Bon Iver

If you go up to the woods today

The debut from Wisconsin’s Justin Vernon, aka Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago has been hailed as one of the albums of 2008. Slowly but surely, the record stole its way into the affections of all who heard it, rapping quietly but insistently on the door of the listener’s heart, demanding and receiving admittance.

In review after gushing review, critics have latched onto the record’s enthralling sense of intimacy, the feeling that we are eavesdropping on one man’s most secret contemplations, which of course we are. The record was recorded in Vernon’s father’s log cabin, out in the woods of north-eastern Wisconsin. For three months, the 27-year-old led a solitary, self-sustaining life. It was an existence that provided plenty of opportunity for personal and musical contemplation, as Justin explains in this AU archive interview.

When you went to your father’s cabin you had no intention of creating the album, so what initially prompted you to go there?
I was actually looking for something new to do and I was living in North Carolina and I basically needed a change of pace. I was thinking of a move to California but I didn’t have any money. I couldn’t keep a job to save any. Any job I did I because I hated. So basically I went up there to make a transition and it ended up being my transition just actually going there, so it was kind of a little bit accidental that way.

Was there a sense that you were trying to escape from the outside world and what in particular were you trying to escape from? You mentioned that you hated the job you had to do, what were you doing?
Working in a kitchen. It just sucked my soul to be spending that much time there for so little money. I wasn’t happy; I was kinda like, ‘what’s wrong here?’

Are you any good in the kitchen?
I’m alright, but it just seemed like such a waste. It hurt my feelings to work there everyday.

Was there a particular moment when you were out in the cabin that you felt moved to start making music?
I got there and just started living there and hanging out. I originally thought ‘I’ll be here a couple of weeks’. Then a couple of weeks turned into a couple of months and then by week four or five I started to work on music. It was a very natural transition into making the music. It’s not like I thought I was going to go up and make a record or anything, I just had stuff with me and sort of started. After I left I realised I had a record.

Did you have any inkling how special the music you were making was?
Well, to me, it’s all special. Before I had never put out a record that sold more than 500 or 1,000 copies. So I didn’t really know what it would feel like to have my music travel outside of my county! But I knew that it felt special to me because of what I’d accomplished, which was just really reinventing myself, but in a natural way. I didn’t sit down and say, hey, I’m going to reinvent myself and move forward like that. It was slow and it was… natural. That word gets overused these days, but it’s the only word I can come up with that describes the transition, musically.

People talk about solo records, but this is a true solo record, you were out in the woods for three months, did you find it difficult to be in such a solitary environment, physically, emotionally, just leading that kind of existence?
Yes and no, I found it quite inviting actually to be alone for that long, after having no time to be by myself. I think people need to be alone more than they are and it was really nice, I got used to it to be honest with you.

The Shining… did you ever have any of those moments?
There were certainly some moments when I thought ‘maybe I shouldn’t be doing this’, like walking outside at 5am in the morning, naked, just to go to the bathroom, but not really realising it until I got to the door and thinking, ‘oh, is a bit weird? Yes, it is weird.’

Obviously you would have had a lot of time for contemplation, without wishing to sound like a reality TV show presenter, what did you discover about yourself from the experience?
The whole thing was a discovery, but I think the word ‘discovery’ is so quick… it took a long time, it was like chipping away at a big sculpture, and you’re not really sure what you’re making, but at the end it can be something quite surprising yet extremely familiar. Discovery suggests a realisation, but it definitely wasn’t a realisation, personally I made a lot of headway as a guy and a person with issues, I leapt through a lot of them.

Having created the music within this self-sufficient world, were you a little uneasy as letting others in on it?
Well that also didn’t happen super fast. Everyday it’s a little bit more, so it was never really thrust into the open but had I gone from zero to 60, so to speak, I would’ve probably felt a bit scared.

There’s a beautiful sense of melancholy to some of the songs, that lovelorn feeling, was there a particular person, a real life ‘Emma’ that inspired the record?
There is a real person who that is referring to. That’s not her real name but it refers to her, but she didn’t inspire it. The record seems like a dedication, but really, what it’s doing is taking a time in my life and putting book ends on either side of it and sort of creating a memoriam of me. It’s not about her; it’s about my struggles with old love and trying to grow up from that and all that kind of stuff.

Are you a nostalgic person… you look back over your life quite a lot on the album?
I’ve definitely always been nostalgic and the tough thing about this particular thing is that I’ve created a nostalgia so eloquent and so devastating with my first true love and how that sort of followed me around. The album really was my approach to overcome it and become that new person.

We know how critics have been feeling about the record, they’ve been absolutely overwhelmed by it. Have you been taken somewhat aback by the reactions the album has inspired?
I don’t know what the word is, but definitely, every morning, it feels like I’m waking up to a new world, so, it’s definitely bizarre and it’s welcomed, but I’m still figuring it out.

The record obviously owes everything to the sense of time and place in which it was created, is you a little bit nervous about making the next record, that it might be difficult to recreate that?
I’m not. I realised that what I want is to have a natural progression. For the next record, I just want to work extremely hard to create an honesty about it and that’s a challenge, but I’m up for it.

Have you already begun planning for that?
Mentally, but no more than simple, passing thoughts. I never want a thought to be out in the oxygen too long, because I feel like it can burn up and become stale and I believe in a record being about a time and a place as well, it’s important to me, so I don’t want the record to be recorded and written at the same time, for that reason.

Do you ever think you’ll revisit the cabin, make some more music there one day?
Yes, I’ve been back a couple of times for sure. It’s a good place – I grew up going there and spent time with my father there and it’s a good place. Maybe I’ll record there again, maybe I’ll build a studio there. I haven’t had any time to be home to enjoy any of this, or extend any of it, so maybe I’ll take a bit of a break!

Interview by Francis Jones

Bon Iver play Tripod, Dublin, October 8.
For Emma, Forever Ago is available now on 4AD

Issue #51 - I Told You This Would Be A Good Issue

Featuring Biffy Clyro, Of Montreal, Duke Special, Frightened Rabbit, Cold War Kids, Jay Reatard, Pat Mills, and more.