Collected Animals

ntb is amazing/epic but mght be the biggest stinker on here for me paradoxically at the same time. noahs lyrics/melody in that one seem pretty damn uninspired, but i do like them in the way that they accompany the band rlly rocking out/jamming well i guess.

lke the song itself without the flourishes and the sweet break in the middle sounds like the sweetly stupid step-child of the tomboy songs... much love tho sorry for the negative vibes

anyway the whole "damn this albums is really weird/creative, drugs must be responsible/the main inspiration!" response,to not just animal collective's music but any other non-conventional music is really tiresome

Spoiler: show

How do you feel about the fact that people associate your music with drugs?

You know, I feel like a lot of people that you hear that from are people that are mid-teens or whatever, and for me, I didn’t really start doing a lot of that stuff until a little later. And I always thought it was kind of special, an extension of experiences, of mental capacity, or mental perspective that I feel like I had with the world, but I feel like I’d already developed that to some degree when I was younger. So to me, I feel like all the things about my music that people talk about as druggy, to me are not actually druggy. I feel like they’re all things that I, and maybe it’s just a matter of having grown up listening to my dad’s record collection which had a lot somewhat psychedelic elements to it, but I wasn’t getting high, so I was used to experiencing music in that way without it being associated with drugs, so maybe that’s part of what it is.

But I think, and Noah [Lennox; “Panda Bear” in Animal Collective] feels this way strongly too, but it’s kind of a bummer to be labeled as a drug band. That side of it feels like kind of a bummer. Cause it’s like, I think we feel like we put a lot of work into making music that we think is really exciting and it’s like, when there’s this way that it can be labeled as drug music, it’s easy for a lot of people to dismiss it, like, “Yeah, it’s just a bunch of weirdos getting high.” And when it comes down to it, that’s not the reality, it’s like the music we make or how we make it. That being said, I’ve spent a lot of time in my life doing exactly that, getting high and making music [laughs], and I love it, so on the other hand, it’s totally awesome to me.

I think back to when we did Conan back in 2006, I think, or 2007. And we sort of pulled a bit of a coup, I think, and we pissed a lot of people off. They wanted us to play something off the record, like “Reverend Green” or “Chores” or something that felt like a single, but we at that time were unwilling to edit songs down from their original length, so all the songs they wanted us to play were all too long for the format on Conan, so we just pushed to play the only song that actually fit into it, which was “Number 1,” which is for sure one of the weirdest songs on the record. So we ended up getting to do it, and I think that we pissed off some of the people at Conan who felt like we’d screwed them over. But we got really psyched about it, though, cause we felt like, man, this is what we want to do on a TV show, something where there’s going to be some 17 year old kid stoned on the couch watching Conan who’s going to suddenly see this, and it’ll hopefully expand his world. So, there’s really two sides to it. Part of me, of course, I completely relate. At the same time, I don’t think any of us really like being considered or labeled as like a drug band, because in terms of how the music is made and where it comes from, it goes far beyond that. I feel like it’s an unfair reduction for people think that’s what our music is.

As for liking Centipede Hz: don't get hung up on it. I don't like it very much, and maybe people are worried that this is the beginning of the end for AnCo or something like that, but they have a long and varied history so I don't think a whole lot about it anymore. I don't care for that album a lot, and if you don't either then don't push yourself into liking it just because a band you love made it. They have a full discography full of great, magical shit.

On the 2007 Animal Collective album Strawberry Jam song “Chores” you sing; “I want to get so stoned.” Do you still feel that way?


At this point [pot] is something I’ll do almost exclusively in private when I’m working. Especially when I’m mixing, it’s my favorite time to do it a lot; it gives me a perspective that is advantageous. For me it’s more of a mental and hearing tool, it gives me the kind of focus I really like when mixing. It’s not like I do it every time, but with the last two records it was definitely part of the process, for sure.


Playing live I feel I don’t do that well when I’m stoned. Maybe if I was more of a consistent smoker. When I get blasted and I haven’t done it in a while, it’s more debilitating, whereas if it’s a more consistent daily thing, I feel I have a better grasp physically on what I’m doing.