Robin Noel Pecknold is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known as the principal songwriter and vocalist for the indie folk band Fleet Foxes, with whom he has recorded three studio albums, with the latest, Crack-Up, released on June 16, 2017. His voice type is tenor.
Biography
Robin Pecknold was born in Seattle in 1986. He is said to have written his first song at the age of 14. The song is called "Sarah Jane" and tells the story of a runaway who turns to prostitution. Pecknold released the song along with six others as a demo CD called St. Vincent Street around his hometown as Robin Noel Vaas. Later, the music of Bob Dylan would become Pecknold's primary influence. In 2005, Pecknold toured as a bassist with Seattle's Dolour. Pecknold formed Fleet Foxes in 2006 with Skyler Skjelset. He knew Skjelset from school, where they already played original music together. He reportedly ran up considerable debt setting up the band. Besides his work with Fleet Foxes, Pecknold has used the moniker White Antelope for solo output, releasing covers of traditional songs, including "Silver Dagger", "Wild Mountain Thyme" and "False Knight on the Road". He also started a band with sister Aja, called Rainbow Fang, and has worked with Past Lives' Morgan Henderson on "film score-type music". In early 2011, footage emerged of Pecknold as a teenager covering Radiohead's "Let Down" and Simon & Garfunkel's "America", along with another musician named Aaron Mannino. On March 7, 2011, Pecknold released three solo songs on Twitter together as Three Songs, including two original compositions, one a duet with Ed Droste, and a cover of NZ folk-singer Chris Thompson's "Where Is My Wild Rose?". In February 2012, Pecknold, along with Morgan Henderson and Neal Morgan, recorded music for Sara Lamm and Mary Wigmore's film about Ina May Gaskin, . On October 22, 2013, Pecknold appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to perform a cover of Pearl Jam's "Corduroy" with Daniel Rossen and Neal Morgan. In January 2014, Robin Pecknold toured as part of the supergroupThe Gene Clark No Other Band, performing Gene Clark's album No Other in full with other singers including Iain Matthews, Victoria Legrand, Daniel Rossen and Hamilton Leithauser. In January 2015, Pecknold's latest project was an off-Broadway play, entitled "Wyoming", for which he wrote the score. In October 2019, Pecknold previewed demos of his upcoming LP "Shore" via Instagram Live. Song titles previewed include "Shore" and "Can I Believe You?"
Instruments
Pecknold plays a Martin D-18 six-string guitar for most Fleet Foxes work. He also uses a Martin D12-35 12 string and a Gibson CF-100 6 String. Both of these guitars date back to the 1960s. He has also been known to use a recent Epiphone Casino electric guitar, and a Fylde Oberon acoustic guitar.
Personal life
Robin Pecknold's grandfather, Bob Valaas, is Norwegian. Pecknold comes from a musical background; his father, Greg Pecknold, played in the Seattle-based soul band The Fathoms in the 1960s. His mother lived on a kibbutz in Israel for a year when he was younger. He has an older brother, Sean, and an older sister, Aja. His brother is a director and the founder of grandchildren.tv. Sean has directed six music videos for Fleet Foxes. Aja was a rock critic for magazine Seattle Weekly and is the band's manager. His aunt Michelle is a strong supporter and advocate for his work. He has said he experiences social anxiety and in 2008 said: "I don't really hang out with anyone. I'll hang out with my band, because I love them, but I don't have any friends aside from that." In 2009, he stated that he discovered virtually all of the music he listened to by using online file-sharing program Napster. He also spoke of his support for online file-sharing and the positive effect he believes it to have on music, both as an art form and as an industry. In November 2013 Fleet Foxes member Morgan Henderson mentioned that Pecknold had relocated to New York City where he is enrolled as a student at the Columbia University School of General Studies. Pecknold himself later spoke about his time in university in several interviews before the release of Crack-Up, as well as a Reddit AMA. In a segment for BBC Radio 6 Music, he spoke on the subject of "What Learning Teaches You About Yourself", again giving details of his time in university. On April 16, 2017, Pecknold appeared on Phil Taggart's BBC Radio 1 show to share his "Bedtime Mix", selecting songs by Curtis Mayfield, David Behrman, Marvin Gaye, Blaze Foley, Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou and Maurice Ravel. Following the deaths of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain by suicide in June, 2018, Pecknold expressed his sorrow and shared some details of his own struggles with the prospect of suicide, encouraging people to help those who are suffering.
