Bon Iver’s long awaited arrival in Australia is so close we can almost touch it, with anticipation reaching fever pitch for the band that defied odds and are slowly seeping into the lounge rooms of mainstream music listeners.
Their sophomore, and breakthrough record Bon Iver, Bon Iver, reached #2 on the charts here in Australia as well as on the Billboard charts in the United States.
Not bad for an indie folk band from Wisconsin who over the weekend took home not one but two Grammys, first for Best Alternative Music Album, and then upsetting the likes of Skrillex, Nicki Minaj, The Band Perry, and J.Cole by winning Best New Artist.
The band are hitting the road off the back of their win, including the fabulously timed Australian tour and appearance as the headline act for Golden Plains festival in Victoria. But the band are already looking forward despite their busy schedule.
Speaking to Rolling Stone, frontman Justin Vernon has admitted that although new material might be five years away that hasn’t stopped them from fantasising about future collaborators.
“In the business of music, there’s a lot of talk about producers and singers and shit like that,” Vernon admits. “But the shit I geek out on is engineers. One person I’m very interested in working with is Frank Rogers in Nashville. I’m a big fan of modern country, and he works on some modern country that I really like. Another is Oz Fritz. He’s a great engineer that works with Tom Waits.”
“We all really care about James Blake because, well, just because,” he adds. “He’s a guy that we know well that we’ve considered bringing in. But let’s bring in his team, the men behind James Blake, as well.”
“We met all those guys and they’re great. Whenever you work in this business, you run into a lot of people that remind you of yourself. And when you run into people that are doing shit that’s totally different — but yet you all agree about how to do it — then you win.”
Bon Iver’s Australian tour kicks off on Saturday, 3 March 2012 at the Perth International Arts Festival, before travelling around the country to Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane.
