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It always needs to be new. It always needs to be interesting. We don't have a lot in common with jam bands but we've never had a setlist from day one. -Bob Crawford |
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The Flow of Brotherly Things
While the core instrumentation suggests roots music – banjo, acoustic guitar, double bass – there's a wide sweep of styles that makes them impossible to fully pin down. Emotionalism has Django Reinhardt jazz skip ("Paranoia in Bb Major," "Pretty Girl From San Diego"), twisted bubblegum hand-clappers ("Die Die Die," "Will You Return?") and the CBGB's electric smackdown hiding in the backend of "Pretty Girl From Chile." You sense their varied personalities in the compositions, which are always credited to the group rather than an individual.
The Avett Brothers |
"Someone will bring the skeleton of an idea – a few words or the chords – and it takes a band to flesh it out," says Crawford. "More and more, Scott and Seth trade off ideas. A lot of it is a 50-50 share lyrically. I hear these stories about brothers that fight, brothers that are jealous of each other, and I've never seen that with them, not even in the smallest ways. Their father told them when they were real young that there's enough people in this world that'll be against them in life and they should be each other's best friend. They carry that through and share it with the rest of us. It's not 'us against the world' necessarily but it is us going through this together and ego isn't an issue."
The Avett Brothers |
The ladies continue to be a fertile source of ink for their pens, with Emotionalism adding three more to their ongoing "Pretty Girl" series. "I think the initial inspirations fade away and they take on a greater symbolic life," Crawford observes. "I can't speak for the guys on this but the song goes on to have its own life. It might mean one thing but could mean something completely different for someone else. That's how it is with music I like and have brought close to my heart. I could interpret it to my life and what I needed it to mean at the time, and from talking with people I think some of them do that with our songs."
Regardless of any newfound sophistication, The Avett Brothers retain a wonderful hootenanny charisma where you halfway expect to be handed a jug of home brew during their shows.
The Avett Brothers |
"None of us, except for Joe Kwon, are virtuosos. People see us and think, 'That's something I could do!' I watch someone like Edgar Meyer play bass, and I love it but I could never do that. I could never be like Oteil [Burbridge] or Victor Wooten, not if I stopped at 36-years old what I'm doing now and went home to practice 14 hours a day. We're not too good at playing with other people, sitting around a circle and jamming. We don't know a lot of the songs but we know where they come from," says Crawford.
Critics of Emotionalism have been bringing up the Beatles a lot but Crawford says it hasn't fazed them a bit.
"I haven't read too many reviews. We try not to pay heed to it. That's the best way to do it. It's nice that it's said but I don't buy it. When you compare somebody to something that's come before you're talking about a moment in history where many factors converged. The playing field was right for a certain thing to happen that never happened before, and it created sounds and melodies that'd never come before. I guess history bears things out. I can tell you no one here is buying it. We've never done anything but what we do. Ever. The sound that comes out is us."
JamBase | North Carolina
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