The Decemberists Carefully Craft New Music for ‘As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again’

In the Pacific Northwest, there’s a culture of vibrant creativity. Hopeful artists flock to cities like Seattle and Portland, congregating in ramshackle apartment buildings or old houses, splitting the rent, trading shifts in coffee houses, pubs, or restaurants, and, in their off hours, spending time manufacturing their dreams. 

Poets, sculptors, musicians, novelists, painters—they make homes in the region and cultivate their creativity. The Helena, Montana-born Colin Meloy is one of those industrious people. The frontman for the folk-rock band The Decemberists moved to Portland, Oregon, more than two decades ago and took up residence in a warehouse with friends. And from those beginnings, so much of his life today has been built. That includes his band’s newest album, As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again, which dropped on June 14.

“There was a spirit of collaboration,” Meloy tells American Songwriter about his early days in Portland. “People working service industry jobs and trying to foster creative careers on the side. I appreciate the community [in Portland]. I think there’s good community here. I’ve never been able to imagine myself living on the East Coast. I think I’m a forever West Coast person.”

Back then, one of the people living with Meloy was Carson Ellis. At the time, the two were just friends. Now they are husband and wife, and have created a successful children’s book series called Wildwood together, which Meloy writes and Ellis illustrates. The series’ first movie is set to release in 2025. It will be voiced by actors including Angela Bassett, Mahershela Ali, and Carey Mulligan, along with the singer/songwriter and actor Tom Waits. “As soon as I saw that he was on the casting list,” Meloy says of Waits, “I lost it.” 

The story idea behind Wildwood started formulating between Meloy and Ellis around 2009. They shelved it for years before breathing new life into the work more recently. Now it’s a phenomenon, a New York Times bestseller.

“I feel very fortunate,” says Meloy, who was employed at a pizza parlor located inside a bookstore before his career gained traction. “I think there’s a lot of luck that has gone into my being where I am right now. But I’m very grateful for it.”

If he hadn’t come to be a full-time artist, Meloy says, “there’s an alternate universe where I’m just an academic somewhere.” Thankfully for his fans, he ended up cutting albums and authoring books. Though his band might not qualify as a pop sensation, The Decemberists have been quite successful over the years. The Grammy-nominated group boasts a No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 and intensely loyal fans who cherish the band’s quirky sense of out-of-time authenticity. 

Their new album is one of their best yet. For Meloy, the record feels “special.” The Decemberists have put out eight records to date, and Meloy feels no great urge to add to that total unless it’s totally warranted. But this new record, he confirms, counts as essential.

“It’s different every time,” he says. “It’s really [about] making sure that the material is right. Making sure this is where I want to be. I don’t want to force anything. We’ve already got so much material out that I don’t feel that need to create, create, create. And, of course, my creative interests are also being drawn elsewhere. So, I feel like these days a new Decemberists record is kind of a special thing.”

Meloy says the new album has been carefully crafted and reworked over time, and that there is a sense of caution that goes into the process of putting it all together. But by the end of this particular process, he says, the new LP did turn out to be “among our best.” 

Meloy clearly works to make sure his heart is always in it, that each move along the route is the right one. That sometimes means creating parameters to work within that hopefully help the art flourish. That happened with one of the standout tracks on the new album, “Oh No!” 

When composing that thrilling folktale, Meloy was simultaneously working on a new theater piece (something he’s still undertaking). He was writing songs for hire, so to speak. At times, writing songs for The Decemberists can feel like getting “blood from a stone,” but with new eyes—those focused on the theater piece—he found himself in a different mind state. And the bones for “Oh No!” came from that place.

“As we’ve been around for so long, I’m keenly aware in my own mind what is ‘Decemberistsy,’” says Meloy. “And I kind of want to avoid that. [But] writing for this [new theater piece] felt like I had license to write Decemberists-y stuff.”

The result was something familiar but fresh—the perfect creative combination. Other songs on the album that stand out include the acoustic-driven ode “William Fitzwilliam” and the foreboding “Don’t Go to the Woods.” On those songs, Meloy commands the epic storytelling touch of a bard and the vocal prowess of a man who’s been singing at sea on great ships for many lifetimes. 

Meloy says he developed his vocal style very early on in some ways. Drawn in junior high to the college rock charts posted in the back of Rolling Stone magazines, he fell in love with artists like The Replacements, Hüsker Dü, R.E.M., and Morrissey. The music that interested him pushed boundaries and expanded upon his sense of the world. An uncle would send him mixtapes that proved influential, too. “Suddenly,” he says, “I was drawn to music that challenged me a little more. I liked being challenged that way. The music on the college charts was entirely made up of music that was baffling and puzzling sometimes, but also very rewarding.”

At home, his parents listened to a lot of folk music. That’s how he picked up his sense of narrative, which goes a long way toward defining his songs today. “As a kid, I was always writing short stories,” he says. “Telling stories, it was sort of a natural fit. Later, when I started figuring out what my songwriting voice was, I think there was a moment where you could push that narrative sense that’s in old folk songs to a more absurdist place. I think that’s where I started trying with this jumping around eras and centuries and using archaic language and anachronisms and things.”

More recently, as the songs began to coalesce for As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again, the process felt particularly organic. “I think it just felt like the right time,” he says. “We had this material [and] there’s this sort of [rush] of writing. This often happens; you’ll have a handful of songs, and you’re not sure what you think of them. Then suddenly, there’s this blush of songs.” 

There certainly seems to be a bit of magic in Meloy’s creative process: one or two tracks begin to shed light on what the album should be as a whole; they each serve to place the other into a cohesive context and a blueprint for finishing the album manifests. “Then it’s just a question of assembling the pieces and getting everybody together,” he says.

For Meloy, time can be a funny thing. While some might think he daydreams of centuries or generations past, more often than not his intention is to live in the current moment. That doesn’t mean he’s obsessed with things like social media or the now of pop culture—often, far from it. But he does publish a Substack newsletter that, he says, “has a very limited and niche reach.” 

And looking ahead to the future, there is a lot to be excited about. His focus for now is on the new record, as well as the tour set to support it that runs from April through August and possibly beyond. He says he’s excited to get the music out and play shows for audiences. 

There’s more book writing, too, including an upcoming offering for adults. “It’s always the case,” Meloy says, “where thankfully, I’m in a position where I feel like I can just follow certain creative leads and see where they lead me. That might be more Decemberists music; it might be something else.”

To parse all this might be difficult for some, but there’s a sense that it comes fluidly, if not easily, for Meloy. It’s the product, in many ways, of his earlier years in that warehouse where he lived with his friends—a place that perhaps can be thought of as a makeshift artist factory today. Roots were planted, and now the fruits have come to bear. 

But given all these outlets this multifaceted artist has access to now, one might wonder why he continues to return to music, specifically. Part of it might be a tendency to want to “keep the main thing the main thing.” But music boasts a certain power all its own. It’s an internal and an external thing. It’s something that can go around the world quicker than just about any other art form. And for fans of The Decemberists, that’s a very good and very essential thing.

“I love that it is a world that you create inside yourself that is immediately shareable,” Meloy says. “It’s this thing that allows connection—it’s a very efficient way of connecting with as many people as possible.”

Photo by Holly Andres