Seth Avett of the Avett Brothers Talks Music Festivals, Playing Through COVID, Human Connection and the Book He Always Carries With Him

Since the start of this millennium, North Carolina–based folk-rock group the Avett Brothers (composed of brothers Seth and Scott, Bob Crawford and Joe Kwon, plus more that join on tour) have delighted audiences with their eclectic catalog—a mix of intimate acoustic recordings and social commentary rock ’n’ roll (with some production assistance from legendary hip-hop producer Rick Rubin)—and their vivacious live shows.

How did these bluegrass-playing, banjo-toting bearded men capture the voice of an Information Age working class with songs that sound like the past? There’s something about the tune of their strings and keys that inspires—like when screenwriter John Logan created a musical around one of their records (about a real-life shipwreck and the survivors’ ensuing moral fallout), or when cinematographer Samuel Bayer asked them to record Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” to accompany footage he and Sean Penn shot of everyday Americans.

But beyond the projects of others, it’s their music that has garnered loyal fans for more than 20 years. Tracks like “I and Love and You,” “Ain’t No Man,” “Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise,” “Live and Die” and “Victory” have brought folks to concerts and record shops in droves, leading Pitchfork magazine to describe the band in 2009 as “one of the biggest grassroots success stories of the decade.”

What is the band up to today? They’re recording new music to follow 2020’s The Third Glean, the last (so far) of a trilogy of acoustic numbers, and, as always, performing for their followers. They will appear three nights at California’s Outlaw Music Festival (Oct. 14–16), two nights at Brooklyn, New York’s Kings Theatre (Nov. 3–4) and one night, New Year’s Eve, at Charlotte’s Bojangles Coliseum.

They’re fresh off a headlining slot at this year’s Pilgrimage Music & Cultural Festival in Franklin, Tennessee. Before that performance, Seth spoke with Parade.com about performing live before, during and after COVID, their album creation process, human connection and the book he keeps in his backpack.

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How are you? How's the family?

We're good. [The band is] about ready for the touring year to get a little lighter. After two years of basically no performing whatsoever...and then we start touring again and it’s like, How could I possibly leave home now? I filled in all the gaps with family life and homemaking.

This is the band’s second Pilgrimage appearance. How did you first become involved?

We have a lot of history with that area and it’s very near and dear to our heart. We love Franklin, and the nature of the festival is just so right up our alley. There's so much family-focused activity and it seems to be very personalized, very hand-picked. We've always enjoyed festivals that were really good for the whole family and not just 25-year-olds. Nothing against 25-year-olds, I really like festivals for them too.

What do you enjoy about music festivals?

There's a celebratory vibe that happens outdoors, and in the festival atmosphere, anything goes, you can do no wrong, you can let it be rough and messy and it’s fine. It doesn't have to be precise, it doesn't have to be perfect, we're all here to enjoy each other's company and camaraderie. It's hard to stay pent up or too stressed about anything when you’re looking out and there's dudes in tank tops and people all sunburnt. It’s a very wild atmosphere but a very friendly one and it takes a lot of the pressure off.

The Avett Brothers performed two drive-in shows at the Charlotte Motor Speedway in 2020 (attendees watched from their cars) as well as three nights at the Bonnaroo grounds in 2021 under COVID-safety guidelines. What was it like returning to live performance then?

That ended up being a very cool experiment. They were the first shows we had since the Dominican Republic in early 2020. It was a perfect transition back into that live-performance scenario. We were lucky because we had those Speedway shows that kept one big toe in the performance world [so] we weren’t just completely cold. Those three nights at Bonnaroo were cool because it was two-and-a-half-hour sets each night; it really forced us back into the mindset of all the material and was the stark reminder we needed to connect to people.

Were the shows weird? Or good because you were coming back to performing?

It was both. It was very surreal. It was weird leading up to it, but once we were onstage and it was happening, it was like, Everything's all good, nothing's changed. We’re good, we're here, we're gonna come together, we’re gonna have some unity and we're going to have some fun together.

You’re performing New Year's Eve at the Bojangles Coliseum in Charlotte. Is that a homecoming place for you?

Always. This time it'll be in Charlotte proper, but we always keep [New Year’s shows] relatively close to home. Could be South Carolina, but normally it's North Carolina: Raleigh, Greensboro, Charlotte. We keep it pretty close to home through the holidays for our families.

How are those big shows different from playing the smaller venues the band played when you were coming up in North Carolina?

Well, it's funny. Just a few months back, we did this charity event for a buddy of ours, Jimmie Johnson, the race car driver, he’s a dear friend. We played in Charlotte at a small place, and I'm embarrassed to say I had kind of forgotten what that feeling was in those spaces, because we’ve had this gradual growth in popularity.

It's really nice because of that face-to-face intimacy. When you get used to playing larger theaters, later slots at bigger festivals, hockey arenas, you sort of get used to the mass of that energy, you play to the person in the last row, you play to everybody. [Playing smaller shows is] a completely different conversation in terms of energy and intent.

I and Love and You was your first album that Rick Rubin helped produce. What's it like working with him?

We've been working with him for 14 or 15 years. It was a natural fit right out of the gate. Rick is very gentle-handed and soft-spoken and does not bring any type of ego into the room. He loves music to death, loves talking about it, loves listening to it. He loves hashing it out and really loves an experiment, to find out what's the best way or the most interesting thing that'll happen if we go in [a certain] direction.

Your most recent album is 2020’s The Third Gleam, which, like the other Gleams, is acoustic. Is there any difference in the recording process when you work with Rubin versus working on something more stripped down?

Any major component of a session, when you remove or add that element, you're going to have a dramatic effect. Rick is a great presence. There's a lot of abstract conversation around what we make together. If he’s not there, maybe there's a little bit less conversation, but that's kind of the point of The Gleam, just really stripped down to me and Scott's trust with one another where there's very little conversation.

That sounds like a really nice way to record.

It can be. It has been for us; that's why we made three of them. The band is such a beautiful beast that has grown, but there's a lot more to it, more members, more gears to turn when it comes time to follow through on making or releasing a record. We like having the option of clearing the deck a bit and just going right back to the nucleus of the band, which is me and Scott, trust and our connection.

Why did the Avett Brothers release a cover of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” four days before the 2020 U.S. presidential election?

Well, it was an idea that was brought to us by the [music video] director Sam Bayer. The reason that we liked it and followed through on it is the divisiveness of our country, it’s like a sport at this point. I really like the Bob Marley approach, like, no, I'm not looking to get out there and make a lot of noise about which team I’m pulling for, but I will try to spread a message of love and present reminders that we do have common ground. And that song is the epitome of that, it's like the unspoken national anthem.

You’ve said that music is proof people are connected. How does music connect us?

I believe that we're connected, period. I mean, I believe there is a great consciousness among all things. I believe it's connected to God. I believe we're connected to God. I believe we're connected to each other. To my mind and my heart that's just a reality. I do not know how to articulate it, but I feel that there is some inarticulable unity among us all, and I feel like art in general is an easier point of accessibility than a lot of other points that we look to. That's why Beethoven is still so revered and looked to and respected because, especially without words, he just completely tore down all of our funny little groupings that we put ourselves into.

“I’m this.” “I’m that.”

Yeah. And all of that is well and good as long as it doesn't cut you off from what you are, which is a part of the all. I'm drawn to [music] because I've given my life largely to it, but it seems recognizable to me as one of the easiest points of accessibility in terms of connection throughout humanity.

Swept Away, a musical featuring your music, premiered this year at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. How did the band become involved?

John Logan, the writer, he's a brilliant writer; he wrote the kids movie Rango, he wrote The Last Samurai. He immersed himself, he listened [to our music] nonstop for months or a year or more. I think his starting point was our record, Mignonette. He just naturally got the inspiration to tell a new story that was related to the Mignonette story, which is a concept record about a whaling vessel that went down.

Do you still keep a book of poetry from Hafiz, the 1300s Persian poet, on your person? What does his work mean to you?

I do, it’s with me all the time. It’s a small book of poetry called I Heard God Laughing. It communicates the joy of God. The conversation about God for millennia has had us at each other's throats, has had us murderous, forlorn, heartbroken and confused. What I love about Hafiz is that some of the confusion is still there, but so much humor and unfettered joy of God are what’s at the forefront. It's just this amazing reminder that that's what's available when you acknowledge providence. At least that's what it feels like to me. Plus, it's such an odd experience to feel like someone's talking to you from the 1300s, you know? That's how clear, honest, beautiful and poetic it is.

[photo of Seth Avett by Tim Mosenfelder/WireImage/Getty Images]

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