I really have to be in a specific headspace to even begin to illuminate an idea that would create another Bon Iver record, and I’m just not there.

Honestly, before I settled on a name for the Bon Iver project in general, Chigliak was in the running for what I was going to name the band.

I’m just happy and proud to be playing music every day. Recognition is really cool, but it can also be kind of scary.

I don’t want the big flashing lights and red carpet, like, ‘Here comes another Bon Iver album!’ I just want it to be my bedroom-y thing. But that’ll take a while to figure out.

I kind of miss writing songs the way that I used to write songs, in the sense that I would just sit down, and all these words that told a story would come out. There’s...

The falsetto stuff, it must be a reaction to the black gospel singers that I really enjoy listening to.

There’s a large opportunity for Bon Iver to be a special thing, even from a business standpoint – just trying to do cooler things. Every band sells t-shirts and plays certain auditoriums, but I’m sick...

I’m really honored that Bon Iver gives me a platform to do whatever I want, but there’s only so much time you can spend digging through yourself before you become insular. I’m not in a...

I could go on and on and on about how we use the word ‘place’ in so many different ways. About how somebody might ask you ‘Where you at?’ And they’re not asking where are...

Our lives feel like these epochs, but really, we are dust in the wind.

It just didn’t seem to fit the story and lineage, I guess. So I just sort of surrounded ‘Blood Bank’ with three other songs that were very different from one other, and they all kind...

Those old Appalachian singers use a falsetto sometimes. They can change their voices to sound high or low or really scratchy. When you’re singing, usually you’re trying to express some kind of pain or joy....

The way I see it is that I grew up with a good set of values, but it was never too strict. I was always encouraged to be a free-thinking individual. I spent the first...

I can pour myself into Bon Iver. It’s a thing about self- and mental discovery, and those are all important things. But it’s not 148-shows-over-a-year-and-a-half important, though. It’s a machine, and it’s money, and you...

I’ve been singing since I was 12. And I think that all the information is finally starting to chill out. And I don’t have to be fancy. I can just kind of do things and...

I don’t want to get myself in trouble – and I don’t think I’m super important or anything – but I think it’s so funny that when you look at the business and the way...

Just in general as a person, not necessarily as a songwriter, being in cities wasn’t the right fit. I couldn’t escape and be in the woods in 10 minutes if I needed to. I like...

There’s a few times in the past when I wrote a song, and I put the words together, and they were very clear pictures, and I felt like I was putting together a really good...

For the most part, I’ve been influenced by black singers and singers I couldn’t sound like. Whenever I tried to do a dark note or a bent note, I would just sound like Hootie And...

Someday my pain will mark you

I don’t really write songs anymore.

Growing up, all I did was write about the fact that I’m from where I’m from. I was a big champion of where I was from and Wisconsin in general, and the Midwest.

Emma is not a person; Emma is a place that you get stuck in; Emma is a pain that you cannot erase.

I’m a creature of comfort.

I know too many musicians that have to tour on the same 10 songs, and they burn out. They get back to their house, and they have no reason to write new music. They are...

I’m just living in Eau Claire, not really leaving for much. I go to the farmers market, go to the studio, go home and play with my cats. I don’t know if I’ve ever been...

I’m barely at home enough to enjoy the simple lifestyle that I want to live.