The New Yorker Radio Hour - Bon Iver on “SABLE,” His First New Record in Five Years

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

Bon Iver is the alias of Justin Vernon, who holds an unusual place in music as both a singer-songwriter in an acoustic idiom and a collaborator with the biggest stars in pop, including Taylor Swift, Charli XCX, and Kanye West. Bon Iver’s new three-song EP, titled “SABLE,” is his first record of his own songs in more than five years. Vernon rarely gives interviews, so this is an extended version of his conversation with the staff writer Amanda Petrusich. They touched on the meaning of “sable,” a word that can refer to mourning and darkness. Vernon is not altogether comfortable with the acclaim he has received. “I’m not, like, famous on the street, People-magazine famous, but . . .  there’s been a lot of accolades,” he tells Petrusich. “I was getting a lot of positive feedback for being heartbroken and having heartache and I’ve wondered . . . [if] maybe I’m pressing the bruise.” New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The musician Justin Vernon, who goes by Bonie Ver, occupies a unique place in pop music. On his own records, he's a singer-songwriter, often in a very spare idiom. But he's probably better known as a collaborator with some of the biggest stars in pop music, notably Kanye West and Taylor Swift. Bonie Verre is releasing his first new music. in five years, starting with the song Space Side, and he came to the studio the other day to talk with our music critic, Amanda Petrusich.

Bonie Verre is the alias of Justin Vernon, a singer and songwriter from O'Clair, Wisconsin. He's about to release a three-song EP called Sable, says Bono Verre, which, by the way, is a French phrase meaning good winter, lifted from the television series Northern Exposure. a deeply formative work in Vernon's creative universe. His music is so important to me, but I actually find it incredibly difficult to characterize, in part because none of it really sounds the same. He's done the very bare-boned acoustic thing, like on Skinny Love.

He's experimented with distorting digital effects, like on 715 creeks. But it all kind of feels the same. It's tender and transporting and human and angry and raw and deeply beautiful. I can't think of another contemporary. singer who does what Vernon does with his voice. There's just no distance in it. I last spoke to Justin at the New Yorker Festival in 2019, and I am terrifically excited to sit down with him again. Hey. Justin, it's so, so good to see you. It's great to see you, too, Amanda. First new Bonnevair record in five years, not a minute too soon. Man, we missed you. We need you. Very, very, very, very glad you're back. Thank you. I'm glad to be back.

So five years is a very civilized pace, I think, and you've hardly been silent during that time, but do you feel any kind of internal or external pressure to produce a thing on a certain schedule? Nope. Nope, not at all. This one really came from personal necessity, I think. It was just time. Some of these songs have been bubbling for five years since the last stuff came out, and it was just time. and it's been coming together nicely.

Yeah, well, I wanted to ask you, I mean, Sable is just 12 minutes of music, but for me it feels a lot bigger than that. So I guess I wanted to ask you about the grouping of these three songs in particular into an EP. I know you mentioned they were written at different times. I mean, to me, I hear like a very legible arc to it. It's like a closed circle almost.

I mean, for me, it feels like the story, and it's very relatable, to be honest, You know, the story of a person trying and then a person failing and then maybe a person kind of finding some peace with their limitations. That feels right. Do the three songs feel like one story to you? Yeah, I mean, they just feel like an equal distant triangle or just a triptych or whatever. It's three. Yeah.

And it couldn't be longer. These songs were just so related as a part of a one, two, three. You know, it's like it kind of runs the gamut. from accepting anxiety to accepting guilt to accepting hope, those three things kind of in a row. There's not room for a prolog or an epilogue at that point. It's sort of that's it. That's what everything is.

And on the topic of these songs being so kind of, they're personal, of course, but the need to share them is very personal. And I think arriving at the ideas, and then when I felt that there was such truth in them, of outside of myself, like beside me, there are these songs with truth that I've sort of located or been the vehicle to, but they're true. And I was like, these have to be, these have to be shared. Yeah, the public piece of it is interesting. I used to be sort of a cynic about, you know, things like

weddings. It was like, well, why do we have to, you know, why does it have to be a big, whatever, performing thing? But then you realize that is, that is sort of the profundity of it, right? Like, You're kind of putting this thing out there in front of everyone. The public piece of it is important. I mean, not just sitting on these songs, not just having them for yourself, sharing them. I mean, that's kind of the final step for you. Yeah, I mean, we're not living in caves, right? And we wouldn't be wanting to, without death, there'd be no meaning for life.

And, like, we put these things out in the public. I put them out in the public because I know there's truth in there that I want to share with everybody. I think where it gets slippery is the best word. is just when it's like, okay, then we need to see the person that sings the song. The song has seemed to be lately like it's not enough. And that's the part that gets me a little sensitive. Yeah, yeah, of course. But of course, we need to share this stuff with people.

That's what art is, and that's why I believe in art and expression so much, because it does seem to be the thing that kind of carries cultures forward past their old haunts and problems, you know. Yeah. Oh, my God. I mean, I think art can be incredibly instructive as well as a lifesaver. I mean, I'm certainly not the first person to suggest that. But yeah, navigating that piece of it, the public piece of it, I feel like historically you've been pretty careful. I mean, pretty mindful, even using the name Boni Vair, even not necessarily recording under your government name, as it were. You know, it puts a little air, maybe a little space between you and the thing out in the world. But you're in these videos. It was lovely to see your face. Thank you. It felt like, you know, there was a certain amount of acceptance, I think, in that. And my great friend, Eric Carlson, who did all the artwork and we worked so closely together for seven years. I mean, we're still very close and working on various things together.

He was like, man, just when are you going to do your man in black thing? I was like, challenge accepted. Let's go. And I think hiding has been a valuable thing and a way to express that I don't feel. think it's that important who I am, but that the songs are most important. But then I also sought it as a challenge to myself and a way to sort of, you know, people have come up to me on the street and it's like, Bon, Bon, Mr. Iver, or whatever. And I just thought, well, maybe this is for them that they don't mind or need Justin. They might need Mr. Iver.

You know, so I think that was why I kind of wanted to step up and really enjoyed working with Aaron Springer and her photography, and we had a, it was a good experience. It felt like it matched, it matched the whole, you know, it's me in a cabin playing a guitar, you know, kind of playing a character, which I took because I don't wear Cabo hats easily, you know. No, the videos are gorgeous. And I think there are kind of nods in there to the whole sort of BoniVeer canon, the BoniVeer mythology. But it also feels very true to sort of you right now.

I feel like I want to clarify by the man in black thing, you were talking about Johnny Cash, and not men in black, the legendary film. Oh, yeah, definitely, Mr. Cash. Because that would be an incredible twist for the Bonne Verre story. Thank you very much for clarifying. So you mentioned the sort of the cabin imagery, which obviously is so kind of central and crucial to your origin tale. You know, for listeners who have been with you since for Emma, forever ago, your debut is Bonne Verre. I suspect the single, Spacide, might feel at first like a kind of,

of return insofar as it's a little more stripped down, it's a little less layered, it's raw. I mean, we're just talking about your face, but your voice is incredibly kind of big and present and vibrant on that song. Do you think of the two kind of poles of Boni Bear, as I would describe them, you know, music that's sort of minimally produced versus music that's maybe more maximally produced. Did those things feel in opposition to one another for you? I think it sort of felt like from Pharma until I and I it felt that it was an arc or an expansion

from one to all you know and I think I was very much me trying to talk about that we the us outside of I you know and I think when I got to these songs it was just like you know the obvious thing I was like well people might think this is a return to

something but it really feels like the kind of raw second skin it's like I do think about time in cylindrical, forward-moving circles, and I think this has been a big, a big one intersecting. And it's, yeah, it feels very raw and like a new person, new skin, new everything, rather than like a return. Yeah, that makes total sense. But I wanted to have it be, you know, I didn't want it to be. People say, I wanted it to be like this, you know. But I did feel like it was important to strip it down to just the bare essentials and kind of get out.

out of the way and not hide with swaths of choirs and things like that. I just get it as close to the human ear as possible. Yeah. Okay, so I have this kind of running text thread with a close run in mind where we try to text each other the loneliest things we can think of. We've been doing this for years. And so, like, every six months or so, I'll get a text from him that will just say, like, rental car shuttle pre-dawn. Yeah. Or horse stuck in the mud.

And a recurring character on our text thread is the pedal steel guitar. Oh, man. So it will just be like, you know, pedal steel solo, like Buck Owens together again. You know, it's just apocalyptic. It's apocalyptic sad. Yeah, yes. And so pedal steel on two of these three new songs, I'm curious, your relationship to that instrument, what you kind of hear in it. Yeah, well, it's the most beautiful musical instrument that humans have constructed.

I think so, too. really is it's impossible it's an impossibility um and the innovators of it you know truly an american invention and and just how it mimicked the the voice but there's just nothing that slides between chords like that still like they've been trying to make keyboards in this century that mimic that and they're just nothing like it and particularly the greg lease um who's you know he's played on he played on the second record as well you know he's one of my favorite musicians to ever to ever live and i was very very lucky to get to record him again and like very formative record was bill frazell's good dog happy man and that was the first time i ever

heard gregg play he played mostly gobro on that album um but the way that he without going too deep in a story there's there's a song that my high school friends and i that were very very very close um the song on that record called that was then we all all have tattooed. And the moment in which we all kind of felt the most alive. And together was this little seven, eight second passage. It's Greg playing this metal steel. And so it's kind of like the pinnacle of music to me.

And so to get him on there is just, you know, it's adding something familiar to me. And on the best instrument there is. And even him, he's a master, right? And he's so funny. And we get along so well. But even, you know, he'll sit there and be like, oh, how does this go? like, oh, you know, it's just so hard. It's just so many strings and pedals.

It's so hard to play. But he's always searching, and he's always right on the edge of finding genius stuff. That's amazing. You can kind of hear that searching, I think, in his performance on those songs in particular. There's so much yearning in it. So when I was thinking about what I wanted to talk to you about today, one thought was that I really don't want to ask you too much about the lyrics, because I feel like there's an opacity and a kind of obliqueness to your writing that I find incredibly beautiful and sort of useful

for me in the music. You know, the language is close without being too confessional, it's sort of narrative without being too explicit. And I thought, well, okay, I'm not that interested in the literal meaning.

I don't want to ask about that, but I did want to ask about the title. Yeah. So Sable, a synonym for black. It's a piece of clothing sometimes widows wear. It's a river in Michigan that my fly fishing friends

tell me as kind of holy water for trout. But you use it as a noun. in awards season. The lyric is, But I'm a sable and honey us the fable. But I'm a sable. And honey us the fable.

You said that you were unable. That it's not reprie. Can you talk a little bit about what that word means to you? It's such a good question. And for years and years, it's been this word that's just always been there. And it's, I think I even, there's an outtake from the second record, I think, that I'm just remembering right in this moment that I think I've used in a lyric for that. And I never known what it is.

And so I've been exploring it. I was like, those lyrics came out when I was writing award season. I'm like, well, I don't know what it is, but it's true. And so since I wrote it and I knew it was true and I didn't know what it meant, I was like, be okay with that. And so I've been, you know, I looked it up. I'm like, Sable, morning, deepest black, also a place name, like, what is it, you know? It's like, for me, I think when I'm speaking that line, what it kind of refers to as being the darkness. It's sort of, I reflect on it like there's been times in my career where it felt like repeating a cycle of heartache.

was I was getting a lot of positive feedback for being heartbroken and having heartache. And I've wondered, I haven't found the answer yet, but I kind of referred to myself as like, maybe I'm pressing the bruise, maybe I go back, maybe I'm unknowingly steering this ship into the rocks over and over again

because, you know, I'm not like famous on the street, people magazine, but I've been highly, you know, there's been a lot of accolades for me and my heartache, you know, and that thing. And so it's asking the question, like, I'm a sable. I've been a sable. I'm repeating this cycle of sorrow. Am I or am I just felt unlucky or is it just how sorrow goes?

And this is how everyone feels it. But that's kind of what it means to me. I mean, I hear joy and wonder in the work, too, but you're right, that that is sort of part of the story of Boni Vara. that's part of what people hear in your music. And I think it's easy to be kind of dismissive of that idea and say, like, well, that's a toxic notion that artists need to suffer to make work. But pain is like a particular, it's generative in a way. That's a really good way to say.

Right. I mean, when we're grieving, when we're mourning, when we're hurting, I mean, it's an expression of love. And it's also sort of when we're kind of like the deepest in ourselves, you know? I hate to say all of this. This seems like a tenter. I think it's either the most surface or the deepest thing. And it's like grief can only come from the highest joys and the greatest things in life, you know. So I think that's why it's so familiar to so many of us.

And why I find it, you know, as a person to sort of explore it, to make sure that I'm not doing that. You know, I'm not sure I've done that. But I'm sure that there's some truth to it. And I think it's good to examine it and to wonder if there's Texas. to that, while also sharing some things that I really needed to find out about myself in these songs. Yeah. And so in that regard, it's been worth it because I needed to go through these songs to find out

how I felt to really actually say how I've been feeling. Oh, that's so interesting. So that, I relate to that as a writer too, that feeling of like, I don't know how I feel about anything until I sit down and try to write about it. Yeah, totally. So you learn about yourself in the course of songwriting. Yeah. It's a way to kind of, I don't know, express or actualize things about yourself that maybe you didn't know before.

I mean, are the things that have surprised you that have come out in the lyrics where you thought, wow, I didn't know I felt that way? Well, it's hard now because I've worked on the lyrics to these songs for so long that they don't feel like surprises anymore. And as I finished them, you know, I was sitting alone when Spaside came out and I've done a really good job of kind of getting off socials and not reading reviews, positive or negative or anything. But it was just kind of a weird feeling. I was like, what do I feel like right now? Like space hides out in the world. And I don't, I'm not hearing anything back or I don't know what's going on. And I just kind of said to myself, it's like, well, my work is done.

Like, I did it. The reason I did this was for myself and to say sorry and to reckon with truthful things, you know. And so I was like, well, it's, it's okay. Just go play tennis. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of regret in that song, I think. A lot of culpability.

Yeah. Those are really hard things to deliver. Those are very hard things to say out loud to sort of understand about yourself. I can see how on the other side of that you might feel a little lighter, a little more free. A little bit. There's always going to be scar tissue, but if you can heal up and you can look at it and you can mend, then you got you got a chance to find joy again. Yeah, absolutely.

So speaking of lyrics, I think of you as a person who considers language kind of pliable. Not just language, but punctuation too, which is a very fun thing about the Boni-Vare discography. You've made up some words. Where does that kind of playfulness, was language come from for you? Man, I don't know, probably just from, you know, I did not get, you know, you say the punctuation thing. my first thought is like, I just did it wrong. But, no, I mean, I think it's just expression. Like having, you know, one of my best friends growing up

were still really close. We get in semantic arguments sometimes. He's like, something, Justin, you can't say something is super unique or really unique. It's either unique or it's not. I'm like, no. Your friend should get a job at the New Yorker. They could edit my work with enthusiasm. Shut out.

Shout out, Kyle. Yeah. I think like, yeah. Well, I mean, it comes from a place. It's the Sable thing. It didn't really know what it was. And it's interesting, you bring up this opacity about my lyrics in the past. It really feels like, speaking of the second skin and like getting to this, this EP, it does feel like I've sort of found this, like, nude narrative structure in these songs where it's like a little more clear what's been going on. And it's kind of just sang. it versus kind of like dancing around it or shrouding it in choirs. Yeah. You know, you've discussed the utility of psychedelic drugs in your life in terms of managing anxiety or maybe enabling creativity at times. I'm sort of curious how that stuff fits into your life these days. Well, these days, not much. I think, well, like first, you start with, you know, marijuana or something now, which is, like, legal all over the place and you can talk about it. And it's, but it's not in my life anymore, really.

And I once thought about pot, weed, my Mary Jane. God, all the names are so whack. But it's sort of like going to the bowling alley and putting those bumpers, you know, in the thing. And it's like, this rules every ball I hit hits pins. You know, every idea I have has got legs. And, you know, after a number of years, that feeling gets really addictive and it's like everything feels like you're going downhill until you're like wait but i'm the bumpers are in the lane and i think you know um mushrooms um lSD these are things that really like

there were times where it's very very therapeutic and and i think i look at it like opening a door The door that needs to be opened to open your mind. It's certainly stirred deeper pits of empathy and understanding and oneness with human beings and the world. And, you know, ideas I already have, but that's utterly solidified these ideas that we are each other. And hurting one another is not going to get us anywhere but down, right? But the metaphor about it opening a door is that you have to close a door. It can get pretty drafty. And if you leave that door open too long, the snow's going to come in and you're going to get fried.

And, you know, so it can get, there's a spot. And, like, I don't look back with many regrets, although I look back with accountability and reckoning and a hope to change difficult behaviors. But, you know, it's not, those stuff's not in my life anymore because I think I opened that door and when I've tried to go and see, oh, maybe I could open it again.

It's like, it's okay to keep this one closed. Yeah. But having gone through it, here I am, you know. Yeah, yeah. No, that's kind of the journey, I think, one hopes for, right? Like, it's useful while it's useful, and then when it's not, you walk away.

So looking at the discography, I mean, the band on this record is pretty small, pretty tight. But looking at all the other records, I think I can presume maybe a kind of hunger in you for collaboration. So as a person who writes, you know, alone, you know, door locked, I'm both sort of envious of and extremely curious about kind of what that process actualizes for you. You said in a profile in 2019 that power has come to me, but it's not fun to wield by yourself and it's not as useful if it's just your vision. And I think, you know, that was one of the themes of I-I, as you mentioned. and I'm curious about what appeals to you

about sort of resisting that kind of autore path and letting other people in. I believe in the power of the individual. Don't get me wrong, but I've always just found it a bit distracting to the point. Like, why do we like a song? Is it because of who it is

that's singing it to us, or is it the song? And I just think it's the song. For me, it is. For me, it's just about the song and what the music does because it can be very different. distracting when it becomes like, oh, I love Bonne Verre so much. I want more Bonne Verre. I want to see Bonne Verre. I want to get his autograph.

So not only is that stuff just I'm sensitive to it and like the attention can be just a little overwhelming. I'm also uncomfortable with it because it feels distracting to the main point, to the point that music delivered me to myself, you know? But it's, you know, I can also say like when I first heard a hello in there by John Brian. I was 12 years old and I saw a universe of human joy and pain and love and life and death all in three minutes. And I was like, of course, I'm going to be like, what was that? I'm going to be like, okay, it was John Prine. So more of that. And it's useful, right, to have a name or whatever. But I just think, I've also found that when I've drank little sips of the Kool-Aid where it's like, oh, maybe I am like really good at this or like really special or I've got some sort of, you know, gift. Not that I don't think that that's true, or not that I don't think I've really rigged up a huge antenna to catch things and have gotten better at crafting songs, and these are my best songs, et cetera, et cetera.

I just don't need to dwell on it very long, and it's not going to help me get any better, and it's not going to make the songs any more true or less true. And so the collaborative aspect, it's just like, you can't do it all. If you try to do it all, you'll just, you'll end up not getting it right. You know, like I couldn't play the pedal steel, so why would I try?

You know, I try playing stuff and then getting somebody else and then replaying it. But, yeah, I'm just interested in the truth, I guess. Yeah, no, that's such a beautiful answer to that question. I mean, I wonder if what you were talking about, the kind of emphasis that we place on performers and performance, I wonder if it's because, it's a very funny thing for me to say as a music critic, I wonder if it's because no one understands songwriting. Even songwriters, I think, right? Like, it's a very mysterious process.

A lot of people speak of it as this almost sort of divine channeling or like a sound or an idea or melody comes to them and they're just sort of receiving it and recording it. So it's harder, right? Like, it's easier to be like, oh, there's a guy up there and he's singing and he has a voice and I also have a voice. Okay, like that makes sense to me. Yeah, yeah.

This other thing, it's like, where did that come from? Like, where do songs come from? Yeah. Well, I mean, where does, I mean, that's the, big question, right? Like, why are we worried about what happens when we die? Like, what are we trying to find out? What makes us, what is this mystery that we all seem to agree is there? Yeah. And, well, and music is such a big piece of that. I mean, it's like one of those things that they, I think, neurobiologists are constantly studying it trying to understand sort of why it works on us. There's, there's no kind of clear evolutionary

advantage or reason for people to just be absolutely sort of devastated or buoyed by music, but we are and we always have been. So it's, there's like a little bit of God. it in that way, you know? And it's, anyway, it's a hard thing to sort of... I mean, that's, it's, uh, having been atheist and an agnostic at different times of my life, you know, growing up Lutheran and then studying world religion and college, you know, it was like cynical and atheist and agnostic and, you know, almost angry that when we, when we use the word God, I think we were misusing that word or...

But I've been saying the word again lately because I'm, um, I'm, sick and tired of saying synchronicity and coincidence. And I just don't know what else to call it. And, you know, I've had friends who are, you know, deeply, deeply religious and they talk about what God means to them. And I've been a little more open to it. I'm not, I'm certainly not a theist. But I like the word God. And I'm back to it, back to using it. So to kind of return to the idea of collaboration just a little bit. one of the things I think is really amazing about it is, or in my mind, would be really amazing about it, is that it's got to really force you to be, like, incredibly honest and vulnerable and, and sort of true things that are hard for me. I think things historically are hard for a lot of people.

I'm curious, you know, I would imagine when you're working with people, you have this sort of line of communication that's quite open, and you're able to be really frank about, like, this is working, this is not working. I mean, how has that been for you? Have there been moments where, you know, your vision has not aligned with someone you were working with? And it was a little bit more of a tense thing than a sort of beautiful blossoming thing? Yeah. You ever had to scream, get out of my studio? Twice.

Yeah. You know who you are. I think there's just times to communicate. I think we, I just learned that saying how you feel is really important. I'm like 43 years old. really hard. You just have to do it. It sucks. So I think collaboration in the musical sense is sort of like, oh, just try it again is a way of saying that wasn't it. And then sometimes you're like, well, this just isn't going to be it. And then you don't really have to say anything.

So in that way, I never had to practice being super honest. I would just be like, well, I'm not going to use that. Or I'm going to redo that later. Or I'll edit it, you know. I'll chop it up later is what they say. But yeah, of course, like, you know, some of my long-time collaborators, like Rob Moose, we just have such a language that we've built over the years that it's pretty easy for us to find what each other is wanting. And we're both very giving space to the other. Like, okay, like, I'm not sure what you mean, but, like, let's explore that.

And he would say the same to me, you know. And Rob's my favorite collaborators, if not my favorite, you know, just musically the way that what I've gotten to achieve with him is just, like, kind of wild. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it feels like an almost sort of faded partnership. Yeah. You very famously collaborated with Taylor Swift first on her album folklore, which won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2021.

In her acceptance speech, she says, I want to thank Justin Vernon. I'm so excited to meet you one day. And so I have to ask, since that moment, have you two met each other? Oh, yeah. R.R. Oh, yeah.

IRL and we got to hang quite a bit. Did you learn anything from her about songwriting in particular? Oh, man. I mean, every song I hear I learned something, but she's just gotten better and better and better. And of course, her and Aaron together has just been an amazing partnership. You mentioned Aaron. You mean Aaron Dessner of the National,

a band that has been, I think, collaborators, friends for many years. I know what it's like to hear. hear Aaron pull up a beat or a little piece of music that he's done and want to be running. You know, I'm running to the microphone and to the pad of paper. And to hear her, you know, she did a song on our Big Red Machine together. And the albums that Aaron's worked on just heard like a progression. It's like you keep getting better. And that's flabbergasting to me.

She keeps digging it. And you can tell that it's just, it's coming out of her. It's not like she's like, let me try really hard to be a better songwriter. it's just happening. I just can't applaud her enough for, for, I don't know, just hearing herself and believing in herself so much. Yeah, well, it's kind of cool to hear

or to sort of behold an artist where it seems like maybe there's no bottom to that well. I mean, do you live and sort of work in fear that, like, one day I'm just going to run out of ideas. No, no, if anything, I'm bringing it on. Yeah, yeah. If I didn't have to write songs, then maybe I could be chilling out of beach somewhere

or something, you know, You know what I mean? But I definitely feel like there's a well for me, and I don't necessarily want it to end. But I will accept, again, truth is the most important thing to me, even if it hurts, even if it's painful. So if I've run out of juice and I'm not meant to be writing anymore, that will be okay. I will know what to do. I will try to be just a good person. And I hope you look

As I fill my book What a waste of wood Bonie Verr speaking with staff writer Amanda Petrusich More in just a moment Nothing's really happened like I thought it would I also wanted to ask about your collaboration with Charlie XXX

We've seen the billboard We've seen Bonie Verre In the Brad Flon. Maybe it was AI I saw a picture of it On the internet But what can you tell us about your contribution to the remix of Brett? Oh, man.

Well, got a random call like, hey, you know, what do you want to? I was like, yeah, this is like happening. I think the most, I mean, Charlie's amazing. And, you know, I think she's carving this path that's her. And that's what I want from an artist. And she's doing it so well. and the art and the music that's aggression, it's like power, it's popness, it's just amazing.

And so I was like kind of a no-brainer. So I came down the pike and we just sort of tried out some things and batted it back and forth. And it was also strange, like the day that we were working in the studio together, I think it was that day or the day before or something. This is all within like 20 hours or something. They had announced walls as the volleyball. as the vice president,

and then there was, Charlie was over, and then, like, almost, I think it was like the afternoon that I met Charlie, that they were like, Harrison Walls are doing a rally in O'Clair, like tomorrow or whatever.

Wow. Can you play? Which later became this very funny kind of flashpoint amongst conservatives who were, you know, saw photos of this massive crowd in this kind of panicked way, said, well, these people are only here

for the pop star Bonovert. You know, it was trying to sort of diminish, I think, pull. What was that experience like? Well, I didn't see much of that afterwards. I was just kind of blown away by being kind of in front of people again. You know, Mike and Sean and I hadn't, I had barely picked up a guitar in a year and we had not rehearsed and we just went in through all the crazy security, you know, secret service and we just got on the stage and started going. You know,

We didn't have our usual homies there to help us, and we went in with our friends from town, and we just got up there and did it. The experience of singing the Bonavere songs was a little too familiar and not quite what I was hoping to feel. It was hot. It was a dry sound. It was outside.

We didn't have the biggest PA system. And it was hard to look at the people, like, you've been down in this pit, in this sunshine all day, and here we are going, you know, it's like, doesn't feel quite like, yeah, you know, and I tried to pick some good songs, but it was like, damn, we are, yeah, we are, like, we are slogging through some old Bonavere material right here. But I had been, kind of a long story short, I had been listening to this Rikudor song, Rally Round the Flag, a lot. And it's, of course, it's old, you know, union melody from the Civil War. And I had had the correct intuition to play it. Sounding the battle. And it was one of those moments where it reminded me of that like real moments are real moments.

And no matter how like much somebody might have liked one of those first three performances of those Bonnevere songs, the entire energy in the air switched polarity when we started playing that familiar melody. You know, these people, oh, it's a battle cry or rally around the flag. And we did it. And it just, the crowd erupted. Everyone's shoulders changed. My voice changed to something more embodied and comfortable and present. And it just felt like patriotic in a way.

And while I have a great amount of cynicism and an appropriate amount of such for the systems in place that don't, you know, deliver actual freedom that's promised. and our like constitution and things, it felt like a really valuable moment to also say we have so much. And we still have like this dream of America, you know. And so I was really, really, really proud to be there. And just like Walls being a Minnesota, you know, hunter football player like I was, you know,

I felt very, very honored to be there to that day. Oh, that's beautiful. That's really nice. I think you're right. There is like an inertia and an energy to that. anger and the rage that we all justifiably feel, but it's good to check in with those other moments of feeling, you know, proud. What do we have and how much suffering has gone down for us to be able to walk down the street today? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

It's not the most future-leaning. It's not the most, like, let's change the future feeling, but boy, is it rooted in understanding. And I feel like that's an underappreciated thing at times. Yeah, no, agreed, agreed. So the last record, IAU made in Texas right along the border there. Yeah, the majority of the way. But these three songs were all recorded at April base. There's studio in O'Clair and Wisconsin. Do you work differently there than other studios?

Yeah, it's been a big reflection point because I was actually working in this kind of makeshift studio during the pandemic. It just so happened that we went under an intense renovation process right at the beginning of 2019. and that's when we moved most of the stuff to Texas and set up there for almost a couple months. But then, you know, when the record was done and we went on that tour, by that time it was 2020, and then the pandemic happened,

and that studio was empty. So I kind of had to move into this, like, small house on the property and kind of lived there by myself during the pandemic. And so that's where I kind of set up a makeshift studio. It was really good experience because I hadn't set up my own, own gear in a long time and that's something I've always done since I was really, really young is

just like setting up the stuff. And, you know, I've had so much great help through the years, you know. And so that was really, that was really good. Just like the ritual of like, untangling the cables and plugging stuff. There was a point where I was like, I need to switch the screen so it's over there. And it took me three days to untangle the cables. And I was like, this is good for me. This is really good for me. Just humbling experience. But to answer your question about being out there, I'm not. I think for years, like during the psychedelic mind-opening years, especially, it was like running downhill. Everything was expanding, you know, quickly it felt like I was surfing down the hill, right?

Then at a certain point, you know, it started to feel a little stagnant. And I think it was because my, you know, my social life, my creative and collaborative life were, it was now becoming, you know, there was a circle and everything was inside of it. And I hadn't met a lot of new friends. I hadn't really been in other studios in many years. And so I think there's been a little bit of action in the last couple years of like, let me get out of here a little more. But it was a different, you know, experience during the pandemic because it was just the makeshift studio and it was just me by myself. And so it was very much like a reset in that way. Yeah, I can imagine. And now you're spending time elsewhere. You're spending some time in California. How does that feel? Necessary. All that sunshine, man. I mean,

holy hell. I mean, I am, if anybody knows me, it's like I am Wisconsin through and through. But, you know, like speaking of April base, it's like, if I'm just there, then what is April base for, you know, and what's my love of Wisconsin for if I don't, you know, have to come back to it? And also, it's a little lonely out there. you know, a lot of my family and my, my oldest friends have all moved away. And so I also haven't had a lot of opportunity to meet new friends that weren't somehow connected to my past, my hometown. Or to your work. Or to my work. And, you know, a couple of my new friends in L.A. was just like, hi, my name is Justin.

Hi, my name is so-and-so. Do you want to be friends? This is great. You know, and I was just like, I almost like started crying when I realized this is my first new. friend based on normal circumstances in 16, 17 years. And I really mean that. And so that's been, you know, a very positive thing. There's a little anonymity for me walking around, a lot of anonymity in that town and in Los Angeles particular. So it's been very positive and challenging in the best ways. So you and I are kind of around the same age. 29.

Yep. But I kind of wonder what this era of life, you know, some people, not me, but some people might call it middle age. I'm curious what it has felt like for you. Kind of like graduating master's program or something. Kind of feeling a little old, a little aged out, a little like looking back like Chris Farley at the bottom of the hill in Black Sheep saying, What the hell was that all about? But, I mean, I think, like I said, I think I've been reckoning a lot with times I haven't been so great or times I haven't been able to be a good, as good of a brother or, you know, a family member that I know I should be. And maybe I was tempted by this or brought in by this idea that I don't necessarily, I'm not centered with over.

time and while I feel a little weary um I feel very young in another way like in the in the sense that I feel like I get a chance now to sort of not only look back but look forward and um kind of a refresh not a restart you know they're 43 year old bones you know like um but you know I feel you know I've taken care of my body more I'm taking care of my mental health more and um if I look back and see a lot of suffering in my past, it's because I wasn't treating myself correctly. Certainly, I've had everything I've needed to be flourishing, kind, and loving person. But when I look back, I do see a lot of confusion, anxiety, and despair. And so I just have gotten to this point now, and these songs have really helped me kind of, I don't know,

open that door or whatever the metaphor is, to start that new journey and to be. alive and present and grateful from now on as much as I can be. Justin, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. Boni Vair, the musician Justin Vernon, speaking with staff writer Amanda Petrusich. BoniVair's new record, Sable, comes out on Friday. I'm David Remnick, and that's our program for today. Thank you for listening. See you next time.

I know now that I can't make good. I wish I could go back in. Nothing's really something now the whole thing so. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Arts, with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Bolton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Summer.

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