5 Things We Learned About Bon Iver from The New Yorker Interview
Justin Vernon’s first big interview in years is full of fascinating tidbits
V1 Staff |
Eau Claire native and Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon gave his first interview about music in five years recently to mark the release of a new EP, SABLE,. Here are some interesting tidbits from his lengthy interview with Amanda Petrusich of The New Yorker, published Oct. 16.
1. WORKING WITH CHARLIE XCX WAS A ‘NO BRAINER.’
The profile mentions Bon Iver’s role in the remix edition of Charli XCX’s album, brat: “He described the decision to participate as ‘a no-brainer,’ saying ‘the art and the music, its aggression, its power, its pop-ness – it’s just amazing.’”
2. HE WOULD HAVE BEEN TAYLOR’S BFF IN HIGH SCHOOL.
“I wasn’t starstruck,” Vernon said of meeting Taylor Swift (a long-distance collaborator) a few years back. “I was, like, ‘Wow, you’re somebody that I would have been very close friends with in high school. You’re real and you’re here.’ To see what she’s been up to, the propulsion, the expansion . . . I don’t know, it’s just unlike anything anyone’s ever seen. And yet there she was, this person who made a lot of sense to me.”
3. HE’S FOUND GOD – SORT OF.
“Having been atheist and an agnostic at different times in my life, growing up Lutheran and then studying world religion in college, I was cynical, almost angry that when we use the word ‘God,’ we’re so often misusing it. But I’ve been saying the word again lately, because I’m sick and tired of saying ‘synchronicity and coincidence.’ And I just don’t know what else to call it. I’ve had friends who are deeply, deeply religious, and they talk about what God means to them. I’ve been a little more open to it. I’m certainly not a theist. But I like the word ‘God’ and I’m back to using it.”
4. HE’S GRAPPLING WITH MIDDLE AGE.
“(It’s) kind of like graduating from a master’s program or something. Feeling a little old, a little aged out, a little like Chris Farley at the bottom of the hill in Black Sheep saying, ‘What in the hell was that all about?’ ”
5. HE MAY SPEND A LOT OF TIME IN CALIFORNIA, BUT WISCONSIN STILL HAS HIS HEART.
“I am Wisconsin, through and through. But if I’m just there then what is April Base for? And what’s my love of Wisconsin for if I don’t have to come back to it?”
