In the winter of 2006 and early 2007, Justin Vernon
disappeared to the rural woods of Northwestern Wisconsin to live in his
family’s hunting cabin. A struggling musician who did time in a few
bands you have never heard (DeYarmond Edison and Ticonderoga), and
toured with one that you might have actually heard of (the Rosebuds),
Vernon was frustrated with how his life was going, so he fled. He
hunted. He chopped wood. He made a record.
“I didn’t really go there to record. I went there with the intention
of getting away from some shit,” he explains. “There were a couple of
weeks of not really doing anything. Unwinding, reading, doing stuff
outside in the barn or the woods.” But it was then, at the peak of his
seclusion, that Vernon made a record.
It’s that record, titled For Emma, Forever Ago and released
under his nom de plume Bon Iver, which has created quite a bit of a
stir recently. Sad songs come and go, but For Emma swells to a
highwater mark of despair that is untouched elsewhere. Armed with a
voice that is smoky-cool and haunts the sparse songs like a familiar
memory, Vernon’s tales balance a distinct rural charm with that of the
bare isolationism of someone left to confront their discomfort and
personal pain. It’s a stark and raw documentation of sullen loneliness
in the form of rambling folk music, capped by Vernon’s woeful voice
that lingers like a killer in the very woods where he sought
refuge.
Vernon describes his decision to make music at this juncture not as
something that he wanted to happen, but as something that just had to
occur. “The music just started and it came out of my hands and my mind
because it was finally safe to come out. For once, there were no
distractions.”
After the last cord of wood was burned and the last bit of venison
consumed (it was a hunting cabin after all, but Vernon is quick to
dispel rumors that he is the gun-slinging, jerky-making Ted Nugent of
indie rock. “Fuck that guy,” he exclaims), Vernon returned to
civilization with a permanent reminder of his time spent in the
woods—the record. This audio postcard of isolation, a whispered
tale of loneliness and retreat, had no trouble finding a home. After
much online buzz from the original self-released recordings, For
Emma was re-released by Jagjaguwar just in time for the album to be
buried in an avalanche of—well-deserved, but still
surprising—rave reviews and hype.
The critical spotlight, while endearing, has begun to wear on
Vernon, who it seems is, not surprisingly, happiest when by his
lonesome. “It’s a bit weird because I really don’t like drawing
attention to myself,” he says while, ironically, driving to the annual
SXSW music convention, where his four performances in two days only
added fuel to the flames of critical acclaim. But regardless of the
praise, and the attention it drags along with it, Vernon is in this for
himself. Just like the winter alone in the cabin, this music, these
gorgeous textural songs, wield the same amount of power no matter the
size of the audience.