Bad enough it took Gillian Welch and her partner, David Rawlings, eight years to record their new album, The Harrow & the Harvest, but now they've got to suffer through a string of near-identical interviews rehashing the long dry spell. I bit the bullet right off when I interviewed Welch for the A.V. Club, but I put a slightly different spin on the question: Instead of asking why it took so long to produce Harrow, I wondered if she ever feared there might not be another record in her. As it turns out, she did. She and Rawlings were constantly writing new songs, but, well, you can see what she thought of them above.
More with Welch, including thoughts on collaborating with The Decemberists on The King Is Dead and her advice on how to stain Harrow's letterpress cover for that perfect old-timey feel, here.
