Picture by Kelly O, courtesy of The Stranger.

I had a chance to interview Robin Pecknold (center) from Seattle’s Fleet Foxes, and the article appears in this week’s Mercury (you can read it here). Their campfire-meets-sacred-harp folk/rock often sounds like it’s echoing through a forest of trees, or out of a subterranean cave; it’s epically homegrown, if that makes any sense, and you’ll get a chance to see for yourself when they hit town tomorrow night. Pecknold told me about lots of stuff that didn’t make it into the article, so you can read more of the interview after the jump.

Fleet Foxes play with Blitzen Trapper and Au, Saturday, April 19 (that’s tomorrow!), Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison, 9 pm, $8

How is the tour with Blitzen Trapper going?

The tour has been really great... it's been amazing going out on our first tour and having people come to see us and even occasionally singing along—it's so bizarre to me still! It's been a long and tiring one, but it's been illuminating and now hopefully normal-length tours will seem like a cakewalk. The Blitzen Trapper guys are all incredibly sweet and we've been getting along really well—we're so lucky to be on tour with such a great band filled with such great dudes.

Do you feel a connection to the Portland music scene?

I think there is a definite connection that we and the rest of Seattle have to the Portland music scene, even though it seems like everyone in Seattle is moving to Portland! Last winter we played the Doug Fir with Laura Gibson and the Cave Singers, and Laura Gibson couldn't be a sweeter person if she tried. What a gem, you guys are lucky to have her. The crowd was dead silent during her set out of what seemed like pure reverence. I think there's a lot to envy about both cities, but we're a team you know?

Here's a generic question: What inspires your lyrics?

There's really no one way that a song comes together for us—sometimes the lyrics are the main focus from the outset, even to the point where some songs are a capella or mostly so, and other times the lyrics come after all the musical segments are put together into a cohesive whole... it really depends on the song. I would say the lyrics so far have been mostly inspired by family, either appreciation of it or a desire for it, both specifically and generally. A couple interviewers have asked me about the "nature" influence in the lyrics and where that comes from, which I find difficult to answer to—like, who doesn't like nature? It seems like "nature" is in some way or another a big part of everyone's life so it's funny to me to have to explain why it's part of the lyrics!

How important are the words in the songwriting process?

It's interesting, that being on this tour and singing these songs every night has made me reevaluate some of the songs. Some are way easier to "sell" every night and those usually for me end up being the songs that have a direct meaning to me, as opposed to the songs that are more atmospheric in purpose lyrically. Not that I don't enjoy playing those songs, but as a singer it's interesting to see what songs can be sung with the most conviction every night and those end up being the ones that mean the most to me lyrically. I don't know what that means for the "process" or whatever, but it's been curious.

What is your relationship with [producer] Phil Ek? I understand he is a family friend. Did he ever point you in the direction of music before the start of Fleet Foxes?

Phil has always been super encouraging, since before Fleet Foxes started—I remember giving him some really, really early demos of stuff Skye [Skjelset] and I did, and him coming into my work and saying that he thought it sounded cool. That blew my mind! "Family friend" is a bit of a misnomer, I met him through my sister Aja.

I read that the album (due June 3) was recorded before the Sun Giant EP? Is that right? How did that happen? What originally happened to the album, and why isn't it coming out until later this year? How does the album stand separately from the EP?

Well, when we were first talking to Sub Pop about signing they let us know that the next available slot they had to put out a record was in June—this was in December when we had just finished the LP. It's good that every band gets to have a time when their record is the label's main focus, so we weren't bummed about the long wait, but we'd worked out new songs even since finishing the LP that weren't shaping up to be the next record and were kind of their own little batch. We came up with the idea of recording the EP in December and were back in a studio in January for a week and a half to record it, then as soon as it was back from the manufacturer we released it. I think the EP and LP are sort of a pair, and they'll be packaged together on vinyl as a pair. They were really different experiences though. The LP was like 6-7 months of recording mostly at home with some studio recording, and we threw out tons of recorded songs before writing and recording what eventually went on the record. The EP was 8 days total and we knew exactly what it was going to be going into it, so that was a good thing, but I don't think that would've been possible if we hadn't deliberated over the LP for so long! Since the EP is newer it might be a better representation of where we may be going, but we hope the next LP sounds a lot different than both of them.