I used to have a musical group with a girlfriend called The Thunderclouds. It was like a Beach Boys cover band. And we would just figure out Beach Boy songs - break 'em into two-part harmonies. And, you know, we played a couple of shows around Olympia. It was very fun.
— Phil Elverum
Usually I work at the merch table until one minute before I have to go on stage.
I am drawn to cold, desolate places rather than Hawaii. I actually love Hawaii too, but I tend to go to Iceland or Norway or Northern Japan - northern places for whatever reason. Which aren't necessarily the best places to tour.
I think I'm obsessed with accessibility which is why, when I'm touring, I want to play all ages shows.
I have a hard time working with other people with my own songs because I have a pretty complete idea of how it should be. It's usually just me multi-tracking which is better than coercing someone into doing my idea.
For awhile the only thing people were talking to me about my music, that's all they ever said: 'You must be a nature lover. Are you camping all the time?'
My exposure to independent music was via Nirvana and grunge so I'd never gotten into punk. I don't really like that music of Crass, but I love the band, and I love their way, and their presentation.
There's a lot of music out there that's like, 'I'm so mad! I'm sad! I'm into skulls and crossbones and the color black,' and that's just meaningless and shallow. So much of metal is about that and it's hard to find metal that is substantial and meaningful in terms of its content.
Comedy is deep and wild and I am excited about the mysteries within.
It's easy to get swept up in the day to day ridiculous things that are in the news. They're not meaningless, they're legitimate and worth being engaged with. But it's easy to get overwhelmed and swept up and forget what real life feels like.
I've sort of accidentally put myself in this position where I opened up the story of my life, and of course people want to reciprocate and open up to me. I'm OK at it, I don't make people feel worse, but it's strange to find myself in this role, all of a sudden, that I never would have pursued.
Every tour is different. Sometimes I'll get a band together and sometimes it's just me.
I am commodifying my grief, to put it really bluntly. I accept it. And I try not to think about it.
A weird side effect of being in close proximity to death is an urgency.
It even feels absurd to be writing or singing a song at all - in the context of actual death, being alive feels absurd.
If I wanted to make big, bombastic, distorted, echo-y, trippy music, the atmospheric stuff, a studio is nice. But it's nice to know that it's not necessary.
I'm artistically satisfied and happy.
I remember discovering that I loved recording - that breakthrough when I was in high school getting to record for the first time.
They're all true - the cliches like 'one day at time' and 'ups and downs.'
I just play under the name Mt. Eerie. I started doing that in 2003 and I've pretty much been doing that since then.
It is something I've noticed - that my audiences are young. My only thought has been because I play all-ages shows. Even so, they're pretty young, and sometimes I'm nervous the content of my songs - these weird, ambiguous, philosophical ideas I'm trying to articulate. Are the kids getting it? Is it going over their heads?
These people that worked with my dad doing landscaping were in a grunge band so the music on the cover of Rolling Stone was in a very real way connected to people practicing in the woods near my house while I was home doing my homework.
I don't really see myself in a lineage which is fine with me. Sometimes I do try to explicitly copy an exact song, an arrangement, a sound - and I fail. And so you can't even tell I was trying to do that thing. It makes sense in my own head but I'm incapable of copying.
There are parts on 'Wind's Poem' that are literal recordings of wind. I had this old sound effects record that I got some wind from and then I figured out that distorted cymbals sound just like wind so I used that a lot.
It's a beautiful idea to focus on how everything is temporary and always in flux. It may feel bad now, but it will feel good later, and vice versa. To write about those things brings this satisfying feeling as a creative person.
My grandpa is the funniest person in the world, straight up. But mostly everyone in my family groans when he is 'on.' I am his biggest fan.
I am so thirsty to do my projects whenever I have a spare moment.
I don't get to make many choices in my life as a single parent.
I want to not be associated with death or cancer, I don't want that life.
I just can't turn off the part me that asks that question over and over.
I grew up without religion, but my parents have always been somewhat mystical about nature: The mountain is looking at us, stuff like that.
I don't think my music is that big of a deal - my entire life is parenting. The fact that I make records and go off and play shows is a small percentage of my day-to-day existence.
I'm actually not fussy. I enjoy getting into it and talking about anything, really. It feels good.
I need some time to write songs and work on my thing, but I'm just living my life and doing family stuff and letting inspiration come when it comes. But I also don't feel a desperate need to keep pushing myself into people's faces to stay cool and relevant.
We had a simple 8-track studio set up in the record store where I worked. And just staying after work and experimenting, realizing what was possible with recording - that's why my project was called The Microphones at first. Because it wasn't even songs really. It was just sound.
Grief - the actual, natural process of it - doesn't have a schedule that I can work my life around.
I'm really nervous about coming off as exclusive or elitist. At the same time, I recognize that when I put out vinyl or an expensive coffee table book not everyone can afford it or listen to it.
It's challenging to live in Anacortes. I lived in Olympia for five years, went on tour for a year, ended up in Norway for a winter, and ended up back in Anacortes. But I have a long life ahead of me. I'll probably live in many different places, and then die in Anacortes.
Nirvana was happening when I was 14, kind of the perfect age. Growing up in Anacortes, Washington, it was close enough to Seattle that it seemed like a local thing.
I listen to all kinds of music and sometimes I try to do something that's referential to an era or a genre, but it still sounds like me.
Nirvana really touched me as a teenager and started making me pay attention to music as a participatory thing that I could do.
Being a musician means I am 'hanging out' a lot, like driving on tour or being at a show or whatever, so maybe there's more time to interact with peers and develop jokes.
People used to assume I was a serious/sad person because of my music for some reason.
It's really hard just making dinner as a single parent, but I'm figuring it out. I just have to be more focused and efficient with my little scraps of time that I do have.
I do like playing music with other people.
I reach out. I ask for help. I tell my story.
I don't want to return to places and sing the same songs a second time.
The universe is chaotic and meaningless, and it's good to laugh about it. That's my stance on life, actually. Some people go through life grinding their teeth, suffering and banging their head against the wall. I'm glad that's not the reaction that occurs in me.
I consume the news daily. I'm not avoiding it.
I want to create a life that is just healthy and peaceful - an enclave, really, of retreat. It's not helpful for the big picture. It's totally selfish to run away like that.
