Mojo - The Music Magazine

SEATTLE’S FLEET FOXES have made the best album of the last 12 months, according to voters in MOJO’s annual readers’ poll. Not only that, but they were the best darned act of the entirety of 2008. On behalf of Fleet Foxes, multi-instrumentalist Casey Wescott conveys his disbelief. Questions by MOJO’s Danny Eccleston...

MOJO: Your album has been voted the MOJO readers' Best Album of 2008, and Fleet Foxes have been elected Best Act. Can you describe how you feel about that?
Casey: This is really crazy. It really is an honor and pretty surreal for us. I grew up reading the magazine, so to see MOJO spend the money for ink to write our name seems very improbable.

With all the accolades you've had over the last 12 months, has it been hard to retain perspective? Does it feel like it's happening to someone else?
I am pretty perspective-free right now... In all seriousness, it does feel like it is happening to someone else. I think one would have to be a sociopath to expect this kind of response to something that one does. Whenever I hear something nice about us, I become increasingly convinced that I must have been a whipping boy in a previous life.

How has 2008 changed your life?
I am no longer sleeping in vans/practice spaces. And I no longer eat bread from dumpsters, not that I have a problem with that. Want not waste not, right?

Is the fact that Britain has gone loopy for Fleet Foxes utterly bemusing, or do you think that [songwriter] Robin [Pecknold]'s Lake District sojourn encoded something in the music that resonates instinctively with Brits?
I am not sure. The entire response has been surprising. When we were flying over to the U.K. for the first time, I was really expecting people to dislike us. I am not sure why... I was very intimidated since I had never been to the country before. I let fear consume the void.

You're coming back to do Roundhouse shows in Feb. Aren't you sick of us yet?
Shouldn't I be asking you this question?

Do you think making the album before signing a record deal made a difference? That is, it wasn't pre-compromised by someone else's idea of who you are or what you do?
Making a record prior to signing can reduce the amount of unknowns and perceived risks for everyone and therefore may increase implicit trust between the musicians and label. That being said, Sub Pop and Bella Union have been really great and have been advocates of ours to help us create what we want. I think they like us for who were are. It's different for everyone though, so I wouldn't want to be too presumptuous.

How do you maintain that pre-lapsarian state?
That is misinformation! We all have chosen darkness.

Is there a particular bond between singers who, almost literally, become "one voice". I'm thinking of CSN, or Crosby/Clark/McGuinn, Simon & Garfunkel, and yourselves. Do you "become", like, a separate organism?
I think that a musical bond has grown in parallel with the friendships. When performing, everyone is constantly in the process of listening and reacting to each other, and that intensifies the more we play with each other.

I am haunted by the lyric of White Winter Hymnal. What's the most entertaining interpretation you've heard? I recommend ALL of these...
Shooot!!! I am at a loss on this one... I haven’t really heard that many actually.

Where do you go from here? What's the schedule for writing and recording or are you still recuperating?
We just toured Australia, which was an absolute holiday. Nothing calms existential distress like fraternizing with koalas and feeding wombats. We all are anxious to work on music and are beginning to pick up where we left off. The band has a new space/studio in Port Townsend that is nearing completion so we are going to move in there and focus on recording the new record.

I hear the studio’s an old boat house. Is boat-building a good metaphor for making records? Or is that crazy talk?
Hmm, based on our collective skill sets, the boat we would build would have to be constructed out of acoustic panelling, and steered by an XBox controller, with an onboard operating system developed on Microsoft technologies. That being said, at least the vessel would be catered with Mexican food, and [FF guitarist] Skye [Skjelset] is a fabulous barista.

How do you improve on, or even "move on" from something as well-realised as the Fleet Foxes record? What avenues are you investigating?
I don't know that we have thought of the record in those terms specifically. If anything, there is a lot of excitement to make a new record. The circumstances for recording the first record were less than ideal, so for us, I think that we are eager to have fewer obstacles when executing our ideas.

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