Her sister and solo album co-producer Phil Weinrobe both had to remind her to eat on a daily basis, and she came down with shingles and multiday migraines, ending up in hospital in Brooklyn before retreating to her sister’s cabin in western Massachusetts. ![]() “My heart,” she says, “was broken into smithereens.” All of a sudden, it seemed like her body started to “purge everything out”. Photograph: Alexa Visciusīig Thief were in the middle of a European tour when the pandemic hit in March 2020 they had been on the road incessantly for three years, and Lenker had started a new relationship, with the musician Indigo Sparke, which came to an end early in quarantine. He’s like family now, which I think is a testament to the love that we do share.” ![]() And holding space for other people through our art, writing about it and singing about it together on stage. “We had to try to transform our relationship, to let it die and be reborn, all while being on the road in proximity to each other. “I had gone through marriage and divorce,” Lenker says in a separate Zoom call later, alone in a hotel room with her dog. But Lenker had a lot of excavating to do to find this happiness, and when the pandemic hit, everything rushed to the surface once the crowds grew quiet. “You are my favourite songwriter!” Lenker responds – this love-in is more heartfelt and less corny than it might read. We are the vessel for music that doesn’t exist that I want to hear.” This comes across as enthusiastic joy, not ego, and the music sounds like he feels it, too. ![]() You’re my favourite songwriter on Earth, and we’re definitely my favourite band on Earth. “You write the songs because it’s a form of survival. If anything, it’s the opposite,” Meek says, turning to Lenker, who is rubbing a bottle of water against her forehead to help cure a headache. “Maybe I’m delusional, but I don’t think we’ve ever made anything because someone else expected us to. ‘I don’t think we’ve ever made anything because someone else expected us to. There are mentions of potato knishes and elbows (Spud Infinity) and microwaves (Dried Roses) that would have made John Prine chuckle, and lines that kick you in the gut with their brilliant simplicity: “I wanna live for ever till I die,” Lenker sings to a country romp. Sometimes, its songs beautifully meander without a chorus (Certainty), or the music melds perfectly with the feel of the lyrics, though not specifically the meaning. “It can feel like that – you’re on stage, people are screaming – but that’s where you can get lost in yourself.”ĭragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You doesn’t try to fit neatly into a box that further defines the Big Thief sound, whatever that may be, or grasp at bigger rock stardom. “We don’t let ourselves be the cliche of the rock star,” Oleartchik says. They got here by engaging in a non-stop battle against the ego. Their new 20-song album Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You comes, in title, from that interconnecting continuum: it’s taken from a line in Anything, from Lenker’s album Songs, further narrowing the distance between what is hers and theirs, as if that even matters. ![]() “So we’ve all honoured that, and each other, I think.” “The alchemy of all those things is what makes Big Thief Big Thief in the first place,” says Meek, who wears all black and smiles as if he’s known you for ever. During the pandemic alone, Lenker released two solo albums, Songs and Instrumentals, guitarist Meek had one, Two Saviors, Oleartchik worked on his jazz material and Krivchenia released an ambient album and sat in on drums for numerous projects, including Taylor Swift’s Red (Taylor’s Version). Bassist Oleartchik lives a world away in Israel, and each band member has a vibrant set of solo interests that overlaps rather than competes with Big Thief itself. For one, Lenker and Meek are divorced – they met and started the group together in New York in 2015, and were married young. Everything that makes Big Thief work could be the undoing of any other band.
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