 |
 |
 |
||||||||
 |
 |
|||||||||
 |
||||||||||
Knoxville News Sentinel
Johnson City duo proud of its sad songs
Including the unflinching truth they hold
When Jill Andrews and Sam Quinn harmonize, they conjure the ache of modern Appalachia. The duo, who make up the core of the Johnson City-based Everybodyfields, have gained a national reputation for singing sad, beautiful songs. The group’s third album, “Nothing Is Okay” (released last week) has already earned high praise in the music magazines Paste and Harp and newspapers around the country.
It’s not every band that can deliver the line “The best you can hope for is to go in your sleep” and make people love it.
“We may play a lot of sad songs for people, but we really enjoy it!” says Andrews, with a chuckle. “People need truth. I feel like that’s really what we try to give them. I feel like I can write best when I’m sad about something. That’s when I’m at the peak of my emotions.”
Both Andrews and Quinn sing, write and play a variety of instruments. However, when the two met as counselors at Wesley Woods Camp in Walland in 1999, Andrews couldn’t play an instrument and had never written a song.
“I’d always wanted to sing, but I didn’t have a vehicle,” says Andrews.
Until that point Andrews had mostly sang while riding in the car with her best friend, but she had listened to acts that used folk harmonies, notably the Jayhawks.
Quinn was already an old hand at writing and playing guitar and there were other musicians at the camp as well. She and Quinn quickly became friends, but when they sang together it was something truly special.
“The first time we sang together it was a really amazing experience,” says Andrews. “We have really different voices, but I felt like it blended really well. There were people standing around and they seemed really surprised.”
The professional gigs began in 2003 — gigs at the mall in Johnson City and “little dives, real dives,” says Andrews.
Yet when the two made $100 from a gig, Andrews says she was hooked.
“We thought we were really in the dough. We’d never been paid for anything fun.”
In 2004, the act (which sometimes included a third member) released the album “Halfway There: Electricity and the South” and followed with “Plague of Dreams” in 2005. Everybodyfields began making forays all across the East Coast. However, Andrews grew tired of handling the business side of the music business.
“If we wanted an album in any store we’d have to drive it there and leave it,” she says. “And, for years, I was doing all of the band’s booking under the fake name Ellen Larson. Sometimes it seemed like we were just spinning our wheels and driving each other crazy.”
Prior to releasing “Nothing Is Okay,” the band signed with the Concord, N.C.,-based Ramseur Records, (Everybodyfields-buddies the Avett Brothers are the most prominent group on the label), and hired a booking agent.
The group has also recently added keyboardist/guitarist Josh Oliver and pedal steel guitarist Tom Pryor to the band.
Fans will note that the new album contains a song called “Everything Is Okay,” which is in contrast to the album title “Nothing Is Okay.”
“Sam and I made a little deal,” says Andrews. “I had originally written ‘Nothing Is Okay,’ but I think Sam felt like I was stealing his title and Sam had a great line in one of his songs, but I felt like it would alienate our audience. We made a deal that I would change the name of my song if he would change his line.
Andrews says the album’s title can be taken two ways. One, is that everything is bad.
“The other way to look at it is ‘When you have nothing, well, that’s okay, too.’ ”