When Animal Collective's eighth album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, was released one week into 2009, it was instantly crowned album of the year. Hitting a high-water mark for the shape-shifting, genre-defying quartet, the album sounded a celebratory call that could not be denied. In the wake of its success, Dave Portner [AKA Avey Tare] spoke.
Interview: 3 February 2009
Change is seen as defining Animal Collective, but has the way you make music actually changed over the years?
“We come from a place where we’ve always been making different things in different ways with different instruments. But, halfway through working on Feels, when Noah [Lennox] moved to Lisbon, we found this good groove of meeting up with each other at times throughout the year to work on music. We’ve been sending a lot of demos around, lately, too, which has made it easier to work on your own. The same thing happened with this record: we sent around "In The Flowers," "Also Frightened," "Brothersport," and "My Girls." Those four really set the tone. We started talking about watery sounds, and how we wanted to have a ‘shallow lagoon’ feel over the whole record.”
Did the ‘watery’ feel trickle on from the Water Curses EP?
“A little bit. Brian [Weitz], especially, likes watery sounds a lot. There’s something about a lot of the sounds in Predator that’re really inspiring: the sounds of the Alien have this really liquidy, amphibious feeling to them."
The last time you worked as you, Noah, and Brian was Danse Manatee. As different as they sound, do those two records feel closely-related to you?
“They feel a lot more closely-related to us than I think anybody would really pick up on. There were definitely times where we said: ‘are we making Danse Manatee part two?’ Maybe because it was the three of us, or the way we approached making this record, but it really felt like that, in a very specific way. Which made us wonder if we weren’t making this record that people might not ‘get’, so much.”
So, even though people think this is your ‘pop’ record, you thought they wouldn’t get it?
“Well, we were very, very excited, and felt like we were onto something that was very, very positive, that we hoped a lot of people would be into. But, songs like "Daily Routine" or "Guys Eyes," there’s something still weird about them. They’re not purposefully weird, it’s just that there are structures, or shifting parts within them, that people might find a little hard to grasp, no matter how ‘melodic’ it all seems to be.”
Has Merriweather's success, then, been a huge surprise?
“I’m more psyched about it than anything, but definitely the hype and pre-release over-excitement got a little surprising. People saying it’s the best record of the year already, to me, that’s a little intense.”
How about the crazy desire to have the album leak, how intense was that?
“It’s definitely freaky, the whole ‘leak’ thing, but it’s not the end of the world. As long as people are hearing the best quality versions of the music as they can, I don’t get bummed about it. But, when you have a release-date set up, and you have this very specific way you want it to come out, and half a year before this low quality files come out, well, yeah, that is a bummer.”
You started out making music in quite an insular fashion, how has it been getting used to the weight of other people's expectations?
“In the past few years, it’s definitely made us think about playing live, and entertaining people a lot more. Whereas, early on things were more self-indulgent —though not in a negative way— and off-the-cuff and done without thinking. Now, we think a lot more about what we’re doing; not about how to achieve mass-appeal, but about the kind of records we want to make. We more pressure on ourselves than anybody else does.”
As listener, it felt like the energies of your early records were directed entirely within, but on these last two albums your energy is directed outwardly.
“I definitely feel that with this record, this sense of reaching outward, whereas, something like Feels, to me, is going way, way inside. But, to me, it’s not such a linear progression, like ‘we started out here, and ended up here.’ Sure, we’ve grown a lot and learned a lot —especially in terms of being in the studio, and what we’re capable of doing— but I think that this is, actually, the kind of record we would’ve been into when we were 15.”
You’re still trying to entertain the 15-year-olds within?
“Definitely. And especially working on this record. It took me back to feeling like I was experimenting with stuff for the first time. I think that’s awesome! I’d like to achieve that with every record, all the time. But, I guess it all depends on the circumstance. This time, after the stress of making Strawberry Jam, it just felt like it was needed. With that record, we really threw ourselves into a lot of touring, and were working on stuff so intense it can cause friction, and there was a lot of emotional stuff that was going on that year. It was tough.”
How did the Panda Bear and Avey Tare & Kría Brekken records fit into that timeframe?
“For me, the Kría Brekken thing is just spending time with my wife. Both that and Panda Bear are outlets for doing stuff away from Animal Collective. Noah and I, more than the other dudes, are doing music all the time, so even our free time goes into music, and, that, in turn, informs Animal Collective.”
With two years hindsight how do you feel about the decision to run that Kría Brekken record backwards?
“I thought about it recently, and felt more compassion for people who got kinda bummed that we did something completely different, but I don’t feel bad. I feel like it’s alright to release a record any way you want it, and it was something that excited us enough to go ahead with it.”
You and Noah both sing, positively, of domestic responsibilities on Merriweather. It’s a nice contrast to that stock-standard traditional-male longing to be free of domestic burdens.
“I think that’s a myth, too; like people find out that this romantic idea of ‘freedom’ isn’t all it’s really cracked up to be. For us, we travel around so much that it’s more of a longing for domestic responsibilities. Sometimes, they’re the only thing that can make you sane on tour."
