Adam Green tribute album Moping in Style is out next week, and among those covering his songs is Devendra Banhart, who turns in a lovely, ethereal version of “Pay the Toll,” which is very different from the original version on 2006’s Jacket Full of Danger.
“Adam is funny, he really cracks me up,” Devendra tells us, “but what’s funnier still is that as oblique and hyper symbolic as his work can get, I have, from the moment I first heard him over 20 years ago, thought ‘ahh, this makes sense’… we are true twins and that deep affinity I have for him is one of the things that keeps me goin’. It ain’t nepotism when you love the person and the work, it’s just the freakin best. I love Adam.”
Adam adds, “Devendra is my peer in this universe – we were born 2 days apart in 1981 and so our relationship to the signposts of reality is synched up. He has been a huge inspiration to me since I first met him when we were 21 years old. He was the first total artist I met, meaning it felt like he was in tune with all aesthetic principles and was in command of himself as a composer and a visual artist in equal parts. It has always felt to me like Devendra was someone who was prophesied to come along once in a generation – I’m so glad and lucky our worlds collided.”
Listen to Devendra’s cover, which premieres in this post, and Adam’s original, below.
Moping in Style is out December 1 via Capitane Records and also features Jenny Lewis, Father John Misty, Regina Spektor & Jack Dishel, The Lemonheads, The Libertines, The Cribs, Joanna Sternberg, and more.