‘I need to not be violent to myself’: Big Thief on pain, healing and their intense musical bond

The folk-rockers have weathered divorce and trauma to become one of the US's best bands. Loved up with one another on tour, they explain their need for imperfection - and why recording is like sex

It is early afternoon in downtown Nashville, and the party is already going strong. Bachelorettes in pink cowboy hats are flowing, mask-free, in and out of the honky-tonks. The members of Big Thief, though - Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek, Max Oleartchik and James Krivchenia - are sitting outside the Ryman Auditorium like dots of oil floating atop the water. No one seems to notice that one of the US's best bands is scattered around a patio table a few hours before their show tonight, just yards above the 24/7 bacchanal.

There's a pigeon-keeper up there," says the band's frontperson Lenker, leaning forward in her chair in a horse-print shirt, jeans and a bandanna, her gaze fixed on a small skyscraper. She points, and the rest of the band follows her finger to a group of birds on top of a building, furiously in motion. They're flying in circles, so there has to be a cage up there. They only do that when there is someone conducting them."