Art On The Sleeve

Jeremy Earl claims he “wasn't even thinking of anything” when he chose the name Woods for his early bedroom recordings, but it's a fitting handle for a guy who grew up in – and, now, again lives in – the woodlands of Upstate New York. Though his band became known for bedroom recordings, Earl is more an outdoor type; a lover of nature, camping, and jam-bands. “I grew up listening to The Grateful Dead, and was definitely into trading tapes, and collecting Dead bootlegs,” he recalls. “I love that style of fandom, and it's amazing that we have fans, now, that are like that.”

Woods' rise has come on the back of their shambling, lo-fi, downbeat pop; in which sad acoustic songs, fuzzy jangle-pop jaunts, and tape-collage noise pieces inhabit the same psychedelic world, all sung memorably by Earl in his tiny, cracked voice. Though the band members each have their own particular identities – drummer Jarvis Taveniere plays in Meneguar and guested on Ducktails' Killin' The Vibe single; bassist Kevin Morby fronts the Vivian Girls-associated outfit The Babies; and 'tape-effects technician G Lucas Crane plays a huge part in Woods' sound – the band came into life as Earl's only, and remain tied to him.

“It started off as a bedroom recording project,” Earl recounts. “I spent years writing and recording songs without ever intending anyone to actually really listen to them.” That all changed when he “randomly sent a tape” to Shrimper, Dennis Callaci's legendary lo-fi imprint, whose run of iconic '90s lo-fi records – The Mountain Goats, Sentridoh, Refrigerator, Dump – captured the teenage Earl's heart, to the point that he describes Shrimper as “one of the biggest influences on [his] life”.

“I gravitated towards those Shrimper records because, at the time, they felt revolutionary,” Earl explains. “I'd come from a hardcore background, was playing in hardcore bands, and this was just a completely different way of doing things. You didn't have to play live, you didn't have to be loud, you could record at home, you could do everything yourself.”

Shrimper provided the inspirational model for Earl's own record label, Woodsist, which he founded in 2006 after he began touring live. “My label became a way for me, really, to just put out records and cassettes by bands we'd played with on tour,” he says. “It seemed like, when we first starting going out on tour, we'd play these shows all over little cities in the US, with really great bands that no one knew about. I sort of randomly started to do it, and, unexpectedly, it kinda caught on.”

Woods' breakout came with their fourth record, 2009's Songs Of Shame, which earnt a Best New Music on Pitchfork, and all the career-changing momentum that comes with. The record's title “wasn't a joke at all”; its fragile, fuzzy pop songs finding Earl opening up his heart one verse at a time. “People wondered if it was ironic, but [the title] couldn't have been more serious,” he offers. “Shame was the subject-matter of 75 or 80 percent of the songs... There was even some element of shame attached to that transitory phase; taking it from being a bedroom recording project to being more of a band. There was a lot of personal things going on in the band, and so much of that was to do with the balance of power in that situation.”

Even as subsequent records – 2010's At Echo Lake, 2011's Sun And Shade, and 2012's Bend Beyond – were made in the face of growing expectations, that sense of emotional vulnerability and bedroomy intimacy persists. “I write songs very spontaneously, I just let them come out. So, whatever I'm feeling that moment will be whatever comes out, and, almost always, it's really quite personal... When I'm writing songs, everything just happens very naturally, and that's how it feels when we play together, too.”