April 11, 2012 • 1 note
And here is where you should be two-stepping, take your partner…
“All Arise!”, We All Raise Our Voices to the Air
April 10, 2012 • 4 notes
is there, like, bit torrent for soup?
Colin Meloy, Twitter 2012
April 9, 2012 • 14 notes
Interviewer: That Colin guy is just too much trouble.
Colin: He is, I mean- come on, will he please just shut up?
April 8, 2012 • 3 notes
People, I just went go-carting.
Colin Meloy, Twitter 2012
April 7, 2012 • 18 notes
All the bands I loved growing up never made it past the like five hundred capacity, eight hundred capacity clubs. So, as far as I’m concerned I just would so rarely see bands like us- and I don’t even like us anymore. I used to- I like our first couple of records.
Colin Meloy, jesting about the growth of his band, Boing Boing 2011
April 6, 2012 • 5 notes
Some people have this impression that I’m a real history nut, and that I research everything, but in fact I kinda have a twelve-year-old’s knowledge of history. And with all those songs are kind of a twelve-year-old’s knowledge of history so you kind of get the factual inaccuracy. You know, if a copy editor was to go through the songs I don’t think that anything would real fly, you know.
Colin Meloy on people’s perception of his historical knowledge, Boing Boing 2011
April 5, 2012
Take a long drive with me, my California one.
“California One/Youth and Beauty Brigade”, The Decemberists
April 4, 2012 • 1 note

On How They Approached Other Artists for TKID

Nate: And you actually asked them both in person.
Colin: Well, I actually asked Gillian, I think, over facebook.
Nate: Oh really? *Laughs*
Colin: Yeah. But, you know, that's practically like in person.
Nate: That's the new in person.
February 18, 2012 • 1 note

I grew up in Helena, Montana, and so it was really hard to get a hold of music. But I had an uncle who was going to school at the University of Oregon, and he would send me mix tapes of all the music that he was discovering.

And he would send them, and, I mean, it was just eye-opening for somebody, you know, who lived in a town where the only record store was the Pegasus Records, and, you know, in the mall. And you - if it wasn’t on a major label, you wouldn’t be able to find it.

And so that music has always really stuck with me. And I think that REM’s music, particularly from that era, has informed everything that I’ve done. I feel like I’ve been making fake REM songs from the very outset of my songwriting.

And so I think with this record, it was an attempt to try to rediscover that because I feel like I had moved away from that.

Colin Meloy, NPR interview 2011
February 13, 2012 • 9 notes

Discussing Her Majesty with Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis

Carson Ellis: All of the records have been different in how collaborative they've been. Like Castaways and Cutouts, which is an oil painting of a ghost ship, was a painting done for something else, and then we decided to use it. But with [Her Majesty] I feel like we had the idea together and we actually, sort of, did the sketch together.
Colin Meloy: I was really into World War I trenches...
Carson Ellis: Yeah, those were the World War I trenches years...
Colin Meloy: And that record is really informed by reading a lot of the great war poets. I had this idea of creating this crazy panorama of the trenches. So, we sat down and worked on it together.
Carson Ellis: And we sketched it together. I think you were like, 'Couldn't there be a guy in the bathtub there?' It was just fun to work on together.