The Avett Brothers | PNC Arena, Raleigh | Sunday, Dec. 31, 8 p.m.
The arc of The Avett Brothers’ career is a bit like their 2009 song “Laundry Room.”
Scott Avett begins the song with a simple plea—“Don’t push me out”—crooned over his banjo and Seth Avett’s guitar. Seth layers harmonies over his older brother’s voice, and then starts echoing lines (“Teach me how to use the love that people say you made”). It’s easy to imagine the brothers in the late 1990s, mailing recordings to each other across North Carolina, back when Scott was in college and Seth was at home in Concord.
By the time the pair signed to a major record label with legendary producer Rick Rubin, the band had grown to include Bob Crawford and Joe Kwon and started gaining traction. In “Laundry Room,” Kwon’s cello—very nearly a third human voice—starts to rise and fall to meet the brothers, and Crawford’s plucked upright bass sets up hints at the intensity to come. Sure enough, like a snowball rolling down a hill, the song gains mass and speed until, with a minute to go, The Avett Brothers are more than singing—they’re strumming, bouncing, hollering, jamming, and just straight up having a dang good time.
Now, with several more albums, three Grammy nominations, and a 2017 documentary that gave a raw look into the stories behind the lyrics, The Avett Brothers are getting ready to celebrate New Year’s Eve with a performance in their home state—for the 20th time.
INDY: You’re performing your 20th New Year’s Eve show in Raleigh this year. Why New Year’s Eve?
SCOTT AVETT: Well, originally New Year’s Eve made sense to us because after the first year [of the band] we realized we were embarking on something that was going to get us very busy. We were embarking on something that was going to take all of us and we were giving ourselves to it completely and we thought well, if we’re going to do something around the holidays, we should do it in at least our state, maybe at least our region. And so that was the first thinking around 2004 or 2005 and then we put that in place it just stuck.
Did you go to shows in Raleigh when you were younger?
Yeah, very much so. When I was at art school at ECU, I had a handful of friends that had moved to Raleigh specifically, because at the time— the mid-90s—the scene was specific to its time and it was really charged. The Brewery was a place that we would go to, there was a place called Mars, there was the Ritz. So Raleigh had a scene that was a central part of my intake for shows and music.
Your latest album, The Third Gleam, was out in 2020 and now it’s 2023. What have you all been up to? How is everything? Any big updates?
Even when we were working on The Gleam, we’ve been in the process of the recordings that would be the next Avett record, as well as other…I don’t really like the word “side project” but other creations. So we’ve been very, very busy at home making things. But we approach it slower these days than we used to because it’s a more contemplative process in that I think our work is revealed to us more, I think we listen more than we act and build. So to simplify, it’s a process of revelation versus a process of construction.
Do you think that different process comes from feeling that you have less to prove these days because you’re “successful”?
I mean, that happens with age. But absolutely, I mean, “successful” is one way to look at it, but I think when you get some success, you get a chance to see the positive value as well as the limited value… Your success as a writer, my success as an artist, et cetera, we realize ‘okay, it has a ceiling to it.’ And there’s a liberation in seeing that. We struggle to free ourselves of that but there’s a liberation and understanding that it doesn’t do everything that you thought. And with that comes, ‘Hey, we are in wait. So be in wait, and allow for it to happen.’ It doesn’t have to happen fast or slow, and it will happen both ways.
Part of your documentary [2017’s May It Last]] was about struggling with being applauded for turning your very personal life into songwriting fodder. Where do you stand now on that journey?
I remember in the documentary, how it was hard to watch because I made a lot about me and romanticizing this struggle. If I was doing it again now, I think I would have said, “Great job, everybody.” I would have just praised our efforts and left it at that. And I think I was just working that out. And I’ve since worked hard to look at that and address that and work that out. So yeah, [I have] a much simpler perspective now than I did then. Settled—maybe settled is better than simple.
Could you elaborate on that? What do you mean by “simpler”?
I should say that it’s more settled. There’s a song, “Faster Horses” by Tom T. Hall, where he’s a poet, and he’s going out there to find the truth and find himself and solve the problems that lie within his spirit, his conscience, and all those things. And a cowboy is sitting there telling him “Look, son, it’s faster horses and it’s older whiskey, it’s more money and younger women” just sort of saying “Look, these are the ways of the world right here.” And I’m not saying at all that those are acceptable. They are not our ending point.
But if you’re going to look at it deeply—If we can make something out of our personal lives and tell a story out of our personal lives, be settled with that. The simpler look would be—use it, it’s a gift, it’s a blessing. Go with it, use it, make it the best you can, and give each other a pat on the back if it shows itself to you, if it comes out in the form of a gift or a creation, great. Don’t overthink, the thinking will just destroy you.
But don’t get me wrong, I don’t have it. That’s not all worked out with me, but at least I can watch it and see it. I hope that makes sense.
Early in your career, you and your brother said you don’t want to record other people’s songs. You write your own music. And in 2020 you had this excellent version of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” released in October right before the election. Why that song at that moment?
The director, Sam Bayer, is a brilliant guy. He did “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” he was very young when he did that, but he’s a very talented photographer and artist.
I think as far as the timing and the urgency of it, just to be real clear, he was really on fire in his heart about that. And he reached out to us saying “I think that this would be a good marriage” and we consented to it. You know, we just said, “Yes, so we’ll support you on that by giving you our effort on this song and on the video and using your beautiful work as well.” I don’t know that we put a lot of thought into it except we contribute through this. And to what that is, I can’t imagine what exactly that is to any group of people or individuals except knowing that I’m putting something out there that seems to be positive.
And have you felt—I guess maybe in the way that I’m perhaps trying to ascribe political meaning to your work that maybe you’d rather not—have you felt that pressure to be a political person because you’re a public person and you put out personal music?
No. The indicators and the invitations will come to me as they should. If I start digging at it, I’m sure there’s no end to what we can find. The advocacy that’s needed. If we start digging. And, you know, sometimes there’s a time for that, once an indicator is clear and invitation is clear. And there’s a real need for that and people do a good job of following that. For me, I think, as I live my life, as long as I’m sincere and true to myself, those indicators come and then I have to task myself and own up to it or not.
So being political or not, I can’t really make that distinction. I think I just need to do my best whenever I can. If that’s in a political sense, then good. And if that’s in a spiritual sense then good. If it’s in an educational sense, or artistic. People can make all kinds of distinctions but really, what’s not political? And what’s not spiritual?
You could see those reflections in how people live. So how I purchase my bottle of water, or more so, how I pick it up and drink it is probably a statement. If a person’s looking and listening, you don’t have to necessarily say “Okay, here I am now doing this political thing.” Really, the key is to make sure that if we’re faced with someone and we have an opportunity to love them, that’s our obligation. And that’s anybody who’s in front of us. Whoever’s in front of us.
The band is built on a relationship between two men, you and your brother, and the legacy of your grandfather and your father. Does your vulnerability in songs ever feel at odds with social expectations for American men?
No, because I think American men—probably all men—are very tender and I think there’s a harder side that is shown. I have a group of guys that I play basketball with, and it’s a men’s group, ultimately, it just turned out that way. Nobody planned it that way. But we get time together and we get to talk about things. I think we’re all tender. I don’t know all the guys involved that well, but we can share, you know? We can share and I don’t necessarily see a lot of holding back when someone wants to say, “This happened and this sucked, this hurt.” We’re all very boy-like, at times. For the good and the bad, you know?
Oh my gosh, growing up, going through the threshold of manhood—we all have to do it. It took an elder woman to help me through creative counseling. That was what resonated with me. Why is that? I don’t know. I don’t know. But it took that sensibility for me to feel cared for, and to be related to.
The reason I bring that up is because the threshold into manhood is what we talk about a lot but when you take away the manhood part, what you realize is this is just a journey through life overall for people. So the manhood part is just one of those elements, but hopefully, at times you could take it out and put it back in. It’s not all that. Man, this is a big topic—you can tell I can kind of like, take off.
I always struggle to write endings. The endings of your songs though, usually feel so powerful and capture a summarizing ethos. How do you know when a song is over?
I don’t know. I think we show up, and we get together and we start working. There’ll be a presentation of “here’s how I want to end it” or “here’s how I hear it.” And if that’s right, we’ll feel that we’ll all know it. But if something reveals itself, as a more natural option—natural is a good word for it—then we’re going to test that, so we A/B everything a lot. We A/B/C/D/E/F it.
And Rick Rubin really, we did that already, but then we really started doing it. We removed individual ownership, and we started looking at this thing that we want to turn inside out and upside down and that was really healthy for us and it’s a habit I foresee us having for a long time. So the endings come after quite a bit of consideration and living with the songs and they usually reveal themselves, versus us deciding what it’s going to be.
I’ll bring it back to New Year’s. I love New Year’s. It feels like an ending and a beginning and just something really special. Does New Year’s feel particularly special to you? And I got to ask—Do you have any New Year’s resolutions you’re thinking about?
Well, the New Year’s resolution has not come to me. I’m extremely busy right now, and busier than I’d like to be before the holidays because I truly believe that the holidays are a model for us for peace, for us to settle and pause. I think it starts back at Halloween, there’s this prep for it that I think is such a gift, and New Year’s tends to be the cap on that renewal of it all and that’s incredible. I love that.
I’ve been consistently, year by year—good shows, bad shows, some of them feel better than others—but all of them, I’ve found I recognize they all, in the moment, never fail.
And I got to think that’s because of the congregation of people. It’s this gathering of people. It’s really quite a spectacle, when the balloons and the confetti and then the people and you gotta have a lot of hope when you see that happen, especially over and over and over successfully as it has.
I’m very grateful for that and I look forward to that. The reason I say the thing about working is because I think I look towards a pause from that pause that I was just talking about, after New Year’s. I’m going to go into more of a contemplative moment, at least for a little time, to prepare in that renewal so I’m very grateful for it, and I look forward to it and I can’t wait to celebrate with everybody.
Thank you for your time. Is there anything you want to add?
I want readers to just read the words that this is a very meaningful event that has a history to it. And those layers of that time spent, they live in the room. They show up with us and they show up with the people.
And you know the deal, as much as we run into things that don’t exactly feel meaningful, I feel really privileged to be part of something like that. So I hope that people can recognize that. And in Raleigh, like I said, I was watching my friends play on the stage of The Brewery, and Raleigh was this place of mystique for me when I was a teenager. It means a lot to me and I love the city—My wife’s from Raleigh—I love the town. I feel very drawn to it.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. To comment on this story email music@indyweek.com.
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