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The Avett Brothers
Monday, February 01, 2010
Group work with renowned producer Rick Rubin for acclaimed new album. By Brian Wise.
The gig of the year I missed was the Avett Brothers performing at The Lyric Theatre in Oxford, Mississippi when, after a long-day’s drive from Nashville, I fell asleep and woke too late! Luckily, I was to see them a week later in New York when they guested on the Letterman show and I was in the audience. It was an incredibly impressive guest spot and one that made me kick myself for missing them earlier.
As luck would have it we’ll all get a chance to see Scott and Seth Avett along with bassist Bob Crawford when they arrive in Australia for Bluesfest and other dates.
The group’s latest album I & You & Love, their twelfth release and sixth album in a decade, was produced by Rick Rubin and has been drawing critical raves. The impressive guest list includes Simone Felice, percussionist Lenny Castro, Benmont Tench and Donny Herron from Bob Dylan’s band.
“As soon as I heard the depth in their singing and songwriting, I was in for the ride,” said Rubin, who has worked with a vast array of people but over the past decade has spun his magic with Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond, reviving careers and adding to his reputation as a roots music producer.
While the Avett’s music veers from old time country, to beautiful ballads to flat out rock the best thing that can be said about Rubin’s touch is that it is completely unobtrusive.
The Avett Brothers band was formed in 2001 in Charlotte, North Carolina when Scott Avett, who plays banjo, and his guitarist brother Seth Avett added bass player Bob Crawford to form a new outfit after the end of their regionally popular ‘neo-punk’ band Nemo. All three had been to college. Scott had been to art school and was planning on going to graduate school in Florida but music got in the way for all three.
When I catch up with him by phone, Scott Avett is in his workshop near Charlotte, planning the group’s New Year’s Eve show in nearby Asheville. He explains that it is in the Piedmont region, an area that produced both Blind Boy Fuller and Charlie Poole (the music of whom Loudon Wainwright’s latest album is devoted).
“Not really mountain music but it’s foothills,” he says. “More old-time. It had some blues edge to it. We didn’t grow up with bluegrass being played for us, it was a lot of country music. We grew up in a blue-collar environment. Our father was a welder. He was a musician but turned welder as the family grew and he needed to make an income. He was always playing for us. Tom T Hall, Merle Haggard, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Three Dog Night, John Denver. Anywhere from country to folk.”
Avett says that before he and his brother formed their latest outfit they had played ‘mostly loud and abrasive rock.’ He says the new group ‘committed to playing more stripped down’ music and got back to basics so they wouldn’t have to keep ‘toting around so much equipment.’ Banjo, acoustic guitar and bass replaced everything else.
The group hit the road, included a lot of cover versions in their repertoire – folk songs from North Carolina and Virginia, country, bluegrass - and steadily built a reputation. They began writing their own songs, using the same basic forms they had been playing.
“We just kept adding songs, kept adding instruments to songs,” explains Scott, “and this is where we’re at.”
Avett says that when they were in Los Angeles in 2008 they were contacted by an A&R person from Columbia Records and invited to Rubin’s house in Malibu.
“We talked over the possibilities of what we could do,” he recalls, “but mostly just talked about music and where we were from and what we liked. It started immediately from there – the growth of what now has turned into a friendship. You can’t plan on that so we were very fortunate that we were all on the same page on a number of things. It’s mutual respect and it’s been a real good introduction to the label and working with a producer like that.”
The Avetts continued to visit Rubin, brought him songs and demos that spawned other conversations and eventually led to a record deal and new album.
Scott admits that the brothers had been ‘a little bit of control freaks’ about their music until they met Rubin.
“We were real excited to let that control go,” he says, “especially when it was to somebody we respected like Rick. We had no trouble because it was naturally, organically time for us to grow up in that realm. We had proven to ourselves that we were musicians who put a lot into what we have and what we do and work hard to make it the best we can but the reality is that we are not seasoned producers. What better way to learn more about that than to work with one of the best, if not the best. For us today, this is the best.”
“It was awesome to play for him in the studio,” he continues of Rubin, “to try to step up to that challenge and make him continue to believe what he was suggesting by inviting us to work with him.”
I & You & Love is available via Sony. The Avett Brothers will be at Bluesfest and other selected dates.
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