Phil Elverum

It has happened a few times that I've found myself in a surprise mid-tour recording session.

After many days of grocery store food, sitting down for a deliberate, slow, expensive eating time can be the best.

A weird side effect of being in close proximity to death is an urgency.

It even feels absurd to be writing or singing a song at all - in the context of actual death, being alive feels absurd.

There are some people that are trying to cure death, this tech immortality... That seems mentally ill.

I am commodifying my grief, to put it really bluntly. I accept it. And I try not to think about it.

I'm singing these songs about death and stuff. I see somebody who's, like, in their sixties or seventies at the show, and I'm like, 'Yeah, sure. Fair enough.'

It's a beautiful idea to focus on how everything is temporary and always in flux. It may feel bad now, but it will feel good later, and vice versa. To write about those things brings this satisfying feeling as a creative person.

We had a simple 8-track studio set up in the record store where I worked. And just staying after work and experimenting, realizing what was possible with recording - that's why my project was called The Microphones at first. Because it wasn't even songs really. It was just sound.

Usually I work at the merch table until one minute before I have to go on stage.