Catching Up With... The Avett Brothers

They’re traveling troubadours of the inner workings of the heart and head, these men in their stage suits wielding banjos with the force of weapons. They communicate all the gray areas and intricacies thereof through simple sonic textures; bluegrass strings join keys, kick drums, sweet crooning and guttural screams. Multi-instrumentalists Seth and Scott Avett, bassist Bob Crawford and cellist Joe Kwon traverse the country, ministering to ever-growing audiences from their book of unabashed balladry, hollerin’ all the way. They are rough around the edges of a center so baldly honest that even their ample facial hair begins to seem unlikely.

If theirs is a formula not many have used before, The Avett Brothers are testing it well now, gradually accumulating legions of loyal fans and releasing five full-length studio records in as many years. As the band prepared to depart Ann Arbor, Mich. for Grand Rapids in May, Paste caught up with Scott to talk about creative consistency, time spent on the road and achieving the unexpected. They’re in the midst of yet another of their incessant tours, hopping from venue to venue, from one frantic crowd to the next.

This particular journey leads the group to a discographical destination as well as a physical one. On July 22, the Avetts will release The Second Gleam via longtime label Ramseur Records. It’s the aptly-named sequel to their only previous EP, 2006’s The Gleam, and it’s a pit stop on the road to their next full-length record, which they’ve slated to record later this year with a release in 2009.

Paste: The Second Gleam comes out in July. Can you tell me a little bit about the writing and recording process of it and what your listeners can expect?
Scott Avett: Well, the basis of the thing is in the beginning. The first Gleam that we made kind of sprung from the recording of “Famous Flower of Manhattan” from Four Thieves [Gone], where we were going to make the recording and we knew it had to be a one-take sort of thing. We knew it had to be Seth and I just sitting down, two chairs, two guitars, two microphones, and it had to be done all at once. We would just go in and every day we would just try it once or twice, or at least until we got warm, which might take two or three times. And if it didn’t happen, you’d say “Okay, let’s just try again tomorrow. It’s just got to be right.” And we did that for six or seven days until we got it, and we really enjoyed the process of the quiet and calm feeling of it. So we said, you pick three songs, I’ll pick three that I’ve been writing on my own, and let’s just make a record and we’ll base it on this theme of this song that was called “Sanguine.” It was speaking of “the gleam,” meaning the outer skirts of light of what we do as a primary operation. Not the leftovers, but the outer skirts of the light of it. So it had a good theme to it and it felt good to record. So we did the first one. And on the second one, we started recording it last April and sat on it, and thought it over and added songs, and then after we just completed a number of demos, into the 30 realm, we added two or three more songs to it, edited down some and added newer songs. It sticks somewhat to the theme and to the order of quietness and calmness and just Seth and I basically partnering in the recording and the writing. The songs aren’t quite as individually written as the first one was. There’s input from each other more so on this one than there was on the first.

Paste: Does that contrast with your process when you’re recording full-lengths? Is it more collaborative then?
Avett: Yeah, in a full-length, for instance, a song like “Die Die Die” in Emotionalism or “Will You Return?,” those songs we bounce parts off each other and react to each others’ initial part or initial idea. The Gleam still, it’s not into that realm. The songs, there pretty much are three a piece, and the kind of primary writer is one or the other, but there is input on each one from each other, so it’s a little bit different.

Paste: As far as the subject matter you explore on this one, is it the sequel to the first Gleam, or is it the process of the recording that makes it the sequel?
Avett: The themes for us, they start with some sort of reality, and some sort of truth emotionally or experience-wise, and then they kind of turn into something else. I think they’re pretty similar as far as the amount of abstract usage of words and whatnot. The varying between Seth and I has become more apparent as we write anyway, and I think it’s somewhat on the first one. I think that a simple answer would be yeah, the themes are similar, but I also think the listeners kind of decide that, and make up what the themes really are. Sometimes they come up way different than I thought they would come off or intended for them to come off.

Paste: Do you mean that the song itself ends up differently than how you conceived of it in the beginning or that listeners interpret differently than you intend?
Avett: The first thing you said is not what I meant, but that does happen as well, and the second is what I’m saying. A lot of times the metaphor that you’re trying to put across might be missed and might be read more literal. That tends to happen with everything, with books that any of us read, or even visually, when you look at a photograph or a picture or a painting, you read it so much more for matter-of-fact. We all want to do that. They always come off a little differently than physically recorded, than you intend for them to.

Paste: How much of the year would you say you guys are touring at this point?
Avett: Last year it was around 190 shows, and around 220-230 days on the road, so that’s about two thirds, I’d say. This year’s intended to be less because we’ve got another record we’ve got to record this year for next year, so that’s going to put us on the road in other ways. We’ll be traveling back and forth to studios. So it’s a busy year. It was not intended to be as busy as last year, but it’s turning out that way. I’m very excited about the girl that we’ve been touring with for the past two months. The opening acts we have on this tour have been amazing. I’m just super excited about Jessica Lea Mayfield, and her songs and her life. I just completed the artwork for her album, and it should be coming out I think in August or September.