Big Thief on Love, Politics, and Staying Together – Warungku Terkini

The concept of aging comes up in the album. How would you like to age together as a band?

Krivchenia: I’ve always admired artists who, as they get older, go through these weird changes where their music becomes less relevant and they’re going in all these different directions. You can tell the ones who are following their actual inner voice versus the ones who just want to be young forever.

Meek: The concept of youth is so often misused or misinterpreted. I think we all grew up playing music with much older musicians. At least I did as a teenager, playing guitar with musicians who were much later in life. Even at 9, I played with these 90-year-old musicians in Texas. To this day, they are some of the most playful, curious, open-minded, and truly youthful people I’ve ever interacted with. I think there’s something about music that makes a lot of space for what I consider to be ageless.

You’ve recorded in some pretty specific climates before. Why make an album in the New York City winter?

Lenker: Man, scheduling is hard. But I also think there was the feeling of burrowing into this warm little place in the city. It was our first time making an album in New York City, let alone deciding to bike all the way to and from the studio. The cold gave us the sense of being a tiny little speck in this big city, and then of going through a door into a warm space with twelve other musicians. It was like a refuge from the bustle, rather than being in an idyllic, quiet country setting where you’re in the studio and you want to go outside to get away. It was kind of like going inside the getaway. It was the feeling of hibernation. And I’m a Minnesota girl, so I was in some deeply cold winters in my childhood, and I’ve always felt really creative during that time.

Did that biking ritual help lock you in rhythmically?

Meek: I think there is a kinetic alignment to moving together as a pack. We often changed our route depending on the wind. We’d play beautiful, ambient Irish music on a Bluetooth speaker, which kind of turned the city into a poetic landscape. We’d ride our bikes through Times Square blasting Enya. It was a way to have a playful, physical relationship with the city space before going into the studio and getting really heady.

Why did Max’s departure make it necessary to bring outside musicians into the recording process, rather than keeping it within the band?

Krivchenia: After Max left, we were working on stuff as a trio and even did a little recording. The three of us have been playing together so long, and I think the energy paths were just stuck. You know, you’re so used to the way people play. Everyone has so many preconceptions and we all have our quirks, and we’re all basically able to mindread one another at this point, and detect everyone’s moods. But being in a big group shakes you out of that, because all of a sudden you’re not just performing with your super close friends. With those close friends, you can be super intimate and open, but you can also be more of an asshole, because they get you, you know what I mean? In a big group, you’re totally aware of the different ecosystem. You need to step back and see how you fit into it, and find your way through it in a way that’s new and not the same path.

As a band that, with each album, has been traveling more towards joy, play, and relief, Laraaji makes sense as a collaborator.

Meek: Yeah. Connecting back to your previous question, I think playing music is very physical as well as mental, and sometimes those two things are at odds. Both are very valuable, but my mind often overrides intuition or the nature of what my body knows, its somatic intelligence. I think playing with a group of people in a big room like that forces you to listen outside of yourself and your own thought processes and to tap into a more responsive, intuitive relationship with what’s happening around you. I see Laraaji as a master of that. He maintained a really open, almost neutral presence throughout the whole session, where he was just listening to everything and responding with incredible openness. It was a big lesson for me.