[The Avett Brothers: Scott Avett and Seth Avett at the House of Blues, Boston.  October 18, 2009]

It may be snowing in October, but the wet, murky gloom of an early uninvited winter was decimated last night once The Avett Brothers took the stage for their nearly sold-out show at Boston’s House of Blues.  Simultaneously cheerful and wrought with resigned melancholy, the music of The Avett Brothers is a rejuvenated take on banjo-pickin’ Americana indicative of Seth and Scott Avett’s North Carolina roots.   While the sing-a-long crowd pleasers off 2007’s Emotionalism (“Will You Return”,”Go To Sleep”) are of a stomp-your-feet-spill-your beer variety, the lyrical prowess of Avett songwriting is especially showcased in their earlier love songs (“The Ballad of Love and Hate”, “If It’s the Beaches”) which can effortlessly hush a crowd within a measure or two.  Their latest release, I And Love And You, is a musical progression capitalizing on Emotionalism’s upbeat riffs as much as it is a continuation of their explorations in ballad writing.  Selections off the new album made up the bulk of the set list, and while Scott and Seth Avett took turns beating the modest drum kit into submission on pop-infused numbers like “It Goes On and On”, the stirring renditions of  “Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise” and “January Wedding” delivered what fans were looking for:  Soaring melodies that last long after the last refrain, resounding twangs and steady bass lines that have come to define The Avett Brothers’ sound.

Since 2001, Seth, Scott, bassist Bob Crawford and cellist Joe Kwon have been sharing their earnest, intimate and at times rowdy onstage show with listeners from coast to coast.  The momentum they’ve been building since sharing bills with the likes of Dave Matthews Band and Wilco has catapulted them from small club act to packed-theatre status: The Avett Brothers have recently graced the cover of Paste Magazine, they wowed the crowd at this year’s Newport Folk Festival, and a sea of people was floored last night at the House of Blues after the quartet played for nearly an hour and a half straight.  If I And Love And You is any indication of the Avett’s progress, now is the time to pick up their albums and catch up on required listening before this band explodes.

After this tour, Seth, Scott, Bob and Joe will be taking some much deserved time off in order to spend time with their families.  They’ll resurface in Asheville, North Carolina for a sold-out show at the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium on New Year’s Eve, and they have plans to demo more music before hitting the road again next spring.  A couple of days before picking up his bass onstage at the House of Blues, Bob Crawford took some time out of his hectic touring schedule to speak with me about which songs off I And Love And You are especially near and dear to him.  While voicing his exciting over the House of Blues show, Bob  made sure to note that it’s the enthusiasm and unrelenting support of their Boston fans that’s kept the Avett Brothers coming up north for years.  Read on for an exclusive inside the songwriting of The Avett Brothers, their life-changing plans for the future and why Boston is a city they look forward to hitting on tour each and every time.

-Hilary Hughes

[The Avett Brothers: Joe Kwon and Bob Crawford at the House of Blues, Boston. October 18, 2009]

THE MAIN EVENT: THE AVETT BROTHERS TPB INTERVIEW

How does I And Love And You compare with Emotionalism, Four Thieves Gone… and other previously recorded material that you’ve done with The Avett Brothers so far?

I think every album we’ve done since 2001 has been a natural progression.  As we get better at playing our instruments, as we get better at writing songs, there’s a natural maturing that I think occurs.  I And Love And You is probably the most mature album we’ve made yet.  We’re at a point where we have a bit of knowledge about our instruments and how to put songs together, and we’ve been working on branching out to other instruments to create new textures in the music. I don’t think I And Love And You is a great departure from Emotionalism, but I think it’s a natural next step.

What are some of these new instruments that you’re incorporating into your repertoire, and which ones can we expect to see in an Avett Brothers live show?

With the shows, we have piano, a drum kit, electric guitars and electric bass.  Of course, we have our traditional instruments for us, which are an upright bass, a banjo, an acoustic guitar, a high hat and a kick drum, and there’s a trumpet here and there.  Live, that’s pretty much what you’re gonna get.  While we were recording I And Love And You, it was kind of like, if we came to a song that needed a tuba, we’d find someone to play tuba: We were no longer hemmed in to what was immediately available.

Are there any songs on I And Love And You that you feel especially connected to?

I really love “Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise”, and I love “Ill with Want.”  I think that Seth and Scott, with their lyrics and songwriting, have just touched on a new level.  The craft of writing takes time, and they’ve certainly put a lot of time into their craft.  I think that the topics and the ideas behind these songs on I And Love And You really rang true to me.  I think that we all have our desires, whatever they may be, whatever that thought that keeps anybody up at night, I think a lot of it comes down to worry and that worry comes from desire and ultimately comes to want and it’s a human condition that we all experience on some level at different times in our lives.  I think that the fact that Seth and Scott touched on it so perfectly, for me, it just connects me to “Ill with Want” in a great way.  “Head Full of Doubt…” for me, it’s great for us as a band because it’s always exciting to cut new ground in a song, musically.  Tempo-wise, chord progressions, instrumentation… I think “Head Full of Doubt” is one of those departures for us and I think it’s something that we’ll build on in the future and do more songs like it, though not just like it.  The less confined we are to what we know, to acoustic guitar, banjo and upright bass, we know that dynamic and we know it very well, so to branch out and touch other dynamics in music is very exciting.  It’s important for us to obtain that because we want it to always be fresh and new for us as well as for the people who listen to us and come see us.

[The Avett Brothers: Bob Crawford, Scott Avett, and Seth Avett at the House of Blues, Boston.  October 18, 2009]

Are there any other songs in the catalog of The Avett Brothers that you look forward to playing every night or that stick out to you, Seth and Scott as favorites?

We have some new songs that aren’t on an album yet.  There’s one called “Down with the Shine”, and that’s a great love of mine.  I love that song.  It’s one of those… I mean, those boys [Seth and Scott Avett] amaze me, just as they’ve amazed so many other people.  They amaze me often, and I’m no different in my appreciation of the lyrical content that they seem to give and work hard to develop.

When it comes to the creative process behind the music of The Avett Brothers, can you take me through it?

It’s always different: Sometimes, there’ll be just the skeleton of the song which Seth or Scott will bring chords or ideas to the table and everyone will fill in the meat.  Nowadays, it seems more piecemeal; it seems that more recently Scott will have a verse and a couple of chords and we’ll work on that for a bit, and then Seth will be like, “You know, I have something that might fit with that…” and he’ll add in his part, and then maybe we’ll need an instrumental part and I’ll contribute that.  More and more, it becomes a collective, and even with the lyric writing.

[The Avett Brothers: Bob Crawford and Scott Avett at the House of Blues, Boston. October 18, 2009]

I had the privilege of seeing you play at the Newport Folk Festival this year, and I know that WERS is thrilled to be presenting your concert at the House of Blues.  How has your experience been playing in New England, specifically Boston, and what’s the relationship like between The Avett Brothers and their fan base here?

I think the further north you get the more rowdy it gets! (Laughs) There’s some real fervor, and people get real loud in the best possible way.  It’s exciting to play up here.  The folks up north are strong, tough-skinned people.  I think the weather does it to you.  (Laughs)  Our fans in Boston have always put us up on their shoulders and brought us along and they’ve always been so hospitable.  Even at shows in New England that were smaller, a crowd of twenty or thirty people could sound like two hundred and fifty.  It’s always been a treat to be up here.  It’s beautiful in Boston.  The Newport Folk Festival was one of the greatest days of my life, and it was just such an honor to be on that stage.  We love making our way north.  WERS has been really good to us and we really appreciate them getting behind us on this.  We’re so excited to play the brand new House of Blues, too.  It’s really easy to badmouth a chain of anything, but I’ll tell you, for a musician, the House of Blues is great.  The rooms are great, the sound systems are great, the crew is great, and it’s a real pleasure to play any House of Blues venue.

What’s next for The Avett Brothers?  What do we have to look forward to from you, Joe, Seth and Scott in the coming months?

We’ve already demoed a bunch of songs and we’re writing like crazy!  We’re about to get four months off, and I’ve got a daughter that’s about to be born in a couple of weeks, so it’s going to be good to have that time off.  We need that time in order to be able to do this, to get solid down time to recharge ourselves and give our families the part of us they deserve.  We don’t have plans to stop anytime soon, so we’re going to take our break over the winter and we’ll get back at it at the end of February.  We’re going to do some rehearsals over our time off and develop this new material, maybe record some new demos, and we’re going to keep on doing what we’ve been doing since 2001.  There’s no real break in the action, just a little time off.

[The Avett Brothers: Joe Kwon and Bob Crawford at the House of Blues, Boston. October 18, 2009]