No excuses for Fleet Foxes

There are plenty of rules when it comes to making music, but Seattle’s Fleet Foxes only live by one: “the show must go on.”

The foursome took that to heart recently, when their singer Robin Pecknold came down with a nasty illness that made it difficult for him to sing. Taking a few days off to recover wasn’t an option. 

“There’s no reason to miss a show,” says keyboardist Casey Westcott, who took over interview duties for his vocally impaired singer. “Maybe if you lost a limb, but there are no excuses when it comes to music.”

Fleet Foxes determination to keep pushing ahead isn’t surprising, given how textured and complex their debut self-titled album is — picture a cross between Simon and Garfunkel, The Beach Boys and Crosby, Stills and Nash and you might get the idea. It’s ripe with brilliant four-part harmonies, minimalist instrumentation and contagious hooks.

The disc is so remarkable, that it’s tough to have a discussion about new bands without Fleet Foxes coming up in conversation. “People are having allergic reactions to the music,” says Westcott. “It’s a little weird.”

While the band is happy for the high praise — Pitchfork gave the disc a 9.0 —Westcott admits that he was concerned the record would never get made.

“We’ve been playing together since 2006 and we’ve been working on it straight through,” he says. “We ran out of money for the nth time, so we recorded it ourselves.

“We recoded and mixed songs three or four times in a number of years,” he continues, “and when we finally went into the mastering studio we had a ton of songs.”

In the end, the band not only released their full-length they also issued the Sun Giant EP in February, and they’re already writing new tracks. But now that the five-piece is a bonafide indie buzz band, is the pressure on them to repeat their success? “I doubt that people’s expectations are more militant and intense than ours,” says Westcott. “There are people who would want to meet those expectations, but that’s so unproductive. So it’s easy for me not to trip out.”

Pressure or not, it’s safe to assume that the group will deliver another dose of ‘60s inspired harmonic rock, a sound that has been largely credited to Pecknold’s record collection, which he inherited from his father.

Westcott’s dad was an avid vinyl collector too back in the day, but the ivory twinkler’s tastes were a little more upbeat. “I was seduced by punk music hands down,” he says. “And I studied computer music at school which is basically writing code.”

If you’re worried that Fleet Foxes has a punk album in their future, fret not. That part of Westcott’s past is history. “To be honest I’m probably too old to play that,” says the 27-year-old. “There are old punk artists who are rad, but right now my mind has turned to a different direction.”