Bon Iver's Past and Present

00:00:08 Speaker 1: Pushkin. Bonivere started in two thousand and six as a solo project for Justin Vernon after the breakup of his college band. He recorded his first album in his dad's hunting cabin deep in the woods of Wisconsin, just him, an acoustic guitar, a lot of fresh venison, and DVDs of northern exposure. That debut got so big that within a few years of its release, bony Vera was collaborating with people like Beck and Kanye West, which may help explain the shift in musical direction Bonievere's music has taken. His Palliative Sounds has expanded a lot across four albums, and Bonivere is no longer just a solo project either. It's still centered around Justin, but it includes a whole bunch of collaborators from Wisconsin, where Justin still lives, and it's building his own Shangraloss style recording studio. Surprisingly, Justin and Rick Rubin had never met until they recorded this podcast. Despite their close working relationship with Kanye, there's a chance for them to get to know one another, discuss Justin's career, and shout about one of Justin's all time favorite groups, The Indigo girls. This is Broken Record Season three. Liner notes for the Digital Age. I'm justin Richmond. Just a quick note here. You can listen to all of the music mentioned in this episode on our playlist, which you can find a link to in the show notes. For licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect all right. Enjoy the episode. Here's justin Vernon and its producer Chris Messina and conversation with Rick Rubin that I've right into the kind of talk producer's love by building a live work studio space far away from the noisy world. Tell me about your place. I've heard great things about it. Well, me and Chris have been working on it for many years. It's under construction right now because we kind of we hit a point where we needed to to spread out a little bit. Tell me the whole story of how it How did it come to pass? The house I grew up in, it's only three miles from there, and it's uh my brother found it and it's on tap ten acres, you know, super cheap and old. It was an old like seventies ranch house and that indoor pool and they had a Yeah, awesome. Yeah, we end up making that our makeship live room for many years, but it's not ten acres in the woods and it's like my ship, you know, incredible. Yeah, and so but we sort of did it d I Y for a while, and then I found Chris and took him off of a production touring thing and and got him out there to just basically make it proper, you know. And so we've been kind of out of the d I Y zone and more and like a trying to make a proper tracking space for about eight seven years. Now you've been out there, I guess, Chris, how how would you say it changed from it's d I Y incarnation to the current one. I feel like more less stuff falls off the walls now maybe or's something. Yeah, I'm not the one putting stuff on the walls that. Yeah, I feel like that we did like a lot of teear tottering kind of before I got there, and then even still after I did just baby steps when we really just needed to do one kind of big move. Yeah. But I think it's just been getting the recording spaces, you know, more attractive sounding, and then also improving all of the wellness spaces and just the vibe of the place, because that's you know, made a pretty good record with just a pretty cruddy studio. Yeah, and then it's because the vibe is there, you know, which obviously you understand pretty well. Absolutely, And when I just lived there too, like I lived there for many years until I live in the guesthouse up back, which is cool, but I'm gonna build a house next door actually, just but just being in the studio and it not being set up for really being having like a home home base or a really I don't know, any a wellness vibe. It was just recording making music, you know. Yeah. So we went through like the different iterations too, of like not knowing if we wanted to be a commercial space or if we were going to be a private space or just justin or what the deal was going to be, And so we went through all those different versions. We had to do that to learn what we didn't like basically, and it's really just better off to be kind of a friends and family zone and us it's it's the best version of it. Absolutely. Yeah, that's that's pretty much how we do it too. It's yea. And originally I didn't I didn't think anybody else would work here but us. But then I was away and friend asked, oh, you think we could work here. It's like, that'd be cool. And so now I like the idea because if because I've worked so much over the course of my life, that it's like a way to trick myself into not being a workaholic. There you go, that's that. We're just talking about that in the way out here. It's like, man, it's like I love music so much and I could do it every single day. Yeah, but it's not a comfortable feeling when you're like, is this all I am? Yeah, then you can get caught up in it. For it's easy too when you love something so much. But and I don't know if work with a capital W is really the name of the thing that we do because we love it so much. But it's at the end of the day, it is what you're spending time doing, right, absolutely, absolutely, And and for most of my life it was in you know, dark rooms with no window, dark little dirty rooms, So most of my life was just like in really unpleasant places. Yes, it doesn't encourage you to be a healthy person all the time either, And I think so much of the inspiration of the work we do comes from not just doing the work. The fuel that drives the process comes from life outside of the studio. Yes, exactly, it's exactly. The fuel has been my metaphor lately. It's like gas and the tank, healthy engines. You know, everything's running on, you know, and music is beautiful enough to be inspired by only music. But then that isn't it. That's not a closet, right, so you gotta go out and go to Grandma's house or whatever it is. Do you call it a band? Yeah, idea project band. I don't know what it is. Was it a clear like, tell me from the beginning? How did it start? That's actually an easier way to answer it. It's like I was in a band with with some of my closest friends and people that grew up learning how to play music around, and we sort of had that mid twenties sort of breakup winner separate ways, and I was kind of considering not trying to make a career in music and maybe go back to school and all this stuff. But in that very moment is when I sort of started making the first songs for what would become Bonevair, And I remember not having a name until I finished finished the album and I was watching Northern Exposure, that show from the early nineties, and there's this episode where the first snow falls in this little Alaskan town and everyone goes out and greets each other like Boneva Believer, and I thought, well, that's a good thing, because that's kind of what that's I've always been inspired by where I'm from and all that it lacks, you know, everything that it lacks, it doesn't have that the other big cities in the world have. There's something I've always enjoyed about and keyed in about what it's like to be from where I'm from, and how tough the winter makes you and and how really nobody has the time and energy to prove anything to anyone else or something which can be very beneficial and have its drawbacks as well. But that's that's where it came from. So I thought, this, this Bonavierre thing, it's almost feels like a community, a town. Even though it started with just me. I had this idea that it's like it's gonna be a town or a little town, or a growing thing or a greeting or something. And and of course at the end of the day. It's a band, it's an artist, it's a thing, and so I try not to be too precious about it. But that's how I still believe in it. And you know, eleven twelve years later, now I guess it is it. It really has blossomed into a real breathing community with love and support and all everything beautiful. Yeah, did you make the first album by yourself? Yeah? Tell me tell me the story. Yeah, So I was. I was living in North Carolina, and I'd started some of these things, and as the band kind of broke up, I I sort of kind of high tailed it back to Wisconsin. I really lived in Wisconsin my whole life, minus that year and whatever amount of time I've been on the road. But at that point, I'd never been on the road really before. I'd never really had any paying music work other than weekend bar gigs and guitar teaching. So I brought I brought my little Digio one pro tools rig and my MACG four up to my dad's hunting cabin kind of an hour north of where where we grew up, and he just kind of let me go in there, and I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. If I'd go back to school to be a music teacher, I'd have to wait to the fall, and this was right in the winter, and so he just let me set up there. And I just had my little set up in a couple of guitars, and and I'd done some engineering and some making some records before, but I had kind of just lost some of the gear and so it was a very very meager setup, which ended up being a really great thing. And so over the over kind of a three month period, just kind of being there by myself, unless my dad would stop by over the weekend to work on a sawmill or something like. I was just there letting myself be bored, allowing myself to do to have a day where nothing happened for the first time in my life, and not have any guilt about it. It was just the first time I really truly was on my own, beautiful. Do you think of it as an enjoyable time? Yes, I mean there were there was boredom. There was like sort of just sitting there, maybe an unhealthy amount of alone time or something like that, But I do I look back at it as a very very positive experience to let go of a lot of things too. I was making it for myself. I had kind of given up on the idea of chasing anymore. And of course once you're once you're done with chasing, you're arriving given up on that idea. What would what would your days be like? Like, what if you're alone for three months? Yeah, it was I'd wake up and probably crack three eggs and some veniceine, you know, because we'd do some hunting up there. But there's a little TV up there in a DVD player, so I'd watch a lot of the Northern Exposure and and strangely it's my favorite like thing, novel, book, show, whatever, whole time because it was just you know, so there might be a day where I only watch DVDs, you know, and you know, smoke a joint and drink six beers for no reason or something. But then then a day I would just wake up, go sit on the computer stool and just be there in it. You know, we're reworking and mixing and doing that thing on that album. Yeah, I wonder if I was thinking about growing up and the amount of boredom involved in uh, you know, get home from school and what are you supposed to do. Yeah, it's like what do you do? So I'm wondering if if putting yourself in that state somehow taps into something that a lot of people feel more often than they realize. It's just a real I mean, you did an extreme thing by by regular standards in our society, but it took you to a place that's probably not so different than growing up in the United States, but without having anybody like get outside, or you do this, or you do that. Yeah, my parents gave it. My dad and this kids gave me a very supportive experience, or supported experience, i should say. And it was it was that that boredom was like, huh, you spent a lot of time being busy and overworked, and I just I just recently had quit a job at a kitchen that had really created new anger and stress in my in my mind and body. You know, never have I had been that stressed or angry or overworked. And and so I think it was I just sort of looked at as like, well, I don't know what I'm doing, and I there was something going on with these songs where I was like, this is a new thing for me. Just just keep working. And I think just it was a correct, correct recipe to be in the right headspace to make the right kind of music. Did you do you toured the first album? Toured the first album pretty a lot, you know, that kind of smashed me up a bit, but not completely smashed me up. And so we were making the second record. By then, I was using a lot of musicians. You know, I grew up playing in the jazz bands and I had a nine piece band in high school to all my friends with horns and everything. So it was a natural inclination to want to be around more people. But what naturally happened as I started to share some of the load of the songwriting and but also very holding on really tight. And I think, and this isn't a negative thing, but I think in many ways, I've stepped farther and farther and farther back from the chief position of making the records. And it's funny, after after making this, these four records, I'm feeling like maybe I returned to just hanging out on my own for a for a year or something to get back to that place, because you know, I so often would grow up play guitar and write a song, sit and write write this song down it. It went from sort of that with the first record too, almost none of that with with where we're at now in the last you know, this this process this ten years, and so I saw a lot of a lot of the death of the ego in a good way and then also being lost because at times because I didn't have that connection to like what I knew was right when I was all by myself what I knew, what I didn't have to answer to or you know, like I didn't have Chris like man, that sucks or that's really great, either one or problematic answers for me sometimes when you're when you're drifted farther aback away from your your frontal igo. And so you know, I see that, I see that happening in the last ten years, that arc of sort of stepping back, getting the music bigger and experimenting more and more. I'm feeling, like, you know, I can't predict what the next year is going to be like, but I'm feeling like a little bit of a return to that interesting that that place that's coming up kind of is the hunting Lodge still there. It is better than ever. I get along with my dad, so well, but I don't think it's it would be the same situation. He's he's built a big barn, he's got a sawmill, and he's got like four hundred maple trees tapped up there, and so he's always got people around. And plus we've sort of we've sort of made April Base into into that zone, even though we're not quite I don't quite have my own room yet. We're working on that, but that's in the next year or so. We'll be right back. After the break. We're back with more from Bony Vair. There's a million things to ask you about the past, but for a moment, how how do songs typically start? Would you say your do you jam? There's some improvisation in you know, studio setting, like maybe not like instruments and stuff, but maybe some drum machines and just looking for odd recipes that could create something very surprising. It's probably our favorite thing to do, doing some just playing in general. I grew up writing a lot of songs and guitar and it sort of just stopped happening that way, and I've been playing a lot more guitar lately, and songs are trickling out, But there's still this thing I think is I've developed more as a singer than maybe I was before, or where I really started to hone in on the voice part of it, I think I became less. It became less important for me to write the song and be this songwriter person and more like how do we how do I get my voice on something that sounds interesting to my voice, if you will, And so a lot of we do a lot of improvisation or budding two things together, like have a saxophone go through a harmonizer while I'm playing it and singing it, or just looking for things to clash or to make something that sounded brand new so that it would be exciting to sing on. That's been the main process, you know. And every once in a while, maybe just a guitar riff would would PLoP in and create a song in and of itself. But I'd say that's been our biggest way of doing it, is just looking for moments that that seem magical. Yeah, and it sounds like mainly musical moments. So you'll be working on track ideas essentially with the idea does it start with that feeling of this is interesting, or does it start with this is interesting I have I can see what I would do on top both. I mean every every time is different. Every time it's different, and sometimes just something sounds good so you want to keep it around, but you're like, well, this isn't really going to be for this project, So we don't know what to do with those ones. Exactly. Like the two generally for us go go hand in hand. It's like when we hear something that we've somehow come up with that sounds really interesting, justin immediately wants to sing on it, and that's like, Okay, we're we're into something here. That's kind of the biggest giveaway that we're onto something. Yeah, I might like a lot of things. Again, if I don't have anything to sing on it, it's sort of like, well maybe we should give this to someone else. Yeah, And like and like whenever you try and get him to sing on something, it's like not a good not a good vibe. I mean, it's very, it comes very, it's it springs forth. Yeah. Absolutely, when it's there, it's there, and when it's not, it's really not. I think with the with the previous record twenty two million, we did a lot more jamming. I mean great. Granted it was over like a period of five years that we were writing that record or something, but there were some pretty extensive, long multi person jams that would happen that we got some stuff out of. But that was kind of a way where Justin I think was maybe struggling with with trying to get his songwriting going again. That was a way for us to do it. It was bringing a lot of people, make as much noise as we can for a long period of time and see what happens. See if there's any moments that pop three you can that you could then like hey what about that? Let's go focus right and then that little moment that happened, either use it directly usually that's what we do, Use that moment directly and shape around it and like you know. But this this album was definitely a lot more there's more playing. We entered with a lot more intention on a number of levels with this, this record, the newest record, and more of the touring band than ever before too, yep, which was a great, great addition. Yeah, But I think sonically we I think we've kind of quietly made an active choice to not mess with his voice as much as we had previously. We knew I think that we were going to focus on the lyric content more than we ever have. Not that we weren't saying something before or Justin wasn't saying something, is that we wanted it to be heard and we wanted it to be maybe clearer than it ever had been. And so I think with those may have been the two most like sort of unspoken decisions for this record, but we were all aligned on that and everything else just came so much easier. Yeah, it was so much more, I don't know, just free and easy. It was great. Nice. Yeah, maybe that'll be it's it sounds like that can be going forward. It sounds like there's that could be our job. Yeah. I think it was a huge realization with with this, with finishing this record as not as quickly but so much faster than the previous one. Yes, that we were just like, oh, this is what it can be all the time. Brad, Brad Cook and I talked about I mean all three of us did, but yeah, Brad and I talked about that a lot of just like this is what we can make it. Every time there was a breakthrough, Yeah, this is all we got to do. Every time, it's great. Did you record many more than the songs that are on the album or the songs on the album? Pretty much? It? That's pretty much it is? It usually that way? Yeah, I think we pretty pretty early on know whether something's going to get chased down further or not. So we still have like fragments that will probably revisit in a year or something. But I don't know. Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not I don't have this feeling like there's like great songs waiting for us. We sort of like worked on what we worked on. What was the thought on the title? By the way, man, it's it's it's really a lot about this whole self care and caring about your friend thing. It's to me, it's that's the thing that Bob Marley introduced me to when I was a kid. Is this I and I? It's I and I, it's we, you are me, I am you? Uh. This is all of us kind of thing together, this this sort of responsibility to one another, maybe responsibilities and even strong enough a word, it's like we are connected. It's not just like we choose to be or not when we hurt ourselves. I feel like it has a reaction to others, and so that that was my whole thing is just like Marley vibes Rastafarian vibes, like it's uh, we are responsible for one another. It is a line that no, no branches of a tree are so foolish that they would fight with another branch on the tree. Yeah, exactly exactly. So it started guitar and vocal, guitar, vocal and the ensemble all at once. And then when when did the lyrics come in the process of writing, Like, I think I had this guitar riff laying around for like years, and it was always just I thought that this was half a love. I thought that this was half a love. Uh, follow to the Raging Sea. That's all it ever was. And so Brad was just like, why don't you just consider that's a that's a song you can have. You can have a three two line song. So accepted that, and she's like, oh I love this, Okay, great, Yeah, yeah, that's kind of the story with that one. It's just like, sometimes it's enough just to have a small little idea absolutely, yeah, yeah, sometimes it's all it wants to be. Yeah, if you try to force it, you're what what are you doing cool? Pick another one? Or do you want to see the list? Oh? Sure, let me think here? Sure? Can you see it? I can't see it. It's probably pretty good. I don't know. Man man like you's pretty good? I like, man like here, let's try that one. The big story with this one is that Bruce Hornsby. It's Bruce Bruce's track Lately he just wrote. He just had He came up we were helping him with his record and he just had this piano figure. He had it on a burned CD. He brought over and was like, what is that play? Yeah? I was like, first of all, we have to buy a CD player now, But he just played a bunch of this kind of music that he'd been working on. I was like, what is that track doing? Because it was one of those moments where I was like I almost heard the entire melody, just like I went in there and just like it was just there. And had I not been a little more open and like not so like I better be the guy to write all these songs, I might not have had that feeling. But it felt so good just to jump on and it's just a mood that I couldn't have come up with It feels so fun to to sing on me and Brad did so much bass playing on the album. You know he's he's predominantly a bass player. I'm kind of a cute bass player, acute, acute and cute. But so we do a lot of playing bass in the album where I would play it and then he'd be like, I can do better, and then I can be like, oh, I liked what you did there, but I would kick your So we did a lot of that on the on the album. I don't know. I haven't heard these I haven't heard the jam since we actually have played all these shows. It's kind of interesting. How do they transform live? They have transformed a lot live. You know that our band is awesome. I just love playing with each other. They ultimately feel more alive. I mean liter literally living, and I love I like records that have scrapes, and you know they don't. I like records that sound very high fi as well. But with our records, I've sort of always tried to keep it a little dusty or a little got some knicks and knicks in there. How many people are in the band live now? It's six now, and we've we've waxed and weighed on that we've had. Last year, we had like five trombone dudes from Richmond, Virginia traveling with us. Uh, what do we call them? Bone trombone paradise. Trombone paradise, that's right. But now it's a lot of the same dudes that have been in there a really long time. And then we added this lady, Jen Wasner who has his band Why Oak, and she is a monster, having another high voice, a higher voice, and she's also a crushing profit player as guitar player and bass player as well. So it's been it's been really fun. And the songs they just they just live and breathe. You're playing him rather than like pressing play on him, you know what I mean. I think we're staying truer to the record with the most recent songs than we did with twenty two million. I mean those really we tried to those took on a whole new life live it's that are it's great. But I think with these, yeah, they they definitely even breathe, but we're we're staying closer to the record. It also makes sense that you said there's more playing on the record too, so it's makes sense to same people played it on the record and now I'm playing it live. It's makes sense. Yeah, absolutely, not interpolating. Yeah, the picking and choosing with only having six people is like, okay, well you we can't We're just physically can't play that part because we don't we don't have any tracks or anything like that. Yeah, So making those choices is always like Okay, what's the most essential moment or can you play this one moment on guitar, but then do the rest of it over here? You know, making those choices has been really fun, I think this time. Yeah, I don't know what else to play? What else is hard to play? Rick Rubin your record man. When we come back, justin Vernon talks to Rick about some of his favorite music. We're back with more from Bony Vair. What would you say is the most fun part of the entire process in this band or the project? What's your favorite part of it? It's a great question. Lately, it's been, if not all the whole time is when we have a piece of music that we can play, that that drifts, that is really alive, that we don't have to follow follow the grid, or we don't use to click tracks or tracks really, but especially you know, there's a couple of songs that we're playing live now from this record where it's like, wow, we're really it's really a push and pull thing. There's really a lot of group improvisation going on, group listening, group reacting, And I really enjoy that because in one hand, I've got this feeling like I love a song, I love a good folks so on that lets you know kind of who he is right away. But I also love Coltrane and you know music that that just makes you feel strange. I like the combination of those two comforts, the feeling strange and the feeling comfortable. And what do you listen to? Mostly? I mean I bounce around a lot. I do listen everything. We grew up. I grew up listening and studying jazz in school and stuff, and so I was just exposed to a lot. My parents are musical folks, and so what would be the music like growing up in the house? What would your parents play? John Prin was probably number one, And a matter of fact, he's probably like the He's the backbone of our spiritual philosophy as a family. I guess I would say that that that was the he was the main one. I think you could distill all other listening visa v. John Prian, And do you did you extend from John Prine into others like in the singer songwriter world? Was that? Yeah? Dylan came pretty pretty close after and still still very central you know, my understanding of the of the craft of like writing a song on the guitar, you know, with that whole tradition. So in both cases, would it be a lyric centric draw started out that way? I think I think once when I saw how complete a song could be with such little lyricism, when I when I with John Prine, especially you know, compared to Dylan or something. But kind of right after that, I always liked a good lyric But it's you know, that would have been when I was like, you know, eleven twelve, when I actually get my own discman and listen to John Prine on my own you know. So did you start writing songs as a kid? I did, Yeah, write it, Like when I was twelve or thirteen. I'd write little songs about like my friends at camp or stuff like that. It's just something that came pretty naturally to me. Would you call them like it, would you call them folk songs? Yeah? I don't know. I think I was probably listening to like pro jam and Nirvana, so I was probably just like, oh, these are just songs, man, I don't know what I was things. And actually, if you would describe them now, what would you say they would rooted in? Would they be like a pearl jam song played on acoustic guitar? Yeah, I think they're probably they're probably the early days, more prime, more just three chords in the truth kind of situation. But then shortly, you know, then eventually you get into alternate tunings, and then you're listening to Joni Mitchell and then it gets a little farther out. Who would you say would be the singers that inspire you or there's always three? I think of my first favorite was was Amy Ray from Indigo Girls. She had this there's this folk thing going on in that their group and songwriting, but she was yelling a lot, and like, there's this fever that was just so connected to her spirit and what she was trying to communicate in her songs. Was she still communicating in her songs and that that sort of unbridled yelling and and sort of like this when you lose it, Can you think of a good example, because I'd love to hear I can. I can pull it up for you and you can look. Oh yeah, my favorite song of all time is called Fugitive. That's like my number one song. That's the Indigo Girls and maybe maybe that's not her yelling, but she's definitely like pushing her voice and it's yeah cool, it's my number my number one favorite song of all time. They played that in Missoula, right, I mean I literally had to sit down. It's true, you stumbling back to You're just like I can't believe this just happen. Yeah, this is my favorite song, my favorite album. I think when I was twelve, like my mom and sister got me into them, and I think I was like, so, mom, they're they're gay, you know, like and then just realizing they have all these problems because of that, and like, Okay, for some reason, I was just like, well, this is wrong that they have issues, you know, like I don't understand. And then that gave me more and I adored them more and more and more. The more they had strength in the face of their adversity and that but they never became bitter, they would have feelings about it. I don't know, they're just they're they're my favorite group ever. Uh and Emily's the harmony, the other singer. She writes other other songs too. I mean, they're both just together. It's it's like my favorite ship. But Donnie Hathaway and Bonnie Raid are probably my other two, just like as far as soul. Yeah, the thing that moved me most was after the first sort of rocking part, it drops down into a very into unexpected intimate moment just for a moment. Yeah, but it got real. Yeah, got really really got real. Yeah, and it's good feeling. Yeah, that's the feeling, man, that's the feeling Like I mean, I tattooed those lyrics on my chat for a reason. It's like, this is what I want to be carrying around it. That's the feeling when you whce. We get to that verse, you're like you're exposed from all this yelling and this guitar sol and this orchestration, and then it all goes away. You're just back to this place where it's like we need to we learn, need to learn how to respect what we don't understand. We are fortunate ones. We are fortunate ones, I swear. It's just like the best thing you can say. It's like we don't know anything, and we have to try to learn and we have to understand that how lucky we are. Beautiful. That's that's that's why it's my favorite song. But yeah, it's it's a displaying intimacy and and vulnerability is a really important part of communicating as a human being, and it is a musician or songwriter. It's like you have to be able to be like, yes I am I feel awful or yes I am scared. You know. I think those are such valuable things in our valuable assets to ourselves. The vulnerability. You know, it's beautiful. That was justin Vernon bony Beare and his producer Chrismasina in conversation with Rick Rubin from Shangelos Studios in Maladu. The new record I Comma is up per Album of the Year at the Grammys. You can stream it using the Spotify playlist we put together for this episode at Broken record podcast dot com. You can also sign up for a behind the scenes newsletter while you're there. Enough. Broken Record is produced with help from Jason Gambrell, Meo La Belle, and Leo Rose. Our theme music is by Kenny Beats. Stay tuned for next week's episodes. Brittany Howard and Andre three thousand, thanks for listening.