Top 25 Quotes by Justin Vernon

There's a large opportunity for Bon Iver to be a special thing, even from a business standpoint - just trying to do cooler things. Every band sells t-shirts and plays certain auditoriums, but I'm sick of being like everyone else, because I'm not.

I could go on and on and on about how we use the word 'place' in so many different ways. About how somebody might ask you 'Where you at?' And they're not asking where are you sitting, where are you living, they're asking: 'How are you doing?

It just didn't seem to fit the story and lineage, I guess. So I just sort of surrounded 'Blood Bank' with three other songs that were very different from one other, and they all kind of came together as a palette cleanser for the last record. And I'm really excited about it.

Those old Appalachian singers use a falsetto sometimes. They can change their voices to sound high or low or really scratchy. When you're singing, usually you're trying to express some kind of pain or joy. I think that voice allows me to do a lot more of that.

Just in general as a person, not necessarily as a songwriter, being in cities wasn't the right fit. I couldn't escape and be in the woods in 10 minutes if I needed to. I like that in Eau Claire, I can walk to a bar or a coffee shop, and there's city-ish things, but I can also drive and in eight minutes be at my parents' land outside of town.

I can pour myself into Bon Iver. It's a thing about self- and mental discovery, and those are all important things. But it's not 148-shows-over-a-year-and-a-half important, though. It's a machine, and it's money, and you just get put on this indie rock cart, and it's embarrassing.