What are The Decemberists aiming to achieve with this record?
We just wanted to make a great Decemberists record. With our larger budget we wanted to be able to experiment a little and play with the album format and put in the longer songs, etc. Was the choice to bring Chris Walla back into the studio again a fairly obvious one for you all? We love working with Chris. He has a great energy and loves to experiment in the studio. He is great at recording and mixing analog (which format we chose for this record). At what point did Tucker Martine enter the picture too? Are you two connected via Laura Viers or had you known each other for some time prior? We all loved what Tucker had done in the past, and since Chris Walla wasn’t going to be able to be in the studio the entire time we were excited to bring him on board. Chris and Tucker work very well together and brought very different things to the table. We have known Laura for a few years, she has opened some shows for us and Colin did a solo tour with her last year. I had first heard of Tucker th
