If I'm working on a set of songs, and thinking about putting them together in a collection, I start to think about what they have in common. Either on purpose or without meaning to, I shape them all in the same kind of way, because I'd rather the album feel like a galaxy of things that all have to do with each other. I do that with sonic elements, too - it's a matter of each record having its own specific identity.
Will SheffWhen people downloading records for free you start to think, "Is it worth spending all this money to make a record sound good, especially if it's going to end up as an mp3?" But I can't drive myself too crazy thinking about that. On one level, being involved in art is all a quixotic thing to begin with.
Will SheffI have complicated feelings about nostalgia. I think that sometimes it can be dangerous. It can airbrush the truth, or fictionalize the truth, which leads to the worst kind of sentimentality. But I'm also a sentimental person who feels quite a bit of nostalgia.
Will SheffI never considered myself an Americana artist, but I'm a huge fan of old-time music from the States, the recordings that were made in the '20s and '30s. Trying to chase down the exact stylistic trappings of that stuff always felt like a dead end. That spirit of directness and economy, but also the poetic pungency of the writing and almost ugly, or raw, performance - all that seemed like the real message. I've just tried to somehow stay true to that feeling.
Will SheffWhen your head is smashing into the concrete you don't have question about whether it's a real sensation. And ultimately, that's what's going to unmake us all - smashing up against the physical reality of death and decay, and being unmade.
Will SheffCulture dictated from above is the enemy of folk music. Whether it's stuffy classical music or pre-engineered pop where somebody's paid tons of money to make sure that everyone hears this song a certain number of times a day - that feels like the opposite of folk music.
Will SheffI guess I'm a really analytical person, but when I'm writing, all that stuff goes behind a screen. Analysis and taking things apart is really important and really interesting, but it's the direct opposite of creating something, which has to do with taking things and putting them together and hoping to make something unique that's more than the sum of its parts. And you can't do that with analysis, you can only take things into smaller and smaller pieces.
Will Sheff