Nostalgic hippie ruralism and an air of mystery surround Fleet Foxes. James McNair tries to work out what makes the acclaimed new American band tick
Six months ago, Fleet Foxes were just another aspiring band quietly plying their trade on MySpace. Now, they are 2008's must-hear act. Signed to Seattle's hip label Subpop in the United States, they have just released an eponymous debut album that was largely recorded in group leader Robin Pecknold's basement last November. Fleet Foxes has already been hailed as a modern "classic". That is, if a record that draws on English pastoral folk music and the sound of California dreaming can be described as such.News started leaking out after this year's SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, where Fleet Foxes' guileless, openhearted music was the talk of the town."It's amazing, but it's kind of absurd, too," says Pecknold when quizzed about rave reviews of Fleet Foxes. "Regardless of what the critics say, I guess I'm always gonna think we're bad. The way music is disseminated nowadays, you could write one song, put it on your MySpace page, then a few weeks later everyone has written about you and you're gonna tour till you die. Disbelief is the only sane reaction. Until a few months ago, I'd never even been interviewed."
Pecknold's blue and black plaid shirt might peg him as coming from the Starbucks-loving birthplace of grunge, but this isn't information you'd intuit from listening to Fleet Foxes' music.It's not that their linchpin doesn't own and appreciate albums by Nirvana and Mudhoney; more that the songs he writes tap into a more Arcadian vision not dissimilar to that played out on Midlake's magical 2006 album The Trials of Van Occupanther."Yeah, I can see that comparison," says the wan, twinkly-eyed songsmith, scratching at a beard Grizzly Adams would be proud of. "Although I live in the city, I don't live a city life. It would be dishonest of me to make music about partying all night at clubs, because I'm usually at home reading or playing guitar. I'm a fan of the great outdoors, and I think there's an element of uninformed nostalgia to what we do sometimes. I doubt if it would have been much fun to live in 15th-century England, though," he adds. "No proper bathrooms."Fleet Foxes formed around the nucleus of Pecknold and guitarist Skye Skjelset while the two friends were at school. "My first impression of Robin?" asks the slight, fresh-faced Skjelset when quizzed separately. "That he was smart and funny and confident without really trying. He could have been the coolest kid in school but he wasn't interested in that.""Skye was super-shy at school," offers Pecknold, by contrast. "He still is. I guess we were outsiders, just hanging out in science class. I hated high school."Skjelset says the first original composition they played together was a prog rock-influenced nugget called "Tenement House". Back then, Fleet Foxes went by the moniker of Pineapple, but when a local punk band with the same name objected, Pecknold opted for Fleet Foxes because he thought it "evocative of some weird English activity like fox hunting".
