Bon
Iver took home the Best New Artist and Best Alternative Album Grammys at the
2012 ceremony. This left a lot of people wondering: Who the heck is this guy?
Read
on for info.
Bon
Iver is a folk band, of whom Justin Vernon is the face. Vernon, a native of Eau
Claire, Wis., formed Bon Iver when his old band and life all but fell apart. At
the time of the dissolution of his band DeYarmond Edison, Vernon also faced a
breakup with his then-girlfriend and a battle with mono. The experience led him
to leave his then-home of Raleigh, N.C. and head back to Wisconsin, where he
stayed in his father’s remote cabin, closed off from the world.
It
was there that Vernon’s new band name, Bon Iver, came to mind. While holed up,
he passed the time watching ‘Northern Exposure’ DVDs, in which he heard the
cast tell one another, “bon hiver,” French for “good winter.” He jotted it down
and wound up spelling it incorrectly, but he didn’t want to fix it — “hiver”
sounded too much like “liver,” the very organ ailing him at the time.
Vernon
wound up recording what became his band’s debut album, ‘For Emma, Forever Ago,’
during his isolation, playing all the instruments and doing all the recording
and mixing himself. While he later admitted he originally only intended for
them to be demos, Vernon wound up releasing them as the actual album at the
insistence of his buddies. The album generated buzz from blogs and received
almost universal acclaim for all critics acquainted with it. Eventually, the
positive reviews and the album’s popularity led to a deal with Jagjaguwar
Records, from which it was released in February 2008.
Interesting, I don't think I had never heard the name before the awards
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