If you attend Banhart's show at the Miami Beach Bandshell on Monday, March 27, you'll likely hear some of the new material he's been working on. He mentions a Japanese haiku that did manage that trick as a significant influence on the upcoming record, "This poem by : 'This dewdrop world/Is a dewdrop world/And yet.' The whole record is about that poem, particularly the last line - 'and yet.'" That's why I keep doing this to try to write one." "It's not poetic at all, but it's how I felt," he adds, "I still haven't written a good song. Instead, he mentions a lyric from the upcoming album: "I'm no longer singing for fun, but as a form of protection." When asked if there's an example of a song where he could capture that succinctness, he says no. If I can reduce a whole notebook down to one line, I've done something." "I was trying to capture what does the lockdown feel like without mentioning the pandemic or the lockdown. Over the three years, I filled up so many notebooks," he says. At customs, they ask what type of music I make, and I say either unpopular pop music or freak folk, but I don't know if I've been folky or freaky in a while."įor the new album he's been working on with Welsh musician and producer Cate Le Bon, Banhart found inspiration in the 2020 lockdown. "Freak folk sounds so tacky and repulsive and bad," he says - before adding the punchline, "that I fully embrace it. When asked what he thinks of that classification, Banhart initially seems perturbed. In 2002, at 21, he began putting out lo-fi records often referred to as "freak folk," somewhat reminiscent of outsider musician Daniel Johnston. The words were always more important than the music." For me, music was all about the story being told. "From there, I learned from playing with other musicians. "I took Brazilian-style bossa nova lessons," Banhart explains. "Singing felt like a secret power where I could sing myself to a different mind and art."Īt 14, he picked up a nylon-string classical guitar. I felt it gave me permission to sing," he says in a forthright manner that you can't help but wonder whether he's the most earnest interview subject ever or making up an origin story. I used to put on my mom's dresses at that age, and it unlocked something in me. To mark the occasion, he performed in Caracas wearing a dress. I don't think I met a single person there who didn't have a band or a brand." "To play for my uncles and cousins and all the artists amidst a dictatorship in an anti-individual environment, I saw you could still be unique even in a country that only supports art that's pro-government. "It was so extraordinary," he tells New Times via Zoom from his Los Angeles home. The folk singer had the opportunity to play in Venezuela, where he spent his formative years. Just a few months ago, Devendra Banhart says he played one of the most memorable concerts of his two-decade-plus musical career.
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