Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold: “The hiatus has really helped!”

Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold took part in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) session last night, opening up about the group’s recent hiatus and their plans for new music.

Addressing the band’s recent hiatus (they’re currently making their third album, the follow-up to 2011’s ‘Helplessness Blues’), the frontman said a break “really helped”.

“I have a lot more perspective now and I feel pointed in the direction of what is most exciting for its own sake without secondary considerations effecting my headspace. I also got some academic pretensions out of my system that I won’t be inflicting upon the listening public thru [sic] song. You are welcome,” he said.

During the hiatus, Pecknold studied at Columbia University. About his academic life, he said: “I think once I had stopped touring, and was out of that bubble, I started meeting a lot of really cool and interesting people who had gone to college and learned interesting things. I was naive before and thought college was for getting a job and stubbornly thought that I could learn whatever I needed to on my own time online. So meeting those people made me really interested in it. If I’m being honest I also wanted to prove to myself that I could be more than the box I felt that I had put myself in, I want to experience as much of life as possible.”

Pecknold also responded to a question about Father John Misty aka Josh Tillman. The pair “haven’t spoken” since touring ‘Helplessness Blues’ - “to be honest, we didn’t really speak much for the two years before that either,” said Pecknold. “We ended up going down different paths too soon before our touring and recording commitments were finished.”

Catch up with DIY’s guide to what every Fleet Foxes member’s been getting up to.