With songs featuring epic, story-like lyrics set to multi-instrumental orchestrations, Portland, Oregon–based folk group the Decemberists have been enchanting listeners for nearly 20 years. Their music features a wide variety of unique instruments, from the accordion to the hurdy-gurdy, with many songs centered on historical events and folklore, and the group has a particular knack for crafting powerful anthems to sing along to. The band’s lauded track “Down by the Water” off its whimsical 2011 album, The King Is Dead, has been compared to the music of Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Song.
On March 16, the band released its eighth studio album, I’ll Be Your Girl; a few days prior, I spoke over the phone with frontman (and raconteur) Colin Meloy, who provided insight into the group’s inner workings.
Listeners have been waiting with great anticipation for I’ll Be Your Girl. Can you describe the genesis of the album? Was there any specific inspiration for this new collection of songs? We didn’t have a prescribed intention going into it or an idea what the shape would be. We’d been playing a few of the songs live for the past year and a half, but we ended up scrapping those arrangements. When we got into the studio and started to work, things changed pretty drastically. We established changes and obstacles to our normal patterns of working that would naturally disrupt the process and hopefully create something interesting, like working in a different studio and with a different producer.