Fleet Foxes: A Recent Vintage

By: Jeff Terich

Fleet Foxes

At first glance, Fleet Foxes would appear to fit in with the usual crop of Pacific Northwest indie rockers – a Sub Pop record deal, production aid from Phil Ek (Band of Horses, Built To Spill), beards. Yet the music held within their new self-titled album and Sun Giant EP, both released this year, reveal something far more unexpected, and less likely to be misappropriated by Zach Braff or Diablo Cody.

Fleet Foxes are a band that reveal as much about their parents’ record collections as they do about contemporary influences. Frontman Robin Pecknold, guitarist Skye Skjelset, keyboardist Casey Westcott, drummer Nick Peterson and bassist Christian Wargo play a style of music that is simultaneously unfussy and meticulous. Every harmony and pluck of a guitar string is note-perfect, and Pecknold & Co.’s vocals are as stunning as they come. In crafting a complete product, Fleet Foxes spent their time split between professional studios and home, working with Pro Tools to bridge the two. Due to trial and error, the recording of their debut actually took about six months to complete with original ideas being scrapped for newer songs written after the process had already begun.

“We started recording in May of last year, but only one song ended up being used from that session, and everything else just didn’t work,” Pecknold says. “We went in with like ten songs that we thought we wanted to record but we didn’t end up liking any of them. The majority of the work on the record took place between September and November.”

“I think that it kind of took shape as we started recording,” Pecknold continues. “We had a song or two that we thought were going in the right direction. Once we did start recording we saw how much some stuff wasn’t really working.”

Fleet Foxes’ self-titled debut album has received comparisons to the likes of Crosby, Stills & Nash, The Beach Boys and Neil Young, timeless though by no means 21st-century influences. Pecknold says that these are the sorts of records that he remembers hearing from early on. “That was always stuff that was around,” he says. “My folks would listen to those kinds of records.” The group’s sound is definitely one that could fit alongside Fairport Convention AND Animal Collective in one’s record collection. While their reverb-heavy approach has an analog, vintage feel throughout the album’s eleven songs, according to Pecknold, it is a by-product of just wanting the album to sound good rather than an attempt to capture an old-school atmosphere.

Fleet Foxes

“There’s no digital effects on the record, there’s no synths,” Pecknold says. “All of our amps and guitars are old. We didn’t really care how it ended up sounding, production wise. We just wanted it to sound good, but not too tricky. Not too much we couldn’t pull off live. Less than half the record was recorded to tape at studios, but most of it was done at my house with Pro Tools, like, not really caring what it sounded like at all. We rented a couple of good mics, but [we] weren’t really going for a specific production tone; it was just to get all the sounds that were going on.”

Paired with Fleet Foxes’ rich tones, Pecknold’s lyrics often carry a reflection of the great outdoors. Fleet Foxes’ songs are rife with rural imagery, from a reference to “cold mountain air” in “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” to the “quivering forest” in “Blue Ridge Mountains” to the contrast of “the white snow, red as strawberries in the summertime.” While the combination of sound and lyrics is well matched, much of Pecknold’s inspiration comes from living in an urban environment.

“Some of it is kind of escapism,” Pecknold says. “It’s kind of idealized. I don’t fully participate in a city lifestyle. I couldn’t really write a song about going clubbing. I don’t live in the country, but there’s a lot of space in Seattle and around Seattle to just get out.”

In any given Fleet Foxes song, there’s an abundance of activity. Most tunes find the group participating in four-part vocal harmonies, and for a relatively straightforward outfit, Fleet Foxes have an awfully dense and layered sound. While tracks like “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” offer a subdued respite from some of the bigger build-ups, other cuts like “Your Protector” pile on even more layers, adding flute and whirring organ to their rustic rock ensemble. However, Pecknold admits he’s wary of letting a song become too much of a studio product, adding that the band often scaled back and avoided recording anything that would be too difficult to recreate live.

“There’s a certain point where you’re building up a song and you just kinda say, ‘Okay, stop, there’s too much going on.’ It usually ends up being unnecessary stuff anyway. I kind of feel like most songs don’t need a ton of stuff. There are definitely moments where we scaled back,” Pecknold says. “Four people singing and five people playing instruments is a lot as it is.”

Fleet Foxes – Oliver James at Schubas, Chicago [04-06-08]

Brand new video for “White Winter Hymnal” directed by Sean Pecknold

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