Photo by Natalie Kardos

Back in 2012, Bon Iver's Justin Vernon said the band was "winding it down" for an extended break. In a new interview with Grantland, Vernon said that the only planned Bon Iver activity in the near future is a closing set at Eaux Claires Music & Arts Festival, the festival curated by Vernon and the National's Aaron Dessner that takes place July 17-18 in Vernon's hometown of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. And that's it: no album or further shows are in the works.

Vernon told Grantland, "I definitely care about the Bon Iver thing a lot, but it’s kind of my thing and there’s only so much time you can spend with yourself before you just become an asshole. So you gotta push it."

"As far as putting a record together, I don’t really know what’s happening," he said. "Our show is our main focus. We don’t have anything booked after this. We don’t have any plans. We’re not being secretive — we just don’t have any plans. It’s just about, Play the show and put all of our energy into one show — for once in my life, let’s just play one fucking show and care just about this one show for a goddamn change."

Vernon told Grantland that the band "might play some new stuff" but was noncommittal. He also described the creative process behind the band's new material. "I’ve been taking it really slow," he said. "I don’t mean to get all cerebral about my art, but I’ve been trying to collect improvisations and collect moments...I just think maybe I ran my course with being able to come up with new moments on the guitar."

Elsewhere in the interview, he talked about wanting to write from a "real" perspective, unaffected by all the attention the band has gotten since its inception.

The band's last release was 2011's self-titled record.

Vernon also talked about being parodied by Justin Timberlake on "Saturday Night Live":

He was like, “I hope that wasn’t a problem; my wife and I really love you, and I fell in love with my wife to your music," and all this stuff. And I was like, “Hey man, don’t worry, it’s all good, man." He was really nice about it, and I’m not going to let that stuff get to me. But at the same time, it does accumulate.

He also expressed regrets over appearing in an ad for Bushmills:

To be clear: They gave us a bunch of money and we were able to finish [my recording studio] without borrowing. It was great for us, and everybody that worked at the company was great, and I love Bushmills and wanted to do the deal because my dad loved Bushmills — we bond over Irish whiskey. But the problem is that it isn’t just Bushmills. It’s run by a corporation, and you kind of forget that they’re not interested in you or really what you’re doing. They’re interested in your popularity and your reach, and it felt really sickening after a while. Not badmouthing Bushmills the company, but I regret it. I regret it because it wasn’t us and they put my face on a fucking billboard, even though it was a cool billboard and I was with my brother and my sound engineer and we’re buds and we got drunk while we had the photo shoot. I just missed it. I missed the mark on that one and I let it all kind of get to me. It just doesn’t feel right after the fact, you know?

Read the whole interview here.

Watch Vernon's band Volcano Choir perform "Comrade" on Pitchfork.tv's "City of Music":