Cathartic country comes calling with the Avetts - Atlanta Journal Constitution

By NICK MARINO

Scott Avett grew up in blue-collar North Carolina and lives there to this day, in the Piedmont, on 65 acres. His place is above a wood shop.

"It's NASCAR country," he says. "It's much like 'Talladega Nights.'"

Scott Avett (right, with bassist Bob Crawford) picked up the banjo when he became curious about bluegrass. Avett and brother Seth turned to roots music after their rock band 'imploded.'

An Avett Brothers concert — with Bob Crawford (from left), Seth Avett and Scott Avett, shown in March at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta — showcases their panoramic range: ballads, rockers, folk tunes, instrumentals.

Scott is 30 years old. His father owned a welding company. His mother taught reading. He grew up listening to John Denver and Merle Haggard on eight-track tape.

Now he plays and sings in a twangy trio that bears his name — the Avett Brothers, a band that exploits the tensions between the rustic Old South and the cosmopolitan New South, between rootsy bluegrass and rowdy punk rock, between reverence and irreverence.

The Avett Brothers obviously respect country music; when they deconstruct the form, it's as though they're sacrificing a loved one in the name of art — sort of like Jimi Hendrix igniting his guitar. Thanks in part to their background in a rock band, the brothers attack their instruments with destructive intensity — they once broke 32 strings in a single gig.

"Sometimes," says Paul Lohr, the band's booking agent, "you have to throw caution to the wind and risk some sour notes and some out of tune strings or some completely broken strings to get those moments of brilliance."

And yet, the Avetts can be tender. They write smart, funny, heartbreaking country-tinged songs that tell shaggy dog stories and reveal surprisingly vulnerable feelings. On May 15, they will release a new album called "Emotionalism."

The band's duality is embodied in Seth Avett, Scott's younger sibling. Seth is 26 and tall as summertime corn. He likes to wear a pendant that he made himself, a sculpture of a human skull with music notes for teeth.

Seth plays guitar and sings, sometimes rather loudly. He has had to explain to Mother Avett that screaming isn't necessarily a bad thing. Some emotions just can't be explained in words.

Seth and his bandmates travel from gig to gig in a green Ford van decorated with both a Jesus fish and a sticker for the metal band Danzig, which once released an album called "6:66 Satan's Child."

"You gotta be well-rounded," Seth deadpans. "There's some good things to get from Danzig, and some good things to get from the fish as well."

And then there's Bob Crawford. Bob is not an Avett brother, but he is an Avett Brother.

Bob is 35. He plays upright bass. He has read biographies of every president through Van Buren. He's a Yankee. He didn't discover bluegrass until a college buddy dragged him to a festival in Delaware. The next day he volunteered for the 6 a.m. shift on his college radio station, playing Appalachian roots music for the good people of New Jersey.

"People come out to see live music down here," he says one recent night, backstage at Atlanta's Variety Playhouse. "And they never did where I was from in South Jersey."

Getting to the roots

In concert and on record, the Avett Brothers make music that simultaneously upholds and demolishes the Americana tradition. The Avett Brothers play acoustically, harmonize sweetly and shriek savagely. Their music also has an urban knowingness despite their rural roots. The two collide in a primal ballad called "Murdered in the City."

"Growing up in the country," Scott says, "it's been hard to adjust to the amount of time we spend in cities."

If the band has a leader, it's Scott. In concert, he stands at center stage. In conversation, he's thoughtfully chatty. He's comfortable holding forth on, say, the Philadelphia painter Thomas Eakins. And he describes his own development with a kind of modest nonchalance.

His last day job was doing janitorial work.

"It's the kind of stuff," he says, "where you're looking in the toilet at your reflection, wondering what it's all about."

After spending his younger days obsessed with grunge bands like Soundgarden and Nirvana, Scott became curious about bluegrass about a decade ago.

"Before that," he says, "nobody was going to pry me away from anything that wasn't sharp as a knife."

He picked up the banjo to distinguish himself in a world full of guitarists. He learned standards including "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" and "Boil Them Cabbage" but says that he started crafting his own songs as soon as he could play chords.

About five years after Scott started taking lessons, he began giving them.

When Scott and Seth discovered that their angsty rock band, Nemo, had — as Scott puts it — "imploded upon itself," they turned to roots music and began focusing on the Avett Brothers.

Catharsis onstage

The band does not fit comfortably into any mainstream genre, or even into any established subgenre. They're a little too hippie-ish for alternative country yet way too scruffy for mainstream country. They exist alongside a handful of other Americana misfits, namely the shape-shifting songwriter Will Oldham and the tight string band Old Crow Medicine Show. In their own ways, all three of these groups are warping the traditional sound and shape of country music.

"My favorite comparison to them," says agent Lohr, "is the Violent Femmes crossed with Bob Dylan. Because they have that wild, unbridled stage presence. Plus, Dylan is obviously one of the greatest songwriters of all time."

The Avett Brothers are most powerful onstage, which is where they spent about 180 nights last year.

They stand three across — Bob on the left, Seth on the right and Scott in the middle. They dress up for shows by wearing jackets or ties, adding another layer of incongruity. The formal clothes clash with the unhinged music. They can also make the band members hot. At a recent show in Athens' Georgia Theatre, sweat flew off Scott's head in a rainy sheet.

Avett concerts showcase the band's panoramic range. Song forms are all over the place — ballads, rockers, folk tunes, instrumentals. All three members sing. The audience sometimes joins them. Scott and Seth both play percussion instruments with their feet, and Bob likes to twirl his bass as though it were a dance partner.

To see an Avett Brothers concert is to witness an emotional and physical catharsis. The effects become apparent backstage.

At Variety Playhouse, Seth spent the moments before the show pacing around the artist lounge area. When his girlfriend asked him to sit for a moment, he replied that he couldn't do that. After the show, he slumped in a chair.

It says something about the intensity of an Avett Brothers show that Seth Avett was unable to sit before the show, and unable to stand afterward.

AVETT SAMPLER

If you're looking to explore the Avett Brothers' music, here are five songs to download:

• "Talk on Indolence" – Delivered through rapping, singing and screaming, this attention-grabbing romp has something to do with bathing suit anxiety.

• "When I Drink" – A gentle song about struggling with the sauce.

• "At the Beach" – A peppy tune to whistle.

• "Distraction #74" – A terrific showcase for the band's vocal interplay.

• "Salina" – Available on the band's forthcoming album, this ballad is downright orchestral by the Avett Brothers' standards, folding in a cello and mournful piano.