What’s In A Genre Name?: A Q&A with The Avett Brothers

The last few weeks have been big ones for the Avett Brothers. On Sept. 20, the band headlined a concert at Nashville’s Riverfront Park that not only celebrated the Americana Music Association’s 15th anniversary, but served notice that the AMA’s annual festival and conference, aka AmericanaFest, is now as much a big deal, entertainment-wise, as it is a means to advance the genre and its artists. On Oct. 4, the Avetts returned to the Austin City Limits Festival, delivering a performance that made the “best-of” lists of just about every media outlet covering weekend one.

Two days later, they taped their second appearance on Austin City Limits, the 40-year-old TV series that spawned the festival and played no small role in developing the Americana genre. On Saturday, they play weekend two of ACL Fest, where they’ll likely draw an even bigger crowd than the sea of fans who caught last weekend’s set.

Those fans will witness a band that has evolved from the original trio of Scott Avett (vocals, banjo and kick-drum), Seth Avett (vocals, guitar, hi-hat) and Bob Crawford (vocals and bass) to a foursome with cellist Joe Kwon and now, a septet; they’ve added violinist Tania Elizabeth (the Duhks), drummer Mike Marsh (Dashboard Confessional) and keyboardist/bassist Paul Difiglia (Langhorne Slim & the War Eagles) to the fold.

With each addition, the band’s onstage energy somehow manages to multiply. There’s so much stomping and clapping and jumping and zooming around, it’s a wonder they have enough air left in their lungs to nail their gorgeous harmonies, much less power through sets that feel both recklessly loose and as taut as a drumhead. One minute, they whip audiences into frenzies with over-the-top stunts like Seth’s shades-of-Hendrix “Kick Drum Heart” guitar solo — conducted mid-audience  — then, without pause, they switch into an achingly beautiful acoustic ballad like “Murder in the City.”

As for just what makes the Avett Brothers not just Americana’s darlings, but a major concert draw and top-selling recording act, it comes down to this: They write infectious melodies with thoughtful lyrics; they maintain a keen balance of earnestness and humor; they stay humble; and they still play with unbridled joy every time they step on a stage, no matter what size it is or how many people are watching. Those not attending ACL Fest can watch a live stream of their set here. http://aclfest.redbull.tv/ – !/

Before their week one set, Lynne Margolis spoke with the band backstage.

The Avett Brothers and the Americana genre have grown up together. What does it mean to you to be the guys they wanted to put out front to announce the genre’s entry into adulthood, so to speak? 

Scott Avett: That means a lot to me. Because we’ve never had a definite home in radio, we’ve kind of noticed around us in the world that we were — thankfully — never put in a record slot; we were never put in a bin. And because of that, there’s certain cliques that we’re not part of. And to see such a broad clique, or genre, be welcoming of us makes me feel really wanted. I want to fit in and I wanna be part of something, so that’s pretty amazing.

Seth Avett: We’ve both been proud to be linked up with that name, with that genre. Back before Americana became more known as a legitimate, popular genre, we were making friends in that world — Jim Lauderdale, all the folks around Merlefest; it was a pretty natural fit. And it’s always seemed like the Americana world, as such, has been a genre where the focus has been on the quality of songs. We like to think we fit in that world.

Bob Crawford: It’s a very broad genre. It kind of feels like the “everybody else” genre. It is an amazing honor to be part of it. It always has been. But to see it come together like it’s been the past three or four years, it’s really becoming a cohesive thing. So it’s great to play that; that show was amazing, by the way. The enthusiasm of the crowd … we play a lot of exciting shows, do some great nights, and that one was up there with the best of them.

Joe Kwon: It was amazing to play at the Ryman Auditorium for all the AMA awards ceremonies, and then to get to the Riverfront to play for such a large crowd in such a setting was a very beautiful thing.

Taping your second Austin City Limits episode [the first was in 2009]; after performing so many places with so many great artists, are opportunities like that still special, and if so, why?

Scott: This opportunity to play ACL is very special and one that we’ve been waiting for for a very long time because we’re really guilty of looking back and thinking we can always do better than what we did last time. I actually went back and reviewed our first performance, because in my mind and my memory, it was just this wreck. They had us review it right after the show, and watching it [now], it was more refreshing and more entertaining than I then I’d recalled. I thought it was just terrible and it was actually — it was a different me and a different Seth and a different Bob, it was a different us, but it was good, it was special. But we get an opportunity now to go in and represent what we are now. We’ve changed as men, and a woman in our group, along with Joe Kwon, the other woman — no, I’m just kidding, he’s not a woman, he’s a witch — [laughter] but we get an opportunity to go in and represent what we are now at the appropriate moment.

Seth: Austin City Limits as an entity, it’s very difficult to imagine something like that feeling commonplace, or not feeling like an occasion. Whereas a lot of our work over the last decade-plus, certain things that, when we were kids dreaming, we would never have imagined they could have become part of our normal, daily life — like playing at a big festival —but Austin City Limits, it just retains its specialness. I think it’ll always feel like that.

Bob: We were just all talking about this, how when you were a kid, if you didn’t have cable, you had PBS. So you grew up with Austin City Limits. And it’s been 40 years but the set really hasn’t changed, so there is a timeless quality to it, and it’s the highest caliber of television music performance that there is.

Joe: The other thing that’s strange is that this is our first time playing the new set [at ACL Live at the Moody Theater]. We haven’t done that yet.

Back to the genre thing, your Facebook page lists you as rock. Is that specifically intentional?

Scott: Well, if it’s specific or intentional, there’s probably an equal spot where we list ourselves as country. Cause we’ve always tried to balance figuring out what it was. On any given day, you think, “Well, what is Neil Young? What is he?” He was always rockin’. Are we really much different, as far as genre-spanning, then that?

Does it even matter? 

Scott: Does it even matter? And that’s what’s so great about Americana. And that’s what’s been so good about being with a non-limiting label [American], because if we were just rock, then we would always have to wear black T-shirts.

Seth: We like to wear those, but just sometimes.

Scott: In terms of musicality, names of genres are really just points of reference, and really, you hope to fall under any category that doesn’t run people off before they hear it. Like if you say, “We’re rockabilly,” there’s people that have their minds made up about rockabilly. “Oh, I don’t like rockabilly because of whatever.” But rock is such a gigantic umbrella.

Bob: I feel like the artist is probably the last person who thinks about genre. It’s y’all’s job. I don’t know how many times I’ve done an interview and the first question is, “Well, how do you classify your music?” Actually, there was a breakoff point, like 2011 or ‘12, where I said, from now on, I answer it like this:  “It’s your job to define it, because we do what we do. There are influences that are both on the surface and in the subconscious of what we do, but it’s y’all’s job to tell us what box it fits in.”

And as much as artists I know resist that and I don’t blame them, basically, we have to give people a frame of reference. But sometimes it feels like you’re still faced with that whole Mumford-hater/Avett-lumping thing. Are you still addressing that or just ignoring it?

Scott: There’s been very little conversation about it at all. … It feeds off each other; it always has. We came into New York City in 2003 and were pushed into the anti-folk scene there, meeting people like Regina Spektor and Paleface, the same scene that Beck had come from, and we immediately started feeding off of that. We were inspired wholly by that experience. And to us, that was our group. That was what we connected with. And I thought that that was the movement — I thought that this group of people, Langhorne Slim, the Avett Brothers, Regina Spektor, Paleface and — he had a band called Just About to Burn —I was like, these four, and Nicole Atkins, this is the group that’s gonna be the next Rolling Thunder, you know?

[laughter]

You oughtta plan that.

Scott: Yeah, we planned it early on … groups that we met along the way [they recorded Four Thieves Gone: The Robbinsville Sessions, with Langhorne Slim]. I talked to Ray Benson from Asleep at the Wheel the other day; he was like, “Man, every generation regurgitates, and they discover old-time, they discover country and they discover that it’s either in ‘em or not. It doesn’t matter where you’re from; what you’re called. It’s all good.”

And if you’re doin’ it right, you are going back and absorbing history, because that’s what you’re building on … 

So, now, Joe, you’re a foodie, Bob, you represent the National Brain Tumor Society and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Scott, you’re still painting. Seth, what do you like to do with your free time?

Scott: Well, he’s a musician. I’m gonna answer for Seth. Seth is the one in the group — Bob and I could tell you stories about our lives that I envision as these interstate highways, and Bob has better stories than me, but we have these departures, these exits, these mile markers and these crashes. A lot of exits. We didn’t ever know, we kind of just followed our noses and kind of made a mess out of a lot of things, and there’s a lot of good stories from that. Seth, if you asked him what he gonna be when he was 8 years old, he was telling you musician, that’s what he was gonna be. I was saying I’m just gonna draw attention. Bob was, uh, I’m not gonna say what Bob saying, but Seth has always been very intent [on music].

What’s the one question you wish somebody would ask you that you don’t get asked but might like to respond to?

[Scott, Seth and Bob]: Great question.

Scott: I would like someone to say, you know, what is Joe’s problem?

[Laughter] And I would say, “Oh, where to begin, where to begin.]

Joe: I would say no comment.

Oh, I didn’t ask about what you’re working on, the new album?

Seth: We’ll be in studio in November for the first wave of tracking with Rick [Rubin].

Out at his studio?

Seth: We’re gonna do it out in Malibu.

Are the others out on the road with you going, too?

Seth: Yeah, Tania, Paul and Mike, they’re all going with us. We’re draggin’ ‘em down with us.