The year 2011 became the great Fleet Foxes hangover when they slowly evaporated from the scene, with their trailblazing second album Helplessness Blues as remembrance. This 12-track piece unleashed some of the best folk songs the world has ever known--"The Cascades", "Lorelai", "Bedouin Dress". Redefining the spaces of 'folk' and finding their own voice in this dangerously repetitive sea has been the band's imprint on the genre.
The year after, the band's drummer Josh Tillman broke off in pursuit of a solo career, announcing his rebirth as Father John Misty. In an interview with The Guardian, Tillman talks about the band's relationship and his motivation to unlatch and start anew.
Frontman Robin Pecknold finally sheds some light on some of the questions that have been haunting us since 2011 via a new Reddit AMA.
The thread was filled with congratulatory praises and well-meaning messages, but of course this rare opportunity was also seen by many as the chance to ask the frontman about the drummer. When asked about his relationship with Tillman, he responded in polite honesty, saying that he hasn't talked to Father John Misty since their separation in 2011 and is happy for the latter for finally doing his own thing.
He also recalled the year 2010, revealing that the band was pretty much falling apart but was glued together by their unanimous decision to keep the boat floating for their fans and the tours.
A user commented on FF's capability to write something original, saying their craft wasn't "a reinterpretation, homage, or appropriation of any folk tradition, but was instead provoked by it to make something original." When asked if the FF were to come back with a new genre, Pecknold answered:
Switch genres in reaction to that zeitgeist, which would be sacrificing my tastes just for the purpose of Othering ourselves from them? I didn't want to be working from a place of Reaction but from a place of Action and that was just impossible to do in those years considering what Fleet Foxes had come to mean and what had happened after. That has all died down so I don't feel weird being in a "folk" context, but I also don't feel weird about making something that doesn't sound "folky" because it wouldn't be just to distance ourselves from that sound. I just think Reaction is a bad place to be and can result in whack art that you don't really believe in.
He also talks about his return to Columbia University and its overall influence in his musical processes. Pecknold proves to be a guy with a good head on his shoulders, saying how the hiatus has helped him gain a new perspective on songwriting, purging himself of the academic pretensions that could have threatened the upcoming album.
In indie rock you can throw some flutes on a song and it sounds high minded but that wouldn't play in academia or academic art music at all, so for a while I had no idea what to do or which path I wanted to go down. For a second I thought about becoming a composer but I realized I would be really out of my depth, and I really love good songwriting and interesting melody and the human voice too much to try and move into that world, I'd be a pretender.
I don't think music theory would help you write a good melody or a good song really, but it's all just tools to employ in arranging lots of voices or for other instruments, like it's sort of the mechanical part where the melody is the intuitive part.
So are they working on new stuff? Yes. Pecknold says he wouldn't be talking about it "if it weren't happening and in the works". There's not much to go on other than, "it will be different in the ways that it would need to be different to be more legit," re-assuring everyone they won't go wild with a sudden dance album. No genre shifts happening. Just pure good folk.
Last month, Pecknold released a rock instrumental entitled "Swimming" with Neal Morgan on percussion. If you're thinking that this is a sweet tease for FF's third LP, he already said it's not.
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Photo: The Maroon Cafe