Attention to Detail: Taking notice of the songwriting prowess of Vetiver

Vetiver-they’re not copying anybody.When Andy Cabic writes music, he just writes music. He doesn’t
ponder his influences or how the record label will respond to his work or how
people like this writer will interpret it-the dude just writes music, then
plays it with his band, Vetiver.

Although quietly talked about in the indie folk universe for the
last half of this decade, San Francisco’s Vetiver-a band with an oft-rotating
lineup that for all intents and purposes is Cabic’s personal vehicle for his
songs-has only recently started to turn heads en masse, thanks to January’s Tight
Knit, the band’s first disc on Sub Pop Records. Vetiver got an
additional nod of respect in this region when it was named one of the
headliners (along with Dr. Dog and Blitzen Trapper) at the Pickathon festival
this weekend, the Portland-area event that’s increasingly becoming the go-to
festival for today’s cutting edge roots-based acts.

Like Dr. Dog and label mate Fleet Foxes, Vetiver has been viewed
by some critics and fans as creating tunes that seem a tribute to, or imitation
of, earlier times. Cabic said this has never been his intention with Vetiver.

“I think it’s really
just attention to detail and good playing and well-recorded songs that give
that impression, because I think there’s something to be said for the
production values and the craft of recording and songwriting from decades
past,” says Cabic over the phone from Los Angeles where he’s checking in on
some producing gigs, including meetings with legendary singer-songwriter Vashti
Bunyan, whose album he’ll be producing this year.

Cabic is correct; there isn’t much of a throwback feel with
Vetiver, other than, perhaps, the poetic honesty of Cabic’s lyrics. On Tight
Knit, Vetiver hops from mellow whimsy-laden folk numbers to bouncing pop
nuggets (like “More of This” or “Everyday”) that could fit nicely on a Shins
record, touching on myriad styles in between. But, like many intensely focused
singer-songwriters, Cabic isn’t at all concerned with emulating any particular
artist or band.

“I think we’re able
to have different songs sound different ways. I think you’d be hard pressed to
say that we sound like, say, the Grateful Dead. A song, or a moment in a song,
might have that, but I think there are things that are uniquely us and things
that might remind you of another artist,” says Cabic.

Cabic’s name is often associated with quintessential “freak folk”
(probably the worst and most confusing genre name in all of music) star
Devendra Banhart, the often-hairy L.A. songster known for his outrageous
appearance and his hippie-meets-hipster folk tunes. The two lived together,
toured together and played on each other’s records for years and have been
mutually influenced by each other as both have grown as musicians.

“I think the
influence goes both ways with us. We sent out demos of our albums in the same
package before either of us had put out anything, so it goes back that far,”
says Cabic, who played at sessions for Banhart’s soon-to-be-released disc, but
has devoted more of this time to Vetiver as of late.

“We’re not
collaborating in the sense that we did early in the story of Vetiver, but
that’s less to do with some absence of interest in doing it; it’s just the way
our lives have gone,” says Cabic.

Now forging a respected songwriting reputation of his own with
Vetiver, Cabic and his current band are using the trip up to the Northwest for
Pickathon to stop off in Bend, a place that-and this is pretty cool, at least
in the street cred department-was recommended by several of his friends. “I’ve
heard a lot of good things about Bend,” he says, thus putting pressure on all
of us to ultimately turn out as cool as he’s heard we are.

This article appears in Jul 30 – Aug 5, 2009.