The Brag

Bon Iver
Can We Get Much Higher?
By Caitlin Welsh

Just so we’re clear: when you hear the final track on the new self-titled Bon Iver record, your reaction should not be “Oh, sweet Phil Collins jam”. Justin Vernon’s heard that one before, and it still bemuses him. “I wasn’t thinking about Phil Collins when I wrote [‘Beth/Rest’],” he explains good-naturedly – because apparently this needs clarification. “I was thinking about what joy means to me, and what unadulterated sunlight feels like, or something! So for me, it’s more like, ‘How do I express the highest high? How do I get there?’ And that’s what I try to do.”

Bon Iver contains many a sonic reference that might be seen as taboo or daggy to 2011 listeners, from dark, twinkling sax and earnest vibraphones to unabashedly emotional vocal performance, met with swelling, romantic arrangements. ‘Calgary’, the first single, was accused in some quarters of sounding like Coldplay – the death knell, surely! But the easy-listening references and grandiose arrangements weren’t a product of ironic nostalgia, or even really that deliberate, says Vernon. “I have influences and things that I could go on and on about, but I think it’s about the emotional context, for me… I think that, for me, it wasn’t about categorising references or pulling them together in an interesting way. I think, for me, it was about a search for emotional quality.”

You might notice he says “for me” a lot; Vernon is not one of those performers who obsesses over whether their music is being received in the way he intended. “My job is to make a song,” he says simply. “If you start worrying about what people think then you are castrating the whole meaning of doing it. I think I just wanted to make a song that made me feel a certain way, and that sounded interesting, and that didn’t sound like a cop-out, and didn’t sound like something I had heard before.”

While they’re quite welcome to do so, fans also shouldn’t see Bon Iver as Vernon consciously distancing himself from the loner mythology of his first album, For Emma, Forever Ago. Rather, it’s a product of his environment just as much as Emma was. When not touring, he spent most of the past three and a half years at home in Wisconsin, building his own studio in a house he bought with his brother, and recording new music there at his own pace. “I dunno what kind of person I’d be if I was nervous about repeating myself, and needing to be sad and alone to do any new music,” he says. “I had the time and space to make the record that I’ve always wanted to make… I think it was more of a joyful record because I was in a better spot.”

Although there’s a clear shift in mood and atmosphere, Vernon hasn’t ditched the sonic hallmarks that made his debut so easy to get attached to. The wistful melodies and distinctive vocal treatments are there in abundance, albeit richly layered and spacious in a way the famously shut-in Emma couldn’t hope to match. Those frail, gauzy Autotune harmonies in particular would have been much missed and remarked upon in their absence. In the midst of the Autotune-in-pop debate, Vernon demonstrated how the technology could be used as an effective and humanising instrument as opposed to a Top 40 tool. It even led to Vernon working on Kanye West’s fantastical opus of ego, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy – and while recording with someone with West’s international pop clout is the kind of opportunity few would turn down, Vernon is seriously passionate about the importance of the record itself. “To me, critically, on paper, it is the biggest record in the world,” he says. “But it’s not selling. It sold a million copies or something – but Nicki Minaj is outselling it twofold. Which I think people aren’t noticing. And I don’t think Nicki Minaj’s album is a masterpiece.

“It just shows you that something can be really critically important and not have this corporate push behind it. And Kanye just doesn’t like to play the game; he’s too much of a real person for that shit… The fact that people understand it as [a masterpiece] is justified, because it is a great record; it’s a very heavy sonic record. And I’m pleased to be a part of it obviously, but mostly I think it’s just important to know that it is so good.”
Vernon’s still a little wary of being known as the Autotune Folk Guy, or the Kanye Guy, or the Log Cabin Guy – not because he allows himself to be defined by the public, but because it would be a sign that he’s not pushing himself creatively. “As soon as I catch myself using [Autotune] poorly, I’ll probably stop,” he says. “But it’s not something I’m worried about being defined as. Ultimately, I can only define myself. If I feel like the Kanye-only guy then I’ll probably change what I’m doing… But I’m not worried about those things, really. The world’s too big to pretend you’re that important.”

The last time Vernon came out here was for the 2009 Sydney Festival; he’s admits he’s due for another visit. The plan is for the nine-piece outfit he’s assembled for the Bon Iver tour – including indie-hero saxophonist (and Arcade Fire touring member) Colin Stetson – to be out here early in 2012. To say he has fond memories of the last tour would be an understatement. “That was one of the better experiences of my life as a musician,” he says, before giving me full permission to start SydFest 2012 rumours aplenty… fingers crossed.

What: Bon Iver is out now on Jagjaguwar, through Inertia