The Avett Brothers have played in Athens many times before, but in the past year, the band's popularity has exploded - mostly because of its fifth album, the Rick Rubin-produced I and Love and You.
The North Carolina-based band will kick off its new tour in Athens tonight. It takes the stage at 7:30 at Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium after special guest The Low Anthem. The Post's Adam Wagner talked with cellist Joe Kwon about the band's recent success, its appearance on Food Network reality show Ace of Cakes and the tribulations of touring.
The Post: How do the Avett Brothers develop their songs?
Joe Kwon: The songs develop through a very organic process. ... They bring the songs to the table and they just grow from there. Everybody puts in their input; everybody listens to the song and just kind of gets a feel for it. This process can take anywhere from two weeks to two years.
Post: What was it like to record with producer Rick Rubin, who has worked with artists such as Jay-Z and the Beastie Boys?
Kwon: It's still strange in my head. It still doesn't seem like it happened. Every time I think about it, it's like, That was real! I didn't just wake up from a dream
I actually did ... I was sitting in a room with Rick Rubin.
Post: How did being trained classically help you when you started playing more contemporary music?
Kwon: I would say that learning classical is the best way to form a base. If you don't have that basic understanding of music, it makes it a little bit harder. The classical training I had for so many years made it easier for me to understand tonality and harmony and melody. Those are basic things that you kind of learn early on in the classical world whereas you may not learn in a formal sense at all in a rock world.
Post: The band recently appeared on Ace of Cakes. Was that a strange experience?
Kwon: It seemed very odd, because these are two worlds that do not mix very often. I was like, What in the world do the Food Network and the Avett Brothers have in common? It's just a testament to music and to how far it reaches. ... Playing for them at their little shop was so cool because they're TV personalities. That's the way I think of them. It's like, He's not a real person. That's the guy on TV!
Post: What's the strangest part about touring?
Kwon: It's weird to wake up in a different city that you did not go to sleep in and sleeping in different time zones. Losing track of days is pretty weird, and I mean that from a collective point of view. Sometimes everybody in that bus will not know what day of the month it is, what day of the week it is, what time zone we're in, what city we're in.
Post: The band has played in and around Athens before. Are you looking forward to returning?
Kwon: Definitely, because it feels very southern. There's that hospitality in the town. It kind of feels like everyone's welcoming you with open arms when you drive into town. You feel like you're at home, you feel like you're in your hometown, which is something that anybody would look forward to when they're away from home for so long. So I'm very much looking forward to being able to play Athens, and it's great having that be the first show of the tour as well. 3
Culture
Adam Wagner
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