DEVENDRA BANHART PUTS ON HAIRS

Given that Devendra Banhart has named his 11th studio album Flying Wig, you might be tempted to think the dashing but idiosyncratic musician is hair-obsessed. After all, he chose to work with Cate Le Bon, creative visionary and producer, on the basis of her willingness to cut his hair the first time the duo met, despite the fact that the only tools on hand were a knife and fork. Add to that his ascendency in the early aughts as the most successful—and hairiest—member of the Freak Folk Movement; it was a rare review that didn’t call him hirsute (a word precious few have ever uttered aloud), focusing more on his straggly, unkempt beard and shock of dark hair than on the lo-fi brilliance of his mystical and mercurial songs.

But these days you could hardly call the artist-cummusician hirsute, freaky, or folk. His ebony locks are expertly cut; the beard is trimmed, with subtle streaks of gray. He looks less raging hippy and more GQ-ready (the publication, in 2019, named him the Most Stylish Man of the Decade). Maybe that’s why his pal Isabelle Albuquerque gave him a human-hair wig for his birthday pre-pandemic, to counteract the seismic tonsorial shift.

“No, it wasn’t that,” the musician demurs. “Isabelle knows me well enough to know that I was gonna love anything like a wig. I like a wig, a knife, incense, or a miniskirt. Then I’m happy.”

He was more than just happy. He was inspired.

But not to wear it. “I looked awful in it.” Banhart confesses. “So it just sat in its box for a while.... Then I put a fishing hook in it, got some fishing line, and tied the wig to the ceiling, where it just floated in the living room. I would greet it every morning when I got up, and it hung out with me. That’s how this flying wig thing started to happen. It gave it more of this feeling that it was flying around.” Over the next few months, he found he was creating elaborate scenarios for his pet wig. “Don’t call it my pet! It was my roommate!” he admonishes.

“Putting it on the little wire changed everything, creating this whole fantasy of: While humans are stuck at home [during the pandemic], at least all the wigs are out there having fun. So I would imagine that, while everyone is asleep, the wigs are at the Hollywood Roosevelt having a drink, and then they’re shopping in Beverly Hills. They’re just living their lives.” But during the day, when Banhart was up and around, he came to depend on his furry friend being there on the wire. “It would unnerve me if anyone moved the wig.... I’d go, ‘Oh, she’s on a bender. They’d already called last call, but she’s still having a couple more drinks.’ Just for a second, I’d believe that that story was real.

“Because I look so terrible in a wig, I turned it into this entity that was living with me. If I would have looked good in a wig, I would have never made this album. And it would never have been called Flying Wig because I would have just worn the wig and gone, ‘Cool, I’m wearing a wig.’ So maybe it’s lucky that I look so awful in wigs.”

Ever the contrarians, we decided to take Banhart to Outfitters Wig on Hollywood Boulevard, the oldest hairpiece and wig emporium in Los Angeles, to prove to him that he really doesn’t look terrible in wigs. The results were...well, you decide.