Andrew Bird, singer, songwriter, violin, guitar, glockenspiel, whistling
We had a family farm three hours west of Chicago, and when I was scoping out potential studio spaces I remembered some barns where my brother and I used to make forts out of hay bales when we were little. One was in rough shape and had racoons living in it, but I got a local carpenter to do the skilled jobs and I did the mundane stuff such as boards for the ceiling. Then I just moved in, but I hadn’t realised how isolating it would be. It was February and snowing and none of my friends had cars. I’d go for two weeks at a time without speaking to anyone. So I started experimenting with a loop pedal, messing around with songs.
