After about nine years, six studio albums, two live ones and three
EPs—plus what Seth Avett estimates at 1,500 to 2,000 live
shows—North Carolina’s Avett Brothers suddenly seem poised to get
really big, really fast.

Seth laughs. “I’m sure you appreciate the irony there. That’s the
feeling. Everyone … well, not everyone, but some people are saying,
‘You’re about to blow up,’ or whatever that means. OK, well, we’re
about to blow up after the better part of a decade. But, maybe; maybe
not.”

Seth, who mostly plays acoustic guitar and piano, and his brother,
Scott, who mostly plays banjo and drums, started the Avett Brothers in
2000 while their “heavy rock band” Nemo was crumbling around them.
(Current stand-up bassist Bob Crawford replaced an earlier member soon
after, and the band’s lineup has remained constant since. All three
members also sing.)

“It just felt natural,” explains Seth, speaking on the phone from
New Orleans hours before the group’s first appearance at Jazz Fest.
“Scott and I, we’ve played a lot of heavy music, and we adore heavy
music, but we were kind of bucking our history … We grew up on 60
acres of pasture and a small farm. … We didn’t want to present that
we had come from the country. … We started playing guitar and banjo,
and just singing these songs, and it just felt so natural and so
good, that we just needed to run with it.”

The result is that the Avett Brothers don’t really sound like
anything else out there. When I attempt a description for Seth—”a
rock band that plays with the energy of punk, on bluegrass
instruments”—he replies, “That is as fair as it could be. All
those elements are laid right out there. … The reality of it is that
we’re coming from a lot of places musically, and we love a lot of music
between all of us. … It’s pretty obvious that there’s a lot of rock
in our background. I don’t think that’s any kind of surprise to anybody
that’s seen us live.”

The sheer energy and exuberance of the band’s live shows resembles
nothing so much as an all-inclusive tent revival, and that’s been key
to winning over new fans. It’s not uncommon for an audience in any
particular town to double from one show to the next—which is
exactly what happened at the band’s last two shows at the Rialto
Theatre—largely due to word of mouth.

“(Word of mouth has) definitely been our bread and butter from the
beginning,” says Seth. “It wasn’t, ‘Hey, let’s try to get on some
television show, and that way, we’ll get a ton of fans.’ It was always,
‘Let’s do this one person at a time, and see if we can interest them
and share the thing we do with them, and hopefully, they’ll like
it.'”

The folks at the Rialto are so confident “they’ll like it” that when
the band returns for a show next Thursday, May 7, they’re offering a
money-back guarantee within the band’s first 10 songs. “It’s because we
believe that it’s impossible to see these guys and want a refund,” says
Curtis McCrary, the Rialto’s general manager (and an occasional
Weekly contributor). “But if anyone does, they’re entitled to
it.”

If we’re to believe the buzz on the band’s upcoming album, I and
Love and You, scheduled for an Aug. 11 release, this may be one of
the last chances to see the Avett Brothers in such an intimate venue.
(On their current tour, they’re alternating between headlining at
smaller venues and opening for the Dave Matthews Band in arenas.) Most
of their previous work was released on their manager’s label, Ramseur
Records, while the new album will be released on American/Columbia.
And, oh yeah, it was produced by Rick Rubin, one of the most highly
respected and sought-after producers in the business.

Where their previous full-length, 2007’s Emotionalism, was
recorded, overdubbed, mixed and mastered in 11 days (“generally our
pace,” says Seth), I and Love and You was recorded over about a
month in two studios, one in Malibu, Calif., and one in Asheville,
N.C., and it’s still being tinkered with. Seth is clearly very proud of
the record, but talks about it in typical modest, Southern gentlemanly
fashion.

“Basically,” he says, “it felt like it was almost an attempt for us,
with Rick, together, to take a good band, and to get a first glimpse of
what it might take to become a great band. And I’ve never really
understood the difference.”

This article appears in Apr 30 – May 6, 2009.