Mitch and Y Mae posted a brief recap of their interview with Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor and Chris Bear. The interview will be published in full in the next issue of Emmie Magazine, but they were kind enough to offer it up for all you MoB readers as a special expanded edition of our 5 Questions feature.

We’ll take this opportunity to post another picture from their performance, this time of Ed Droste, because we know he wouldn’t want to be left out of the fun! One of the highlights of the weekend was watching Ed, Bradford from Deerhunter, and Victoria from Beach House take to the stage during the Girl Talk set for shared vocals on Grizzly Bear’s “Knife” and Clipse’s “Wamp Wamp” – oh, and there was dancing pulls straight from a Jack Daniel’s bottle.

Yellow House, your latest album, was actually recorded in a yellow house. How does the space that you choose affect the recording? Is it an integral part of getting it down?

Chris Taylor: Oh yeah, totally. I guess all the albums I’ve recorded are in houses, and the houses are picked because they sound good and they’re available. Kind of between those two factors. I think everybody feels really comfortable – we’re just able to work at any time, any hour, just go eat some food in the kitchen, sit on the back porch if you don’t feel like it, pour a drink… It’s pretty casual. And I think that’s how it should feel; it shouldn’t feel like you’re on the clock. I’ve always been spoiled, ever since I started recording it was either at school so I had access to that equipment at any time, then I started getting my own equipment, so I feel like I’ve always been used to being able to record whenever and I think it would be hard for me to be under any other constraint. And him (gesturing to Chris Bear) sort of the same way, we’ve always recorded music together, since we first started recording in college.

I think it would be weird for us to be under the clock. You’re not going to make the same thing… it’s do-able, but it’s not the same.

Chris Bear: And just being in a house, it allows you to use all the different rooms. I think there’s a lot more sonic capabilities, flexibility in a house. Chris [Taylor] would throw a mic up the stairwell, and put the amp at the bottom or something, and just different things like that.

Chris Taylor: …Drum mics on, like, the other side of the house so that it was just really insanely diffused, to get like a really loud, sort of huge sound.

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Did you record it in parts, or just get band all in one room at the same time?

Chris Taylor: That album was recorded completely in parts. A lot of it was sort of built. The compositions were there, and some of the arrangements had been sorted out, and Dan Rosson, a lot of his songs are heavily pre-arranged. When he brings it to us he’s got a demo and he’s like, “Here’s all the parts I’m thinking of” and we work from there. But on other songs we had to actually flesh out as we went along.

For an album that’s constructed like that, in parts, how do you bring that to the stage where everything’s live?

Chris Taylor: It’s hard, because so much of it is orchestration, and instrumentation, and you really have to get down to the meat and potatoes of what makes the song worth listening to. And so translating the record to the stage is a really labor-intensive process, a whole other thing.

Chris Bear: Most of the songs we never played as a band before we recorded them… Maybe three, like…

Chris Taylor: “Knife” and “Lullaby,” and that’s it.

Speaking of “Knife,” how do you feel about the various interpretations of that song by different groups?

Chris Taylor: We saw it online. It’s really flattering that someone would want to do something like that.

Chris Bear: I guess YouTube sort of harvests that. People see a video and they’re like, “Oh, we should do something, too.” I don’t think that would ever have happened otherwise.

The first thing that we saw were these kids in Atlanta that were singing it, these really young kids. Then there was, like, the a cappella, college glee club sort of vibe.

Chris Taylor: There was some sort of response, there was another choir from another college that responded and did another cover. They did the same song in an alternate version. And if there was to be a competition held, I think the response maybe won. It’s always the part where the high voice comes in, which is my part, where I’m always like “Eee, uh, sounds a little rough.” But generally it is very flattering that people would do it.

Do you think that followed from the Take-Away video you did for La Blogothèque, performing “Knife” a cappella?

Chris Bear: A lot of people mention that, they’re like “Oh, I saw you on the Blogothèque when you were walking on the street.” And when we did that we had no idea that it would be so… out there. And I feel like that’s one of the most common things someone mentions, “I saw you on the street in Paris, singing.”

Chris Taylor: They had to really talk us into it, because we had never actually sang it a cappella. That was the first time, so we were just… doing it.

How was it working with Vincent Moon?

Chris Taylor: Amazing. Mathieu Saura, the guy who took the video, is an amazing director. He’s been working with Arcade Fire, and he did a bunch of stuff, he did a big documentary thing with the National that isn’t edited yet. He does fantastic work, and he’s so passionate, and a really amazing guy. He’s become a good friend of ours, so every time we go to Paris we always hang out.

Chris Bear: He’s a hilarious guy. Very well dressed, too.

What are you guys looking forward to seeing this weekend?

Chris Taylor: Deerhunter. Beach House.

Chris Bear: We really wanted to see Beach House, but they’re the same time as us, so…

Have you played large festivals like this before?

Chris Taylor: Yeah, we’ve been doing a lot of it this year. We played Coachella, and just got back from Rothskilde over in Denmark, that was really big. Sasquatch, and what else…

Chris Bear: ATP, Primavera in Barcelona.

So replicating the sound live has become easier?

Chris Bear: The festival thing is a little tougher, ‘cause you don’t really get a sound check, they just throw your stuff up, the sound kind of just floats around and disappears. So it’s a little bit harder to really get into it, just because the sound is not necessarily what we’re used to. But it’s still fun. Like in Denmark, I think that was one of the more fun festivals. They were really crazy and it was insanely muddy…

Chris Taylor: Everybody was covered in shit.

Chris Bear: Crazy out there. It was a really good crowd. There was enough of a level of intimacy – we were in this tent and it still felt sort of like playing in a club, but there was definitely a fest-y vibe.

Chris Taylor: Very rowdy. It’s like the one weekend where Danish people really let their hair down. They’re usually very collected and boy, were they getting crazy.