INTERVIEW: The Avett Brothers reveal new details about Rick Rubin-helmed album
June 2008: Seth Avett, center, waits backstage, with, from left, Joe Kwon, Bob Crawford and his brother, Scott. (Photo: Derek Anderson)
The door that seals the back lounge of The Avett Brothers’ long, shining tour bus slides open silently. At once, the quartet’s members—brothers Scott and Seth Avett, bassist Bob Crawford, cellist Joe Kwon—pause and glance up, smiling to their longtime manager, Dolph Ramseur, as he steps across the threshold: “NPR wants to know how many new songs you’re playing tonight,” Ramseur says, his inflection kindly implying an apology for the interruption. Scott reaches for the setlist. The band exchanges some final thoughts. Scott makes the pronouncement: “Two, but if there’s a real serious need for another new song, we could do one.”
Tonight, the Brothers’ bus sits a dozen feet from the front gate of Stubb’s, an Austin, Texas, BBQ institution that also doubles as one of the Capital City’s biggest and most venerated venues. In two hours, the band will take the penultimate slot of an NPR-produced bill on the first night of SXSW. The Decemberists will headline, and—in less than 48 hours—Metallica will take the same stage. The show is the band’s first since a year-ending stand in North Carolina, but it’s likely just the start of what could be a monumental year for the Concord band: After serving as the flagship act for the label that takes Ramseur’s name for five albums, The Avett Brothers will release I and Love and You, its Rick Rubin-produced major label debut, in August. Still at least four months ahead of release, the anticipation behind the album is growing steadily. A recent Rolling Stone story suggested it was one of the mostly eagerly awaited albums of the year, and NPR needs to know the names of the new tunes so it can plug the disc.
Ramseur jots the name of the songs down (”I and Love and You,” “Kick Drum Heart”) and excuses himself. The band turns its attention back to the new album, and—in one of their most extensive interviews about the record to date—reveals several of the record’s guests, a few tracks that did and didn’t make the record, and its thoughts on recording with Rubin and touring with Dave Matthews Band. The Avett Brothers open for DMB at Walnut Creek Amphitheatre Wednesday, April 22, at 7 p.m., and—if you’re keeping track at home—the band’s now verified four of the 17 tunes it finished with Rubin: “Kick Drum Heart,” “I and Love and You,” “Slight Figure of Speech,” and “Tin Man.”
