halls for two thousand people are already too small

‘What I have to get used to the most are the large halls where we suddenly perform’, says Adrianne Lenker (30), the singer and guitarist of Big Thief, one of the most acclaimed and successful indie bands of recent years. “I’m used to doing everything from our van. We drove from one bar to another raunchy stage, that was Big Thief five years ago. And now I’m sitting here in the dressing room of a decent room and I don’t even know where the other band members are.’

Lenker will play at The Anthem in Washington DC this April evening. The Big Thief tour, which came to an abrupt end in Europe in the spring of 2020 due to corona, has finally allowed the band to continue. There’s a new album, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You. ‘Sorry about the silly title’, Lenker apologizes, ‘it’s a sentence that came to mind and just wouldn’t let go without knowing why. Those are always the best rules for me and I want to honor them.’

broken marriage

This fifth Big Thief album, which lasts almost eighty minutes with twenty songs, was universally acclaimed when it was released earlier this year. It covers a wide palette of colors and styles. From folk to indie pop to country: many genres are touched. But it is always Lenker’s fragile yet intense voice that gives added value to the sometimes frayed, sometimes meandering melodies. This weekend, Big Thief, which provided the last pre-corona concert for many in Paradiso in March 2020, will play at the Best Kept Secret Festival.

Lenker: ‘We have been back in Europe for a while and noticed in London that halls of two thousand people are already too small for us. That was really crazy. Apparently the pandemic has done Big Thief good.” To add after a short pause: ‘Myself too’.

Because perhaps the forced break with the band was the best thing that could have happened to Lenker. ‘Not even the boys around me were what I needed that summer of 2000,’ she says in the dressing room, where she speaks to V via Zoom connection. “There were some issues I needed to address that I didn’t get around to during the Big Thief carousel that’s been running continuously for five years. A broken marriage followed by a love affair that also ended are a few events that kept grinding.’

miracle

Difficult, especially if, like Lenker, you were married to the guitarist of the band, Buck Meek. “Without Buck, Big Thief would never have existed. We got to know each other about eight years ago and turned out to be a perfect fit musically. Or maybe I should say: just musically. We played street musicians together in Brooklyn. His guitar playing matched mine so well, it’s still a miracle I don’t understand. We also had a preference for the same songs. I like melancholy music by songwriters like Townes Van Zandt and John Prine. Buck did too, and he also knew the work of all the singer-songwriters from Nashville, it seemed.’

But there was also that thick notebook in which Lenker wrote texts and made drawings. ‘The cover of our new record has such a sketch, of a few birds. I like to draw it, because it calms me down.’

Just like writing Lenker always gives you some rest. ‘Initially, those lyrics weren’t even intended as songs, it just grew that way. Why don’t you sing them, Buck said at one point. That’s what I started doing, and he played great guitar parts around it.’

With bassist Max Oleartchik and drummer James Krivchenia on board, the loving couple became a band, which from the debut album masterpiece (2016) was on the road non-stop to perform and record. In between, Lenker also released a few solo albums with ‘songs that I didn’t really want to share with the band. Nice, always all those men around me, but sometimes I also like to seek isolation.’

So was spring 2020, when Big Thief was forced to cancel their European tour. “I literally sat down in a hut on the moor, somewhere in Massachusetts, to make a record on my own, Songs and Instrumentals† You can hear the birds chirping.’

Sect

Those few months alone taught her a lot, she says. “I really had to take some time to deal with everything that’s happened to me since childhood. I had never done that before. I had a strange childhood, moved often, stayed in some sort of cult with my parents for a while, and never got a chance to settle in anywhere. That anxiety will never leave me. As much as I enjoyed making a solo record in the woods, I loved going back to Big Thief.’

But there was still a stay of a few days in a New York hospital. ‘I had done everything too quickly. Well, I sang some relationship sorrow on my record, but physically I was really exhausted in May 2020. Four days in the hospital helped me recover. And yet also seeing the boys again.’

The new Big Thief album was recorded in four sessions in four places in the United States. ‘We had already agreed that before corona drove us out of Europe. Four different environments, New York, California, Colorado and Arizona, would lead to diversity in musical colors. That was the idea of ​​Max, our bass player, who also produced everything. I think that plan has been successful. If you listen to the album carefully you will hear different atmospheres. Songs from Tucson, Arizona have a typical country vibe, those from New York sound like bare folk and in Topanga we went wild with producer Shawn Everrett with soundscapes and more complex arrangements.’

dog oso

Lenker is most proud of the variations in theme of the songs. “I love humor in songs, but it was never as easy as it was for someone like John Prine. Still I think that Spud Infinity finally a witty Big Thief song. Just look at how I potato kinish, a kind of potato pie, let it rhyme on finish† Opposite this is a pretty serious number like Simulation Swarmin which I try to express some of my inner struggles.’

And yet the album sounds like a unity, which according to Lenker has an important cause: ‘My dog ​​Oso.’

Lenker had wanted a dog of their own for a long time, as they used to have at home. ‘I almost ordered one on the internet that I was in love with, but Buck didn’t let me. You’re crazy, he said. I had no roof over my head, preferred to drive around in a trailer and then I wanted to get a dog?

“But when I stranded with that trailer in New Mexico a few weeks later, I ended up at a kennel with dozens of dogs. I got to pick one. That was Oso. I took it into the trailer and it has always stayed with me. Such a dog is an ideal distraction for everyone. If you can’t figure something out, you are bickering with each other about a guitar part or a line of text, Oso will pass by. Just pet, play, and go, everything is solved.’

struggling

Adrianne Lenker has finally sorted everything out, partly thanks to Oso, she says. ‘When I think back to the pandemic, I see myself struggling with everything. Like everyone really. But that forced isolation, confronting myself with all kinds of issues that I didn’t dare to face before, has led to beautiful things in my opinion. As Big Thief we are a close group of friends, I love the boys very much. And I think we’ve made something really special with our new album. Twenty songs that start with doubt in the song changes, and end with a resounding yes to life. In the last song, blue lightning, I sing a line I wouldn’t have dared to sing a few years ago: I wanna be the shoelace that you tie† Apparently I’m so happy and full of love that I want to be the shoelace the boys tie in Big Thief.’