# The Decemberists
**The Decemberists** are an American indie rock band from [Portland, Oregon](https://www.edgepedia.org/portland-oregon), formed in 2000, known for theatrical, hyper-literate songs built on historical narratives, folk tales, and long-form concept pieces.[1](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-decemberists-mn0000787579) Led by singer, songwriter, and guitarist Colin Meloy, a Montana native, the band draws on late-1960s British folk acts such as [Fairport Convention](https://www.edgepedia.org/fairport-convention) and Pentangle and on the early-1980s college rock of the [Waterboys](https://www.edgepedia.org/waterboys) and R.E.M.[2](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-decemberists-mn0000787579/biography)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Formed | 2000 in Portland, Oregon, when Meloy moved from Montana and met bassist Nate Query, keyboardist Jenny Conlee, and guitarist Chris Funk[3](https://www.opry.com/artists/the-decemberists) |
| Core lineup | Colin Meloy (vocals, guitar), Chris Funk (multi-instrumentalist), Jenny Conlee (keyboards, accordion), Nate Query (bass), John Moen (drums)[4](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/jan/06/decembrists-colin-meloy-interview) |
| First releases | Debut EP *5 Songs* (2001); full-length debut *Castaways and Cutouts* (2002)[3](https://www.opry.com/artists/the-decemberists) |
| Breakthrough | *Picaresque* (2005), produced by Chris Walla, on Kill Rock Stars[3](https://www.opry.com/artists/the-decemberists) |
| Major-label debut | *The Crane Wife* (2006), the band's first album on Capitol Records[5](https://repository.gatech.edu/bitstreams/a5101b95-baaa-41c7-aaa9-5d32ebe6455f/download) |
| Chart peak | *The King Is Dead* (2011) reached number one on the US album chart in its first week[6](https://www.universal-music.co.jp/the-decemberists/biography/) |
| Longest song | "Joan in the Garden", 19 minutes, closing the 2024 double album *As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again*[7](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/the-decemberists-as-it-ever-was) |
## Origins and name
Colin Meloy grew up in [Helena, Montana](https://www.edgepedia.org/helena-montana), and moved to Portland after college, where he began playing open mics and met the musicians who became the band.[8](https://pitchfork.com/features/interview/5908-the-decemberists/) The group's name echoes the Decembrists, the 19th-century Russian revolutionaries who staged a failed coup against the tsar and were sent to labor camps in Siberia, though Meloy has said the name was not chosen primarily for that history; he described it instead as evoking characters marginalized and living in the coldest month.[9](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/CMJ/2003/CMJ-New-Music-2003-05.pdf) • [8](https://pitchfork.com/features/interview/5908-the-decemberists/)
The band cultivated an invented mythology from the start. For its first several years, the official biography on the band's website was a fictional, meandering account of the five members meeting in a Turkish bath house.[10](https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/downloads/7w62fc53g)
## Sound and songwriting
Meloy's songs are narrative constructions that read like short stories or narrative poems, drawing on classic literature, historical events, and folklore; he has described a song as following the same pattern as a short story or novel in microcosm, with development, crisis, conflict, and resolution.[11](https://www.ffos.unios.hr/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Kick-05.pdf) • [12](https://pitchfork.com/features/interview/6471-the-decemberists/) Recurring subjects include shipwrecked seafarers, romantic espionage, revenge dramas, and youthful humiliation, set in locales from labor camps to the Eastern potentate's court of "The Infanta".[13](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/album-the-decemberists-498780.html)
The arrangements are built around a folk instrumentation unusual for indie rock: mandolin, concertina, hurdy-gurdy, accordion, strings, and brass augmenting acoustic guitars, with percussive flourishes that emphasize the songs' dramatic aspects.[13](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/album-the-decemberists-498780.html) Meloy has described his melodic method as entirely intuitive, relying on Query and Conlee for music theory, and calls his own vocal range limited, "barely a tenor, dips into baritone".[12](https://pitchfork.com/features/interview/6471-the-decemberists/)
## Albums and changing styles
The band's early records established the template. *Castaways and Cutouts* (2002) and *Her Majesty The Decemberists* (2003) appeared on Kill Rock Stars and drew comparisons to [Neutral Milk Hotel](https://www.edgepedia.org/neutral-milk-hotel) that later reviews treated as outgrown.[3](https://www.opry.com/artists/the-decemberists) • [14](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/2243-picaresque/) *Picaresque* (2005) collected story-songs of greater ambition, including the nearly nine-minute "The Mariner's Revenge Song", a tall tale told from the point of view of a sailor trapped inside a whale that has become a live staple requiring cued crowd screaming.[14](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/2243-picaresque/) • [15](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/feb/16/decembertists-review-glasgow-academy-review)
**Long-form ambition.** *The Crane Wife* (2006), the band's first Capitol release, grew from Meloy's encounter with the Japanese folk tale of the crane wife in a Portland bookstore's children's section; the album's song cycle expands from that story into other visions.[5](https://repository.gatech.edu/bitstreams/a5101b95-baaa-41c7-aaa9-5d32ebe6455f/download) • [16](https://www.laphil.com/people/the-decemberists) *The Hazards of Love* (2009) went further as a full-blown rock opera about a woman who falls in love with a shape-shifting creature, with guest vocalists Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond, and Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond.[17](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15000-the-king-is-dead/) • [1](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-decemberists-mn0000787579) The band toured the album in full, start to finish.[18](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/nov/20/the-decemberists-review)
**The retreat to simplicity.** After two straight high-concept song cycles, Meloy deliberately ditched the theatrics for *The King Is Dead* (2011), a stripped-down country-folk record with no narrative, recorded in a converted barn on Oregon's Pendarvis Farm, with R.E.M.'s Peter Buck playing on three tracks and [Gillian Welch](https://www.edgepedia.org/gillian-welch) singing on seven.[19](https://www.mmusicmag.com/features/V2-01/The-Decemberists-M-JanFeb-2011.pdf) • [17](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15000-the-king-is-dead/) It became the band's first number-one album on the US chart.[6](https://www.universal-music.co.jp/the-decemberists/biography/)
**Hiatus and return.** The band went silent after 2011, with no records or tours for four years while Meloy attended to his young family and wrote children's books. The seventh album, *What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World* (2015), kept the classic Decemberists mold but traded antique personas for emotional directness, and included the AAA radio number-one hit "Make You Better".[20](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/decemberists-gig-review-triumphant-return-after-fouryear-hiatus-brings-new-emotional-directness-10047253.html) • [3](https://www.opry.com/artists/the-decemberists) Later records continued the pattern of reinvention: *Queen of Hearts* (2017), a collaboration with English folk artist Olivia Chaney; the synth-pop-leaning *I'll Be Your Girl* (2018) with producer John Congleton; and the progressive-leaning double album *[As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again](https://www.edgepedia.org/as-it-ever-was-so-it-will-be-again)* (2024), co-produced by Tucker Martine and Meloy, the band's longest outing, featuring the 19-minute "Joan in the Garden" and guest spots from the Shins' James Mercer and R.E.M.'s Mike Mills.[1](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-decemberists-mn0000787579)
## Live performance
The Decemberists' shows are described by critics as playful, theatrical, poetic, and whimsical; a LiveRate aggregation of 190 critic concert reviews rates the band's live performance at 79 out of 100, with concerts running from 45 minutes to over two hours.[21](https://www.liverate.com/artists/the-decemberists) The theatricality extends to staging: at a 2015 Glasgow show, bassist Nate Query mimed frantic rowing with an enormous bull fiddle during "The Mariner's Revenge Song".[15](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/feb/16/decembertists-review-glasgow-academy-review) Long-form pieces are a fixture of the live repertoire, from the five-part suite *The Tain* (2004) to full-album performances of *The Hazards of Love*.[7](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/the-decemberists-as-it-ever-was)
## References
1. [The Decemberists – Biography, Discography, Albums & Expert Reviews, AllMusic](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-decemberists-mn0000787579)
2. [The Decemberists Biography by Linda Seida, AllMusic](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-decemberists-mn0000787579/biography)
3. [The Decemberists, Opry Entertainment](https://www.opry.com/artists/the-decemberists)
4. [The Decemberists: The changing of the seasons, The Guardian (2011)](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/jan/06/decembrists-colin-meloy-interview)
5. [Technique, Georgia Tech, 27 October 2006](https://repository.gatech.edu/bitstreams/a5101b95-baaa-41c7-aaa9-5d32ebe6455f/download)
6. [ザ・ディセンバリスツ Biography, Universal Music Japan](https://www.universal-music.co.jp/the-decemberists/biography/)
7. [This band love sneaking prog into record collections, LouderSound (2026)](https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/the-decemberists-as-it-ever-was)
8. [The Decemberists interview, Pitchfork (2003)](https://pitchfork.com/features/interview/5908-the-decemberists/)
9. [CMJ New Music Report, May 2003](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/CMJ/2003/CMJ-New-Music-2003-05.pdf)
10. [B. Malloy, McGill University thesis on narrative unreliability in The Decemberists](https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/downloads/7w62fc53g)
11. [The Decemberists and the Carnival, University of Osijek (2025)](https://www.ffos.unios.hr/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Kick-05.pdf)
12. [The Decemberists interview, Pitchfork (2005)](https://pitchfork.com/features/interview/6471-the-decemberists/)
13. [Album: The Decemberists – Picaresque review, The Independent (2005)](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/album-the-decemberists-498780.html)
14. [The Decemberists: Picaresque Album Review, Pitchfork (2005)](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/2243-picaresque/)
15. [The Decemberists review, The Guardian (2015)](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/feb/16/decembertists-review-glasgow-academy-review)
16. [The Decemberists, LA Phil](https://www.laphil.com/people/the-decemberists)
17. [The Decemberists: The King Is Dead Album Review, Pitchfork (2011)](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15000-the-king-is-dead/)
18. [The Decemberists review, The Guardian (2009)](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/nov/20/the-decemberists-review)
19. [The Decemberists, Music & Musicians magazine, Jan/Feb 2011](https://www.mmusicmag.com/features/V2-01/The-Decemberists-M-JanFeb-2011.pdf)
20. [Decemberists gig review, The Independent (2015)](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/decemberists-gig-review-triumphant-return-after-fouryear-hiatus-brings-new-emotional-directness-10047253.html)
21. [The Decemberists – Live Tour & Concert Review Consensus, LiveRate](https://www.liverate.com/artists/the-decemberists)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Music › Musicians and ensembles › Ensembles and groups › Rock, pop, and metal bands › Rock, indie, and pop groups › Indie and alternative bands › Indie pop bands › American indie and alternative bands › 2000s bands*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 17, 2026; Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 17, 2026; Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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