Robin Pecknold was born in
Seattle in 1986, the youngest of three children. His maternal great-grandfather, Theodor Valaas, immigrated to Seattle from Norway in 1905. Pecknold's father, Greg, played in Seattle-based soul band The Fathoms in the 1960s and has since worked as a film editor. Both of Pecknold's siblings work closely with Fleet Foxes--his sister Aja as manager and his brother Sean as music video director. Pecknold has stated that he used
Napster to discover much of the music he listened to growing up. His influences range from
Joni Mitchell to
Brian Wilson. At the age of 14, Pecknold wrote his first song, "Sarah Jane," about a runaway who turns to prostitution. Under the alias Robin Noel Vaas, he released the song, along with six others, on a demo CD called
St. Vincent Street around his hometown. In 2005, he toured with Seattle's
Dolour, playing bass, before forming
Fleet Foxes with childhood friend Skyler Skjelset in 2006. They played their original music at local open mic nights, teen centers, and coffee shops. He reportedly ran up considerable debt setting up the band, although he has since denied this. He has spoken positively of his decision to take a hiatus from music in order to pursue a traditional education, although he left in 2016 to tour with
Joanna Newsom and as of 2022 has not yet finished his degree.
Solo work In 2011, Pecknold released a solo EP entitled
Three Songs via Twitter. The release included two original songs, one a duet with
Ed Droste, and a cover of New Zealand folk-singer Chris Thompson's "Where Is My Wild Rose?". He has used the moniker White Antelope for releasing covers of traditional songs including "
Silver Dagger", "
Wild Mountain Thyme," and "
False Knight on the Road".
Collaborations On October 22, 2013, Pecknold appeared on
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to perform a cover of
Pearl Jam's "
Corduroy" with
Grizzly Bear guitarist
Daniel Rossen and drummer Neal Morgan. In 2014, he embarked on a brief tour as part of
The Gene Clark No Other Band, a
supergroup consisting of himself,
Iain Matthews,
Victoria Legrand, Daniel Rossen, and
Hamilton Leithauser performing
Gene Clark's
No Other in its entirety. In 2021, Pecknold, along with Anaïs Mitchell, co-wrote and performed "Phoenix" for ''
How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last?'', the second album by
Big Red Machine, itself a collaboration between
Bon Iver's
Justin Vernon and
The National's
Aaron Dessner.
Scoring In 2012, Pecknold, along with
Morgan Henderson and
Neal Morgan, recorded music for Sara Lamm and Mary Wigmore's film about
Ina May Gaskin,
Birth Story: Ina May Gaskin and the Farm Midwives. In 2015, Pecknold composed the score for an
Off-Broadway play,
Wyoming, written by his cousin Brian Watkins. ==Instruments==