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Devendra Banhart: No, I’d much rather not have any idea. I prefer not knowing that I’m being filmed. I’m sure that someone has access to the camera on my computer, and I spend half my life in front of that screen, but in this situation, ignorance is liberation. I really admire people who can just be themselves or a version of themselves they don’t regret later. A lot of us don’t like the sound of our own voice, sure, but most of us know how to speak and act with the camera on.I’m envious of those people. Ian Svenonius comes to mind. I know he’s being a version of himself, but it’s such an incredible, sagacious, and charming version. Which is him, but a version. He’s aware he’s doing an interview. There are those people whose art I love so much, but they can also be insightful and give an amazing interview. Maybe it’s genetics. The diplomacy gene.What is your relationship to fashion and clothing? Are you a clothes horse?
I like clothes. I really do. I like going through colors, in a way. I go, “Greens, man. Greens. Oh, yellow. This yellow feels good.” So it shapes your psyche in a way. But I don’t think about it too much, even though I’m interested in it. So why am I doing this? Because I think this is a company that makes some of the best stuff. I think of a fashion company as its own little museum, and there’s a whole look to it. From the tag to the material to the label.
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No, no. I can be very used to something, but not comfortable in it. I don’t think I’ve reached that idea of success yet. For me it’s about making a full album I really like. Or with visual art, I do variations on a motif and repeat it for long periods of time and then move on to another motif. So there are five more motifs that I need to tackle before feeling excited for where I am. So I don’t think I’ve lost a hunger for success. Look at where I am doing this shoot for Band of Outsiders at the Chateau. It’s an incredible privilege and honor. It’s flattering, but I still have that feeling that everyone is going to figure it out and pull the plug. And I’ve had that feeling since the beginning of my quote, unquote career.
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Oh, yeah. Like I imagined I would have so many skateboards on the wall. I remember when I was a kid I thought I could either be an athletic water drinker, like an Olympic-level water drinker, or I could invent Windex. Which I thought was really smart, because it already existed.

That’s the best answer to any question. Like, what time is it? I’d like to be a milkshake.I imagine you stay in a lot of hotels.
I sometimes feel like I should be in the hotel business.You know that feeling of walking into your hotel room? It’s almost like a new-car smell. Does that ever go away?
It happens every time, and it’s only the anchor of a consistently similar bathroom that I create that gives me that sense of, “No, I know this.” So always the car smell, but then I go right to the bathroom and I align the toothbrush in a particular place and the toothpaste in a particular place and then that new-car smell evaporates. And then I go, “Oh, OK, I’m someplace familiar.”
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