A Quote by Robin Pecknold

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.
I don't like sports where it's like, you watch a guy on a motorcycle flip or something, then another guy does it, it looks exactly the same, and then at the end one guy gets higher points! It seems so arbitrary; I don't know who's ahead ever.
I was onstage one night and was singing. I hit one note, and I just doubled over. It was like being punched hard in the back. I couldn't put my back up on the plane seat because of the pain. I got massages, thinking it was muscle spasms. The doctor told me at the time that it was my pancreas. I didn't even know.
When you're in a room with a guy who has a vision like that, it's just one of those things where you close your eyes and just see that vision - then you just go with it. The guys that I write with are so incredible, just like my producer Trent Willmon, those guys know how to bring things out of me - especially things that I maybe didn't even know that I had.
I love singing, but I feel very naked and very vulnerable when I'm singing sometimes. With acting, I always think that it doesn't matter what you are as long as you're truthful in that moment. But with singing, you always have to hit the note. It's not like you can just go, 'Oh, it doesn't really matter what note you sing!'
Singing harmony is not the same as singing a part in a choral group, where you know you're going to have to hit this note and then that note. There are nuances that change every day. Maybe today you have a slight cold or voice fatigue, or you've done something and there's a slight difference in your breathing.
I am so all over the place with my music taste, it's ridiculous. It is! I mean, I find myself listening to weird things like hardcore techno music and then I'll be listening to mainstream hip-hop music. But it's like I am so crazy with my music taste. I'll listen to a song, I'll become obsessed with it, and then I'm on to the next one. So it's just very inconsistent.
I grew up listening to The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and every record those bands put out was very unique in its own right. I have that mentality. too: if a song sounds like something I've already done, then I'll throw it out, because I want each record to be a progression.
I know a girl who cries when she practices violin because each note sounds so pure it just cuts into her, and then the melody comes pouring out her eyes. Now, to me, everything else just sounds like a lie.
I remember Chris Cooper saying to me - I was doing October Sky with him - and he said, "You know, you're just yelling at me." He's like, "You're just yelling. You need to listen." We were in a fight, and you know, oh you'd get so excited as an actor, you're like, "We have a fight, oh, I get to get mad." And he just said, "You need to listen." And I started listening - and then all of a sudden where I was listening was where, I don't know, anger became something else.
The big difference is, as a man, I can go to a bar at two in the morning and people will be like "He's just a fun guy! That's cool that he can balance all these things." But if you see a person that you know who has two young kids and is a mom, there's no way those perceptions are the same. It's like "Oh, there must be a problem." That's usually what women face.
The bass line is the anchor for me. I started with the bass, and either doubled that and then added the harmonies, or sometimes added my own harmonies that I've always wanted to sing on the song. And then it just went on from there - singing violin parts and trumpet parts and just trying to emulate the sounds of the instruments.
One day I was at the park with my family, all my cousins and stuff, in Frankston... We were all just singing a song and my aunty was like 'oh guys, she can actually hold a note.' I think that's the earliest memory of someone actually pointing me out as someone that has an ability to sing. I was probably like 7 years old.
It's sort of cheesy to introduce that to the drums - those dings and dongs and bell sounds. That's definitely one of the reasons people are like 'oh yeah, they sound like Tom Waits, with those trashcan drums.' But at the same time, it sounds so good! And it introduces this... I mean, it's not tuned, but somehow it adds this extra layer of melodic texture.
When you're listening to radio and hear the same 20 songs over and over and over, you want a break from it. Sometimes you don't want to hear something that sounds just like everything else on the radio. Eventually, if you hear the same sounds and the same musicians and the same mixes and all of that, it will start to sound like elevator music.
I got to a happier point and then started making a record [Wild Things]. I don't mind at all that it sounds like LA, because LA was integral to me feeling better. Seeing the sunshine and all that other sorts of stuff was definitely a huge part in why the album sounds like it sounds.
I went for a warm-up and got called back and the fans started singing my name when I was sat on the bench. I thought: 'Oh my god. There are 25,000 people in the ground and there are around 1,000 Swindon fans singing a 20-year-old's name that has just been working on a building site.'
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