Best of Rock

Recording for the band’s new album took a symbolic nine months ”“ and it was a difficult delivery. Pecknold rented a farmhouse on the Olympic Peninsula, where he “thought we’d Big Pink it,” but it turned out to be “kind of a meth-y part of town,” so they split. They tried upstate New York, another place in rural Washington, three studios around Seattle. Once, in search of some epic reverb, they ventured to the bottom of a massive underground water tank on a decommissioned Army base and sang in pitch darkness. (“We had to wear headlamps,” Pecknold says. “It was rad.”)

As late as December 2009, he was insisting there was “no way” the record wouldn’t be out the next year. But pretty soon deadlines started falling by the wayside. First they were supposed to finish last spring. Then it was September. All the while his Twitter account chronicled their frustration:

September 1: “This record has been almost done for six months!”

September 29: “Veering into ”˜Chinese Democracy’ territory.”

October 3: “Officially making a Troubled Album.”

The lowest point came last September, when Pecknold and producer Phil Ek flew to New York for mixing, only to decide they hated what they heard. “I wasted 60 grand of my own money on that trip,” Pecknold says. “I came home completely fucking depressed. We’d spent a shitload of money, the record’s not done, and I don’t know how we’re going to fix it.” At that point, says Wescott, “There was even a possibility of it not coming out.”

Meanwhile, Pecknold’s personal life was suffering. He’d been dating his girlfriend, Olivia, for the better part of five years. But between the stresses of recording and his Sisyphean workload, he was becoming increasingly distant.

“I was just hard to be around,” he says over bourbon and coffee one night. “I was fucking up in terms of being present. She’d say, ”˜What are you thinking about?’ and I’d be like, ”˜The third lyric of”¦’ I was self-obsessed, and it didn’t leave a lot of mental space for her.”

Soon after the New York debacle, she told him it was over. He was shattered ”“ but strangely energised: “It was weird. From then on, I needed the record to be perfect. I was like, ”˜If this is going to have affected all these other things in a crappy way, it needs to be fucking awesome.’”

As it turns out, it is. Helplessness Blues is a sweeping, ambitious exploration of exactly the kind of struggle Pecknold had been going through: trying to become a better person while being your own worst enemy. There are darkly personal songs, like the eight-minute breakup epic, ”˜The Shrine/An Argument,’ and existential zoom-out moments like ”˜Blue Spotted Tail,’ inspired by a Carl Sagan book about Earth’s insignificance. (Pecknold, an agnostic, is a big Sagan fan.) There aren’t many answers, but lots of big questions; it’s a quarter-life crisis record, minus the Garden State self-pity that implies.

One of the album’s few optimistic spots is the last song, ”˜Grown Ocean,’ where Pecknold sings of a beautiful dream in which he stops second-guessing himself and learns to accept life and love as it comes. It might even come true. In the months since the record was finished, he and Olivia have been trying to patch things up. She heard the record recently. What did she think? He pauses a second. “I might get a little choked up,” he says. “But she said, ”˜If this is why”¦ then it was all worth it.’”

Later that night, Pecknold is back in the car, talking about the future. The band is scattering. Tillman is renting a house in LA’s Laurel Canyon; Skjelset is thinking of following his girlfriend to New York. And in less than a week, Pecknold is packing everything up and heading to Portland, Oregon. He signed a lease on a house down there, and even though it’s not that big a move ”“ just three hours in the Subaru ”“ it’s the first time in his life he’s lived anywhere else. “It’s honestly more symbolic than anything,” he says. “Not like I’m moving on from the band ”“ but the band’s been a big part of why I stayed.”

Will he miss Seattle? “I can’t tell yet,” he says. “Portland’s a lot flatter, which is good for bike riding. And they have one flight to Europe and it’s to Amsterdam, which is cool because then I can take a train to other places.” At this point he’s just cruising, making laps around downtown. Between moving and the record and his personal life, there’s a lot of transitions going on. I ask him if he’s happy, and again, he’s quiet.

“I think happiness includes a lot of emotions,” he says. “It’s darkness and sadness, as well as moments of elation. So if you think happiness means feeling just one way, then no. But if it’s feeling at peace with whatever’s going on, feeling like you can cope ”“ then I’m getting there.”

I’m reminded of a moment from the other day at the record store. He was talking with one of the guys who run the place about some long-lost folk balladeer from the Sixties. When he went back to browsing the stacks, he seemed a little wistful. “I’m actually going to miss a lot of these places,” he said, almost like he was realising it for the first time.

Then he caught himself: “But Portland has good record stores too.”