The Avett Brothers: Emotional Healing - Harp Magazine Feature

By John Schacht

The Avett Brothers don’t care a wit for your ironic detachment. Your cruel jibes don’t impress, and your jaded cynicism is a total buzz kill. Since forming in 2001 this Concord, NC, Trio—brothers Seth (guitar) and Scott (banjo) Avett, along with bassist Bob Crawford—has extolled the healing powers of earnest, plain-spoken music.

Emotionalism (Ramseur), their aptly titled fifth studio record, is their most concise declaration yet of an unabashedly romantic aesthetic. Pretty girls and life confessionals abound in rootsy acoustic songs that happen to be informed as much by the Beatles, Nirvana and Will Oldham as by Bill Monroe or the Everly Brothers.

That’s an odd batch of influences on paper, but don’t tell that to the label reps consistently sniffing around the Avetts’ camp, or the growing legions at their live shows, tent revivals infused with the hair-raising spirit of punk rock.

HARP: Can you elaborate on the title of the record and the concept behind it?

Seth Avett: We wanted to come up with a bold-face word to take a stand against this modern mentality of coldness, this “everything is awful, everything is ruined” idea. There’s a lot of hopelessness, and it’s contagious. But the opposite is contagious as well.

HARP: You’ve sold out New York’s Bowery Ballroom and drew 1,000-plus in Portland recently. You play Coachella and Bumbershoot this year, too. What’s the key to your growing profile?

We’ve been at it for over four years now and there’s a word-of-mouth aspect that’s really helped. We practically have to crawl into bed after every show because we’re so tired, and it seems like people appreciate the effort we put out every night.

HARP: You’ve been driving from Seattle to Salt Lake City over the last 11 hours—would you welcome moving to a bigger label, or at least a bigger van?

We’ve talked to a couple major labels. There’ve been these little stints where they get all fired up, but none of them have offered us anything yet that we feel like we can’t turn down. Which is not to say that that’s not coming. But if you want us to have staff writers, you’re clearly not getting the idea.