarius, Toumani Diabaté, Philip Glass, lots of different stuff.

The lyrics to me are a result of the emotional and creative climate present while making the record as well as personally going through a sort of mid-twenties stock-taking.

I think that's becoming more and more of a priority, letting other aspects of life take precedent over making music, or just approaching the whole thing more holistically.

Every time you pick up an instrument, it's not always out of necessity - for a certain kind of person, it's a choice.

You want to think about certain styles of music as being reflective of a certain culture or a certain time or a point of view. You don't want it to be just an intellectual exercise.

I don't know that we're really going to need a label for the things we're thinking about doing next.

The touring thing is such a huge time commitment. I'm really feeling like I want to start writing and recording music again. But I have to leave for tour tomorrow. That's kind of frustrating; at the end of the day, you're plugging into this lifestyle. It's the "band lifestyle," and that's weird! I would like for touring to be creative in its own right.

You want to make music that reflects your ideals, but considering the isolating process of recording and the time and energy requirements of touring, there aren't a lot of opportunities to express those ideals anywhere but the music itself.

I like having the vinyl, but it's not like we're going to sell an umbrella or something. I don't like the idea of selling something that's not music - I mean, I like going to shows and buying the shirt, but beyond that, I don't know. There's a lot of crap in the world.

Sometimes I do get writer's block but it's more of a writer's doubt - I'll try and write but nothing goes anywhere because I start thinking everything sucks.

A label is like a bank with all these really important relationships, and maybe an aesthetic or a point of view. But if you only want to release two songs, you don't need the guy who can talk to all the retailers, because they're not going to stock two songs.

I love Seattle, but I am definitely excited to be in a new place. Growing up there and then living in an apartment in the city for seven years, I just felt stagnant.

As far as the music being inspired by Seattle, I think it's in some of the songs. Seattle is a really beautiful place in the right light, it's perched on a pretty unique geographic setting.

I write all the time but often abandon things I don't think will go anywhere. It's rare that I'll labor over writing something that doesn't feel like it will turn into a keeper.

They even let me do the ads for the album. I definitely want it all to be presented right, but I don't want to be selling. I mean, people do deluxe editions, and I don't even really know how I feel about those yet.

There are personal topics on the record that have nothing to do with creativity but were maybe amplified by the demands of the band. I can't say that none of these things would be present without creativity as a catalyst, but it was definitely on my mind a lot while writing.

Our day-to-day lives recording and touring aren't that different from those of Metallica, even though the perceived worldview is totally different. So that can be a difficult thing to reconcile sometimes.

Our vocal harmonies started to feel like a cop-out: all group-singing, all the time.

We're going out to play all the places where people might want to see us, because next time we might not just think about hitting every market or how we can make the most money.

We definitely classify things in order to get closer to what we believe in - so it serves a purpose to really think about one style of music, and to understand the shades of delineation between similar artists. But yeah, it's really nice to listen to something the way most people listen to music! Just to enjoy it, without having to put it in context.

I've been listening to a lot of John Coltrane. I don't know if that would or wouldn't surprise anybody. I go through different phases - sometimes I want to listen to music that's just pummeling.

I was listening to this Ngozi Family record, 45,000 Volts, and it's mostly this guy singing, and then for the choruses, he's doubled. And it's not even harmonized, it's all the same note! And I'm like, "Oh, that sounds epic." I don't know, it's just one of those arbitrary taste things.

We're covering all our bases so we can do whatever we want next time. That's how we're looking at it, rather than this just being an endless number of album/tour cycles.

I only write maybe one or two songs every couple of years that I think are good enough to play alone without other stuff happening.

The only thing I think about is doing something where I'm the only person making all the decisions - I think that would be fun to do, just to get it out of my system. And honestly, I kind of got it out of my system when I recorded three songs and put them online. That was enough of a solo experience for me; it scratched that itch.

I do read the records reviews but more out of curiosity than anything else, I feel like we know what we want to do next time regardless of how this one is received, good or bad, so it won't really make much of a difference, which wasn't the case on the first album, where both the positive and negative criticism or reactions did catch us off guard and inevitably colored the creation of this one.

The simpler songs are just done when the lyric has been stated; the more complex or band-oriented stuff can go in a million directions.

Being in Portland is cool. I have some good friends here and the general feeling might be a little more welcoming.

I've thought about doing a subscription service, where people pre-pay and then we send them 12"s as they're finished, with one song on each side. That would be really fun. But we'll need a significant time off from touring to be able to fulfill that.

Fleet Foxes will never, ever, under no circumstances, from now until the world chokes on gas fumes, sign to a major label. This includes all subsidiaries or permutations thereunder. Till we die.