Blitzen Trapper Like Foxes

I have a new car that came with a free six-month subscription to satellite radio. From what I can gather, this radio has one channel devoted exclusively to playing the title track from Blitzen Trapper's new album, Furr. They fucking love it.

Thankfully, so do I.

It's a perfect example of the new brand of folk music that's currently being crafted by a handful of talented musicians, most of whom possess successful beards. There's a melancholy melody, a woodland setting and even a bizarre lupine-related tale.

CHARTattack caught up with Blitzen Trapper's lead vocalist, Eric Earley, to talk about the record.

CHARTattack: The new album was released on September 23 and I feel like I've heard "Furr" at least twice a day on [Sirus Satellite radio channel] Left Of Center since then. How much attention has this record garnered for you so far compared to your last release, Wild Mountain Nation?
Eric Earley: I feel like this record, it's more accessible in a lot of ways, but it's more complex lyrically and I think there's more meaningful stuff going on. The record before was good, but it was this gimmicky lo-fi thing going on that the critics seemed to like, but people in general didn't think it was accessible.

Critics talk about this album being more narrow in scope than your past releases, but I think it's incredibly diverse. Is that something you strive for?
I don't think it's intentional. I think, for me, I don't think about it in terms of genre. I think about it in terms of songwriting. I think writing songs is more important than maintaining some specific sound.

In a couple of songs, there's a heavy focus on narrative. Is that important to you?
Yeah, it definitely is. I feel like there's only two really strong narratives on the record: "Furr" and "Black River Killer"... I love those kinds of songs. Some of the best songwriting, there's a lot of storytelling.

You produced the record. Was it hard to wear two caps while making an album?
I've been recording music since I was 18 or 19. It's not difficult or anything. If you've been doing it for a while, there's tricks you learn. It'd be difficult for me to do a different kind of record — hip-hop or something. But making a live music record, I've been doing that for a long time.

The Sub Pop description of the record says you basically lived in your studio during this time. Tell me about making it.
As far as that goes, I was basically homeless for two years. I was living illegally in our rehearsal space. It was fine; we were touring a lot as well. I had a lot of time to write and record music there and not have a lot of the distractions that there are when you have your own place. I just kind of spent two years making album after album in a pretty focused way.

People made a big deal about the building that the album was recorded in. Tell me about it.
It's an old building by the river in downtown Portland. It was a great spot to play. A lot of bands rehearsed there. It's a nice old place in the middle of things.

This is your first album that you haven't put out yourself. What has been the difference between having Sub Pop backing and putting out a record on your own?
It's different in that there's a lot we don't have to do anymore that we did for Wild Mountain Nation: press and distribution. Now we're free to tour and play music without dealing with that stuff, although we still do. We're selling Wild Mountain Nation ourselves. I made Wild Mountain Nation and we didn't put it out. We were seeing if someone else would. Sub Pop liked it a lot, but they didn't want to put it out. If they did, they wanted to do it later.

I wanted to ask about the album cover. It's an '80s metal logo. It sort of seems like false advertising. Why did you choose it?
[Guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist] Marty Marquis designed that. I think it's that juxtaposition of totally adverse genrefications. It's a metal logo burned into a piece of wood. It typifies a lot of what we're trying to do: ignoring genres and conventions.

Where are the photos on the inside of the album from? I like them.
A lot of those photos are from the last tour with the Fleet Foxes and some are older from our studio. The piano was from our studio space.

You toured with Fleet Foxes? That's weird because I sort of have you both filed in the same musical place in my mind.
They're friends of ours. Their record came out during the tour and they were opening for us and they were blowing up and we didn't even have a record out yet. They're such great guys and their music is so good. And they're also from the northwest.

Do you think folk music like the kind you guys are creating is making a comeback?
I don't know if it's a comeback or if there's groups doing it really well. The first Iron And Wine record was huge and it's a big folk record. Any group writing good songs will take off, and now a lot of people are doing more natural instrument, non-electronic music, and they're doing it well.