Catching Up With... The Avett Brothers

Paste: Yeah, with being away so much, do you get a chance to explore the visual part of your creativity as well? Do you have enough time for it?
Avett: I keep reading and studying painting as much as I can. So if we’re on the road for two months, sometimes it’s good to stay away from the studio for two months and take in information. If you want to read Leonardo da Vinci’s book on painting, it gives you time to do that, where you’re not going to do that if you’re home. When you have the studio access, you just want to be painting. And sometimes that’s just kind of like spinning the wheels, it’s this sort of dumb practice. This gives me time to kind of wind it up tight, and then when it’s time to release and paint or draw or whatever it needs to be, I can focus on that with more tools and more ammunition as far as information and knowledge. So you try not to do anything on the road that you could be doing at home. And you try not to do anything at home that could be done during idle time on the road. You just utilize your time. There’s no time for partying, you know?

Paste: Yeah, I bet.
Avett: Zero. There’s just not time.

Paste: I believe you. I was at your show when you recently came to Atlanta, and you said that you had debuted at the Grand Ole Opry the previous night. Can you tell me about that experience for you?
Avett: I’m a little different than the guys, I think. I go into things and it doesn’t ever really hit me until we’re doing it. I think the more you do it, you get used to people telling you something’s going to happen and then it doesn’t happen, and it’s not a let down, and I don’t feel like I’m jaded or anything, I’m just getting where I’m like, “I’ll believe it when I’m on the stage. I’ll believe it when we’re standing in front of them. That’s when I’ll see fit to celebrate.” And you know, getting there, and getting set up for it, you realize how important and how special it is, as far as you’re The Avett Brothers as they debut at the Grand Ole Opry. There’s a singer by the name of John Conlee that we grew up hearing our father listen to, and he’s got an amazing voice, just a huge voice. And he announced us, and that’s something that when I was six-years-old and hearing that in the background looking at album covers with him on it, that wasn’t anything I thought would happen, and I didn’t think it would happen until I was on the Grand Ole Opry stage, and I went “Wow.” That’s pretty exciting. It was pretty delightful to kind of just fall into that and let yourself fall into it instead of building it up and celebrating before the fact. Pretty awesome.

Paste: You were talking a little bit about your experience with artists that you were a fan of when you were little. Your fans, I think, have this very sort of personal relationship with you guys. I’m not sure how much perspective you have on it, but it seems deliberate that you guys are always very sure to thank your fans, very close to them in that kind of way. How does that relate to what your experience has been as a fan of music? Do you think there’s any connection there?
Avett: I can’t really recall receiving any of that kind of exchange with any of the bands or musicians that I loved. Some of the country musicians, for sure. Tom T. Hall was one that I saw in a very small place when I was younger than impacted me quite a bit as a guy that was very, very grateful and content after all of his career.

We don’t operate necessarily like a band. When it came to business, we didn’t really call anybody in Nashville or Los Angeles or New York City and ask them, “Can we get help with this business?” We just started the business like a construction company and operated it like that. It’s gotten more difficult to be able to handle the numbers, because you can’t speak to everybody. The best decision is to kind of float in the back, give them everything you’ve got. You go to give the show, and then you just disappear and let them have that and let them enjoy that. I’d rather keep everybody at that happiness level than disappoint someone, because we can’t handle it all. No human can. But we wouldn’t be anywhere without people coming to see us; that’s what we’ve based our whole career on. It’s just been gradual. It’s been healthy and appropriate, and I’m very, very grateful. We just wouldn’t exist without it.

Paste: Is that some of your impetus for how often you guys play live? Even you have to admit that’s a lot of shows in one year.
Avett: It is. And it’s too many probably. [laughs] If you decide that you want to do this long term and you think, “Hey, I want to be doing this for the next 20 years,” it’s like, “Well you better pace yourself, because…” A basketball player doesn’t play that many games in a year, I don’t think, so it’s like you’ve got to think if you’re going to maintain this. Our show is very demanding, and we don’t attempt to stop being demanding. What we want to do is be smart about it and be fair about it and be balanced. It seems like every answer to all these questions is just moderation and balance and thought. We put thought into it. We’ll adjust those things appropriately.

Paste: One of the things that fascinates me most about your music is that you talk about being honest, loyal and true, about that sort of very un-ironic take on life. You were talking about these things being not necessarily as autobiographical as they sound. Your songs have what seem like very literal situations in them, like a relationship with a certain person. What happens when the truths that you talk about in one song or in one album are different from the truths that you’re talking about in a different situation?
Avett: It all changes, and the definition of truth can alter so much. It really is kind of an aspiring thought to make such a big statement as saying, “I’m searching for truth.” That can come off pretty ridiculous, you know? I think the point is, truth is very different for everyone, because everyone’s experiences are so different. What’s painful and what’s joyful and what’s difficult and what’s easy for every person is different. We have to figure that out. All that being said, everything changes every day. Loyalty comes in so many forms, and the change, kind of, is a journey, and a reason to write the songs.

In the end, we relate to art and music because we’re all humans and we all think a lot of the same things. Lives line up in a lot of ways. I personally try not to get too specific to my life, because if I get too specific then it doesn’t go to anybody else but me. It doesn’t make sense to anybody else but me.

This is a huge topic and I’ve got a lot to say about it. I’m just like grasping right now at all these things, because I’ve recently thought you don’t want to go out and make claims like, “This is what my life’s about. This is how it is, and how it should be.” That’s just not the case. You could just wake up tomorrow and say, “Forget it. I’m out. None of this is true, forget about it.” And that’s scary and that’s crazy, but success can be defined so many different ways. Forget “success.” Beauty. Make “success” the word “beauty.” Beauty can be defined by each of us, and you decide what beauty is, and the people that can be courageous enough to believe themselves beautiful will convince the world, and they are. That courage and that confidence and that positive nature will do that, and that sort of touches on this truth thing, and this honesty and loyalty, and just positive-thinking thing. You just don’t start to realize until you’ve already dealt with the things that are so self-destructive in your life. Man, I know this is way all over the place right now, but the success and beauty thing, the definition of truth—what I’m getting at is we each define it in our own way. And I think that’s got to be remembered. The surface truth and beauty and success stuff just doesn’t really follow that thought. It’s got to be deep and it’s got to be defined by each person. But man, I wish we could just take an hour and do an outline on this so we could make some sense of it.