Profile · Eau Claire, Wisconsin
Justin DeYarmond Edison Vernon (Bon Iver)
Musician and Bon Iver founder; born in Eau Claire and still based in the Chippewa Valley
$4.3 million
Justin DeYarmond Edison Vernon is the Eau Claire musician who turned a Dunn County hunting-cabin winter into Bon Iver and then refused to let the tour bus relocate the scene. He was born in Eau Claire on April 30, 1981, graduated from Memorial High in 1999, and studied at UW–Eau Claire as a religious-studies major who was not yet ready to major in music. At Memorial he was football captain, a jazz-band kid, and a student-council type. His first band, Mount Vernon, formed after a high-school jazz camp in 1997. After DeYarmond Edison split in North Carolina amid illness, a poker wipeout, and a breakup, he spent the winter of 2006–07 at his father Gil’s hunting cabin in Dunn County, chopping wood, hunting, and stacking falsetto. For Emma, Forever Ago began as homemade CDs, caught a Pitchfork rave, and put Eau Claire on the indie map. He stayed. April Base studio in Fall Creek hosted everyone from Sufjan Stevens to Bruce Hornsby. He co-owns downtown’s Oxbow Hotel and The Lakely with local partners and, with The National’s Aaron Dessner, founded the Eaux Claires festival (2015–18; returning 2026 at Carson Park). Grammys and high-profile collaborations followed, along with a Wisconsin outline tattooed on his chest. The city did not lose him to Brooklyn; he built a scene and pointed the bus home.