Justin Vernon

Growing up, all I did was write about the fact that I'm from where I'm from. I was a big champion of where I was from and Wisconsin in general, and the Midwest.

There's a few times in the past when I wrote a song, and I put the words together, and they were very clear pictures, and I felt like I was putting together a really good story. But I don't think I was ever really able to stay on that. What I've sort of developed lyrically is more about the sound of the vocals and what they are.

I can pour myself into Bon Iver. It's a thing about self- and mental discovery, and those are all important things. But it's not 148-shows-over-a-year-and-a-half important, though. It's a machine, and it's money, and you just get put on this indie rock cart, and it's embarrassing.

I know too many musicians that have to tour on the same 10 songs, and they burn out. They get back to their house, and they have no reason to write new music. They are music'd out.

It just didn't seem to fit the story and lineage, I guess. So I just sort of surrounded 'Blood Bank' with three other songs that were very different from one other, and they all kind of came together as a palette cleanser for the last record. And I'm really excited about it.

Just in general as a person, not necessarily as a songwriter, being in cities wasn't the right fit. I couldn't escape and be in the woods in 10 minutes if I needed to. I like that in Eau Claire, I can walk to a bar or a coffee shop, and there's city-ish things, but I can also drive and in eight minutes be at my parents' land outside of town.

The falsetto stuff, it must be a reaction to the black gospel singers that I really enjoy listening to.

I'm just happy and proud to be playing music every day. Recognition is really cool, but it can also be kind of scary.

Our lives feel like these epochs, but really, we are dust in the wind.

I'm just living in Eau Claire, not really leaving for much. I go to the farmers market, go to the studio, go home and play with my cats. I don't know if I've ever been this happy, which is really awesome.

I could go on and on and on about how we use the word 'place' in so many different ways. About how somebody might ask you 'Where you at?' And they're not asking where are you sitting, where are you living, they're asking: 'How are you doing?

There's a large opportunity for Bon Iver to be a special thing, even from a business standpoint - just trying to do cooler things. Every band sells t-shirts and plays certain auditoriums, but I'm sick of being like everyone else, because I'm not.