He's left the log cabin behind, built himself a studio, collaborated with the likes of Jay-Z, and written a new album. It's all part of a positive life loop, Justin Vernon – aka Bon Iver – tells LAUREN MURPHY
YOU CAN'T help but assume that Justin Vernon is Wisconsin's most celebrated son. The small-town boy has come a long way from the submissive all-or-nothing heartbreak that informed his 2008 debut For Emma, Forever Ago.When we speak, he's on a tour bus hurtling down the freeway from San Diego to Los Angeles to play a brace of sold-out gigs on his sold-out US tour. The fact that we're speaking at all is something of a minor miracle, considering that Bon Iver is now such a surefire hit in Ireland that he barely needs to do any sort of promotion these days. Things, you might say, have changed.
“They have changed,” he laughs, fully aware of how differently his life could have panned out if he’d never written that album.
“I felt like I’d been given this opportunity to make some art that I knew was pure, was just for me, and it just happened. And I keep doing it, and it keeps rewarding me. . . You gotta put something out there and just let it happen.”
Then there’s the “log cabin” element. The story of a man retreating to rural Wisconsin to purge himself of his heartbroken grief through music is all well and romantic, but in hindsight, does he ever regret revealing the story that almost became more of a selling point than the music? “Not at all,” he chuckles. “It would be weird if a person in my situation – who’s been as lucky as I have – had a problem with that. But I think where the elephant in the room comes in is when it avalanches out of control and people aren’t talking about anything else. I just decided to accept what it was for what is was – a pretty weird three months of my life where I decided to live for free in my dad’s hunting cabin.
“I’m just proud of myself that I did it, because I didn’t have anything else to do. I didn’t just fuck up and start working at Hardy’s, or something. That’s how I look at it: as a positive life loop.”
There was never any question of Vernon retreating to the backwoods to milk the "sensitive guy with a guitar" schtick this time around. Building his own studio in Eau Claire – where he lives a normal life whenever he gets the chance – meant putting down solid roots and having a base. It's a practice that seemed at odds with the themes of his new album, Bon Iver, where almost every track is named after a place. But for Vernon, home is more important than ever, even though his success has meant recalibrating his relationships with friends and family.
“I told myself ‘Hey. If you’re gonna do this, then enjoy it. Don’t resign yourself to anything. Be happy’. So I just started to see my relationships in ways that are different to the relationships that I’ve had before. I think when you’re a travelling person, you realise that you only get to spend a lot of time with people that are close to you in special situations. And I think the touring thing – you have to make it what you want it to, but it’s worked out really well.”
Those roots helped Vernon to focus when it came to writing the 10 songs that comprise Bon Iver. The comparatively experimental bent is audible throughout, but particularly so on Bruce Hornsby-esque album closer Beth/Rest."I always wonder about that term, 'guilty pleasure'," he says.
“If it’s pleasurable, why be guilty about it? To be honest, I think that whether we actively listened to it or not, all that sort of ’80s music has been in our collective psyches. The way that I made these last two records – and this one, especially – I just insulated [myself] a lot. And I got to the end of the record and the last song I wrote, and I started to realise how little it mattered what decade the instruments were from. I don’t really think that stuff will matter in a hundred years. I was just thinking that it’s more important to write a song that sounds cool. But . . .” he deadpans, “I gotta admit, I do love the ’80s.”
Expanding his band to include more musicians also contributed to the album’s bigger, bolder sound. “I was never going to be able to make another album like the first one,” he says. “Those 10 tracks are really the only 10 tracks that I finished; that’s what came out, and it felt like the right time to put those songs in the same place together. I think I gained the confidence that maybe I started to have when I was young, and then lost. This idea that you can be in a larger band with a bunch of musicians – I think from a songwriting perspective, or a producer’s standpoint, it’s invaluable.”
It's not just his work with his own band that's been a confidence-booster, either. Vernon has become one of the most in-demand musicians on the scene over the last few years, working with a hugely diverse number of artists. Kanye West is such a big fan that he requested his services on both his own solo record and Jay-Z collaboration Watch the Throne.He recently wrote a song with James Blake via e-mail (and plans to do more) and The National asked him to guest on last year's High Violet.That's before mentioning side-projects Gayngs and Volcano Choir.
“I don’t know why the fuck I was given those opportunities, but I was,” he says. “In high school and middle school, I was doing all sorts of weird music, whether it was with my brother, or a blues band, or whatever. So I had a lot of shit that I used to do that I hadn’t done for a while, because I had to concentrate on this one band with my friends [DeYarmond Edison] for 10 years. So all this stuff is just kind of coming back.”
That’s all well and good, but when you’re inundated with offers of collaborations, there must be some rule of thumb you use to accept or decline invitations.
“There are no rules. I haven’t had time to make any yet, but man, I wish I had a rule book that could have sent to myself earlier in life,” he says with a deep laugh. “At the end of the day, I think you can be very precious about what you do with your art. Or alternatively, you can be a real person. . . A lot of people have their own ways of expressing their own shit, and this is just what I do. I just think that my job is to make songs, and by some fucking miracle, people seem to like it.”
* Bon Iver plays Grand Canal Theatre, Dublin on October 20
