In 2003 a hirsute, homeless 21-year-old came out of nowhere to release a folk album recorded primarily on answering machines and a broken 4-track. Devendra Banhart's songs hearkened back to an earlier time in music's history, and showcased a peculiar voice with a taste for pastoral, surreal imagery. A year later Banhart put out two more LPs. The albums drew much praise, and Banhart found himself crowned prince of a burgeoning music scene critics dubbed "freak-folk," which included Joanna Newsom, Vetiver, Antony and the Johnsons, and Coco Rosie, among others. While Banhart did accept the "folk" classification, he rejected the "freak" description, instead preferring "the family" to describe himself and his friends. The fans and the recording industry began to take notice, and while Banhart's tours took on a more global, wide-reaching theme, his music was about to end up on major label XL in 2005 when he released "Cripple Crow." The following interview took place during the beginning of his support tour for "Crow" in October of 2005.

If you could live in any time period, what would it be?
The 80s man. Synthesizers, Huey Lewis and the News, we wouldn't have the stuff if we didn't have the 80s. Plus I was alive then and I'd like to relive it. Probably '94 too. There was some good stuff that year.

What happened in '94?
Oh, you know. A bunch of shit. This is for Thrasher Thrasher right? I grew up in Caracas, Venezuela. Having any issue of Thrasher was currency. It was like gold. If you had a Thrasher you were the coolest kid ever. You could have anything you want. It was much more valuable than money. You could trade a Thrasher for someone's husband if you wanted, or their kids. "I'd like little Johnny, little Jenny, and Cynthia for this Thrasher." And they're like, "Oh, ok." [Snaps fingers] It was that easy. Having a Thrasher shirt, you automatically could go into politics if you wanted. You'd get a piece of land and 10 children. They just wanted to be close to the Thrasher shirt.

Is it like that now?
I don't know. I haven't been back since I was like 16.

Did you get any husbands out of owning Thrashers?
Oh many. More than I needed. I've been down that road. A Venezuelan man's body is very concave, very smooth. It's like skating at Powell. That was the big thing. Move to California and skate Powell. I have the Powell card. I found it somewhere and it still has the holes punched. Those were the days. But when you couldn't skate at Powell, you'd ride your husband.

Because they've got the concave.
Yeah, they've got the ass, which I didn't get. I got the white side, the Texan side. Mine is actually perfect, and you can ride it. But it's hard for me to ride my own ass. I used to make those little fingerboards. It had everything, little grip-tape on it, little hot wheels and use some cardboard and take it to school. I could ride that on my ass. But you know, there's limits. You can't let anyone skateboard on your ass.

What's your favorite animal?
The snail.

Why's that?
They're like dolphins to me. They're better than dolphins. Well, whalphins used to be my favorite animal, which is a whale and a dolphin. This animal really existed.

How long were you into whalphins for?
We were on to whalphins the minute we heard a whalphin had just been born at Sea World. They had a whale and a dolphin in a tank for awhile and they just ended up mating. You can look it up.

Sounds like the Jackalope.
What's that?

Jackrabbit and Antelope.
Oh, I'll have to check that out. But the whalphin is real. A unicorn would have been my answer at some point. Also a Carebear.

Can you tell the story about Sammy Hagar and the sushi bar?
My thing with Sammy goes back, it goes way back. I played a show at a sushi restaurant and Sammy was there. I'd play anywhere man. At that time I didn't like to play guitar as much. I'd play a capella and screech. I was doing my screech and people were trying to eat their spider rolls. So he had one of his people put on a Van Halen CD really loud to drown me out. I jumped on his table and kicked the spider roll in his face. He jumps up and tries to hit me with a tequila bottle. I dodged that and started pulling at the fucking weird cornrow on his face, pulling it back, and he's trying to stab me with his Ray-Bans. I'm elbowing him and trying to light him on fire. He's wearing this weird hemp thing that was pretty flammable. He got lightly seared. If you look at photos you can see the scarring. He had a chain wallet on, which I used to try to cut the circulation on his leg. But it's still going. There's more episodes to it, but that's the first episode. Other things have happened.

Did he get any shots in?
He punched me in the clavicle. It wasn't as hard as I was expecting. He did try to hit me in face with a bottle of tequila. I have nightmares now about tequila.

What brand of tequila was it?
Sammy Hagar's brand, Wabo Cabo. He carries that and Van Halen CDs around.

Is there a reason you cultivate the look you have?
Well, these are my yacht shoes. I've gotten really into yacht, breezing music—Hall and Oates, Michael McDonald, Steely Dan, Doobie Brothers of course. And Rick Astley. I was getting into that whole vibe. These are Turkish Wranglers that I got in Scotland. This is a handmade shirt that I'm wearing. It's an old shirt that a kid told me he found. It's stuff that I've collected. I basically steal whatever I can from my mom and my wife. I went through a pair of shoes a week when I skated. I used to skate the courthouse in LA. The whole Girl team started coming in, Kareem Campbell. I used to shit my pants. Literally shit my pants. And I would go through all these shoes. I used to have these Converse that were pretty groovin', but I could never get the tongue to look right. So I'd get cardboard and glue that to the tongue. They only lasted like a week anyway, but they looked good.

I read that you like to wear turbans to the airport.
Yeah, I don't do that so much anymore because it got old. That was a couple months after 9/11. It was kind of like a "don't judge a book by its cover kind of thing." I would dress how I'm dressed and of course they would stop me. And I would talk to them and show them I talk like a typical American. It's never who you think it is, you know. It's going to be the common person that you would never think of. So that would be the reason. I have a lot of appreciation for Islam. I really do. And it was in no way meant to make fun of Islam at all. The essence of Islam is beautiful. I spent some time in North Africa with a lot of Muslims. And everything I heard here about Muslims was wrong. It was the complete opposite. They were the most beautiful, open people I've ever met. I was the only white person there and all I had to do was respect them and then it was cool. But a Muslim dude walking around Orange County could be walking around and he's going to get a hard time.

Are you religious at all?
In my own way. I believe that God is love, which is something that you learn in every religion, but I don't subscribe to any single religion except for the religion of Love—love and appreciation and the gift of life, and love for the creator and this life.

What did you learn from being homeless?
I learned how to shower without water, eat without food.

How do you do that?
Just hold your breath until you pass out. It's called alcohol. I'm still homeless, but I can get food. I did try to skate while I was homeless. I would skate with these cats who were doing some good stuff. And I just wanted to roll around. You could get tickets just for riding in the subway in New York at that time.

How'd you come up with the idea to put a howling wolf on the new album?
We were recording "Mama Wolf" and the woman who played violin on the record had a wolf. She lived on a farm in upstate New York and owned a wolf. She said, "I'll bring the wolf in and see if we can get him to howl. I know a few tricks." So she brought the wolf in and we were playing the song and it wasn't moving. She starts playing the violin and when she hit the highest notes, that's when it started going at it. It was great. You ever skate on a wolf? They're great. Their teeth are really slick and just grind perfectly, perfect for crooked grinds. Skating a Venezuelan man's ass on a wolf—that's skateboarding man. Could we photo-shop that for the cover?

I don't know, to be honest there's still some homophobia in skateboarding. I don't know how that would go over. Brian Anderson came out recently, but it wasn't covered in the media.
It's the same with hip-hop. I'm all ready for someone to come out. I'm waiting for hip-hop and skateboarding. It'll be great. Half those cats have to be in the closet anyway. Whoever is the most homophobic is always the gayest person in the room.

You recorded this album with a lot of people as opposed to the previous two which weren't with as many people. What was the reason for that?
I wanted to make a record with my family. I started to get lonely. I wanted to make something that was me surrounded by all the people I trust in my family, not that I don't trust the people I recorded with before that, but I wanted to make a record recorded by my family. It was circular. I recorded with Noah [Georgeson] who co-produced, co-mixed and played on the record. He was the person who gave me a 4-track to begin with. That was the first person who ever asked me to record. We opened the door to our family. One problem with the record is that we recorded 45 songs and cut it down to 22 songs. We should have kept 16. It would have been a different record. The one issue is that we tried to put too many on. It was too much.

Do you think you'll want to record the next album with the family again?
The next album is going to take time. A lot of time. We tried to pretend like we knew how to astral project to an imaginary island, because it was so fucking cold in New York where we were recording. We were freezing and were trying to warm up. The record feels like tea to me. So now we're going to go in the opposite direction and actually go to an island.

Painting by Simon Henwood, courtesy Young God Records