If there ever was a barometer that we are living in the silver age of prog rock, the meteoric rise of Seattle’s Fleet Foxes through the strength of one EP, Sun Giant, is one hell of an indicator.  Built on the pastoral strings, three part harmonies of the 60’s and 70’s, the Fleet Foxes’ music sounds as if Crosby, Stills and Nash produced a movie soundtrack with Ennio Morricone.  So, it was quite a surprise that Sub Pop Records, the house that grunge built, won a bidding war to distribute the band’s self titled debut LP.  (Proof that punk aesthetic is a officially dormant.)  The linchpin to the group’s vocal orchestration is lead singer Robin Pecknold (who’s pipes bear a similar resemblance to My Morning Jacket’s Jim James).  Pushed by Pecknold’s desire to exploit his parent’s pop record collection and bring it into the 21st Century, the Foxes’ sound seems anything but antiquated.  During a van repair pit stop, Pecknold discusses the construction of his songs, the current crop of sincere indie artists, and how grateful he his to his grade school music teacher, Ms. Dean.

REAX:  The type of music you perform is very pure and innocent.  How do you explain your success when we are living in the so called “Age of Irony?”
Robin Pecknold:  Not to lump us in with the bands I’m about to mention or say we are in the same league as them, but I feel like there is a trend away from that ironic thing.  Which is cool because for a long time new music wasn’t really that interesting to me but I feel that in the last two years there have been a lot of bands coming out that are really heartfelt, without being pandering.  Bands like Bon Iver, Grizzly Bear, Panda Bear.  There has been stuff where you can hear some kind of humanity without it being overblown.  It is interesting for people to see a band that isn’t putting on airs. 

REAX:  Much has been made about how you decided to ditch the traditional structure of songs (verse-chorus-verse-chorus), even bleeding two songs together.  What was the impetus for this course in song construction?
RP:  Listening to pop music growing up, the structure becomes almost secondary and what you’re listening to is more what the band is doing with the melodies, the chorus, while they are all still working in that framework.  In writing songs, it was weird because I would write the songs in sections that had no relation to the other songs.  It was all just sections of songs that worked independent of each other.  We would be working on these sections and we would say, “well this is not an obvious chorus for something and this is not an obvious verse for something, but that doesn’t really matter.”  The song writing structure became modular, almost.  Some of it was a function of how the songs were written and some of it was not wanting to do some of that traditional stuff.  I think on the next record we will do even less of that.

REAX:  Before the Fleet Foxes, in preparation of the harmonies, were you involved in chorus or church choir? 
RP:  I was in school plays and community theater in the summer, in Kirkland, the suburb I grew up in.  That was where I first learned how to sing.  But, I was never in the choir.  I was too self conscious by that point.  I was in junior high, high school, and it was nerve racking.  But, music class was always my favorite class in grade school.  I had a really good teacher, Ms. Dean. Laughs

REAX:  Did you have a hard time finding band mates to keep up with your vocals?
RP:  Not really.  Some of it was by necessity.  A lot of the album got worked out while recording.  Before recording, we had an idea of what we wanted to do.  But, as we recorded the album, it became clear what we wanted the album to sound like.  From there, we began hunkering down and practicing a lot, and singing together; learning from that way.

REAX:  Is Ennio Morricone an influence for you?  I get a real Spaghetti Western vibe from the tracks “Your Protector” and “White Winter Hymnal”.
RP:  Absolutely.  Film music and soundtracks, I listen to that stuff.  Usually, what I’ll listen to is soundtrack music, that is really pretty and beautiful, or like Bob Dylan or Joanie Mitchell type music.  The two extremes, like really lyric based and then pure music.  But yeah, that is a big influence for me. 

REAX:  What led you to ultimately choose Sub Pop?  A lot of the trade publications detail a bidding war for your album.
RP:  I wouldn’t say it was a bidding war.  There were a couple labels interested in us and we wanted to wait until we were done with the record.  It wasn’t like they brought paddles to the practice space and there was an auctioneer.  Laughs  What ended up working with Sub Pop was they seemed really excited about the music for what it was and not for what it was going to be or what they wanted to make it.  They seemed to have the purest intentions. 

www.myspace.com/fleetfoxes

Photo: David Belisle (courtesy of Sub Pop)