After the late September release of I and Love and You, The Avett Brothers performed on Late Night With David Letterman, Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. The album was prominently displayed in every Starbucks store in the country.

It was not always thus. They play on stages now that are larger than many of the venues they once played (e.g., The Purple Fiddle in West Virginia, which is mentioned in the interview).

I first encountered The Avett Brothers entirely by accident in January 2004 when they were the third of three unfamiliar bands billed as up-and-coming country-bluegrass artists in Annapolis. It was a very small crowd.

The first two bands were pretty straightforward bluegrass, but these North Carolina boys were something different altogether. The guy in the middle was stomping a kick drum and flailing away at the banjo like it was an electric guitar; the guy on the left was handling a stand-up bass. Meanwhile, the guy on the right with the guitar and the high-hat was hollerin' and screamin' and foot-stomping so hard I thought he was going to stomp right through the floorboards. Banjo and guitar strings were busted on just about every song and traded in for a new banjo or guitar with the old one being visibly repaired just off stage. But just when the banjo and guitar player seemed like they were going to be out of control, they would reel it all in with beautiful brotherly harmonies. I soon learned that the banjo player in the middle was Scott Avett, the guitarist on the right was his younger brother Seth, and the bassist was Bob Crawford.

My wife and I looked at each other with jaw-dropping disbelief. Who are these guys and what is this stuff? It was entirely acoustic, while being loud and a little bit crazy. There were more "pretty girl" songs than one, a murder ballad, travelin' and ramblin' songs, so all the familiar trappings of country and bluegrass were there, but it wasn't any sort of bluegrass or country music my wife and I were familiar with. It was certainly more fun than any adult should be allowed to have. I immediately bought Carolina Jubilee and was hooked.

When friends would ask me to explain their music I reached for the "punk-bluegrass" label that seemed to be floating around. But that didn't work because bluegrass folks wouldn't recognize it as bluegrass and punkers wouldn't recognize it as punk rock and anyone who doesn't like either just thinks you're crazy.

Someone once said that The Avett Brothers were to bluegrass what the Hansen brothers were to hockey in the movie Slap Shot. But not exactly, because behind the onstage mania it was clear that these guys weren't your everyday head-banging bluegrass punk rockers. They had something to say. And they could write.

I particularly recall Seth Avett saying toward the end of that show back in 2004 that "if you want to know about where we're coming from and what we are all about this song pretty much sums it up." And they launched into "The Salvation Song," an anthem of sorts that also laid down a public marker and commitment:

We came for salvation
We came for family
We came for all that's good that's how we'll walk away
We came to break the bad
We came to cheer the sad
We came to leave behind the world a better way … .

And they may pay us off in fame
But that is not why we came
And if it compromises truth then we will go

This wasn't bubble-gum, big cowboy hat, country schlock either. These guys seemed to be the real deal, and every chance I've had to talk with them over the past several years has done nothing but confirm that first impression. I should also add that my wife got hooked and all my kids got hooked, and boat loads of their friends as well. We're not alone. We've become part of a large and fiercely loyal "fan base." But now the band is really famous.

After six studio albums (along with two EPs, Gleam I and Gleam II) with the North Carolina indie label Ramseur Records, I and Love and You is their first on a major record label (Columbia/American). The album was produced by Rick Rubin, who almost single-handedly revived the career of Johnny Cash in the mid-1990s. Their music is clearly developing and, I think it is fair to say, maturing: less banjo, more keyboards, the introduction of a drum set, and (horrors to a few) they've gone (partially) electric. They've added Joe Kwon, a classically trained cellist, to the band. Although I think it was inevitable, not everyone is happy with their less rootsy development. But you simply can't listen to I and Love and You without the sense that their personal and musical integrity is intact. In fact, much of the record is a confession of their own struggles with fame. Check out "Ill with Want," for instance, or "The Perfect Space," which is a crie de coeur of sorts: "I want to have friends that I can trust / Who love me for the man I've become not the man that I was."

On October 15, just before their first show following the release of I and Love and You, I had the chance to sit down for a long talk with Bob Crawford, the bass player. I was initially disappointed that I was not able to interview Scott and Seth as well (with required promotional appearances comes less schedule control). But I immediately realized that Bob, as the non-biological brother ("one foot in and one foot back" as he said to me), might speak to family, marriage, musical themes, the self-reflection in their songwriting and such, issues about which Seth and Scott as artists might be understandably reticent. Bob, I suspected, would be less reticent to talk about his non-biological brothers. And he was.

A lot of ink has been spilled these past few years trying to find a description for the music of The Avett Brothers. How do you answer the "genre" question?

Some people have called it Depression-era dancehall music. Some have said it sounds like Robert E. Lee playing with the Ramones. They've called it Grunge Grass or Punk Grass.

 I don't think those assessments are off base, but as we began to move beyond the really rootsy elements that we played early on, I used to tell my friends we were a branch of bluegrass, old time, and  old country, kind of like Hank Williams or Woody Guthrie. We were where Hank Williams and Woody Guthrie would meet and branch off into Rambling Jack Elliott and then later into Bob Dylan. I think we were a part of all that. And we still are, we always will be. But I think now I would tell my friends we are rock and roll because of the attitude.

But of course if you tell someone there is a banjo … that's not exactly an instrument associated with rock and roll.

Right. They see a banjo and they say "bluegrass." It's a social cue.

We see that in reviews of I and Love and You. A critic will refer to a song as having a "bluegrass" feel simply because of the banjo. But I've come to learn a little bit about bluegrass, and this clearly ain't it.

Bluegrass purists would take offense at the suggestion.

That leads into a question about the reaction following The Avett Brothers' infamous first appearance at the MerleFest festival in 2005.

Playing MerleFest was a dream come true for me because that was the festival that brought me down from New Jersey to North Carolina. When I lived in New Jersey and was getting into bluegrass, a friend told me I had to go to this festival. I went, and it changed my life. It opened amazing doors.

This was before you came to the band

Yeah, long before. I had gone to MerleFest in '92, '93', and '94, when I was in my early 20s. To play there with The Avett Brothers was a dream come true. MerleFest is  a marvelous festival because it is a cross section of American roots genres. You have the purists. You have hippies. You have music lovers that cross the border. And what the festival tried to do is—

[Interrupted by a phone call. My ring tone is Bob Dylan's "You Gotta Serve Somebody." Hearing it, Bob Crawford said, "I love that album. ?It's one my favorites: Slow Train Coming." Then he picked up where he had left off.]

MerleFest has always tried to bring in new blood. They try to bring in something edgy to draw younger people, and also to let the roots music grow or let the festival expand. Because as time goes on you're building roads that go away, they fade away because that's the circle of life, the natural way of things so they always want to replenish. They've always worked hard to do that. We're not the only band that was brought in for that purpose. So the year we got to play MerleFest for the first time, a lot of people loved it, and a lot of people didn't like it.

A lot of people freaked out.

But it didn't matter for us because we had experienced it before.

You went through that before MerleFest?

We did. We played the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) awards in Kentucky

Oh my goodness.

The same year we knew we were going play MerleFest we were invited to play the roots and branches stage in the IBMA

I can imagine the reaction. How did that turn out?

It was just like MerleFest. It was great but, we opened ourselves to a lot of very vocal criticism from the bluegrass purists.

A lot of it has to do with Scott's style of banjo picking. I once told Scott that if I tried to play the banjo the way he did, my teacher, who is trying to teach me Scruggs-style bluegrass banjo, would throw me out of his house. But if you pause and think for a second it will be obvious that folks were playing the banjo a long time before Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys or before Earl Scruggs.

The banjo actually comes from Africa.

Scott mentioned Charlie Poole, a banjo player in the 1920s who had a band called Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers. I went out and bought a box set shortly afterward. Scott said Charlie Poole might have been the original punk rocker.

Yes. He would take the standards of his day, and he would interpret them in a very rugged and honest way. And this brings me back to the genre question. I believe that we are honest American music. And that is a simplification because I'm not describing anything specific like rock or punk or jazz or bluegrass. But what we do it very honest and it's very raw. Even today. Even with I and Love and You. I think it is very unvarnished. If you see our show you know it is raw and unvarnished.

Interesting thing: My mother got I and Love and You today. My parents are in their seventies. They love the Everly Brothers and Vic Damone and all that Lawrence Welk type of stuff. But after my mom hears the new album, she asks if we are still going to play the raucous stuff that we used to play, because people really like it.

So she gets it! I want to come back to that raucous stuff in moment, but I have a quick follow-up question about the critics following MerleFest. The Avetts are North Carolina boys, so all this is criticism coming from their own backyard. I can't imagine that didn't sting a little.

If someone is listening and paying enough attention to criticize you, that in itself is a compliment. For instance, we got a couple reviews for I and Love and You that might be misconstrued as negative, but they're paying you the compliment of digging in and listening and paying attention to what you are doing.

You finally got their attention.

Scott says, "I remember wishing that someone would care." Everyone gets reviews like that. What's great, Keith, is that we're focused on what we're doing, and always have been. Our road is laid out before us. And the road that is laid out before us is full of songs and song ideas. And musical development. You know, the criticism really doesn't matter all that much. What counts is the love and support from the people that come to see us and buy the records. It's nice when people say nice things about you, but criticism doesn't rattle us. It never has. Besides, when you work so hard and we're on the road so much and we're always in motion …

… you don't have time to stop and pout about what people are saying about you. Good attitude! Bob, you said that at its core this is simply honest American music. I think that's obvious; you simply can't imagine this sound coming from anywhere else in the world. But maybe we can be even more specific. When I first met you guys, in addition to gushing about the integrity of the lyrics and the music, I said that a large part of what I liked so much about it was that it couldn't have originated from anywhere else but the American South, perhaps only from the Piedmont. And it could only have come from guys your age. There's a sense of place in what you are doing. But its not constrained by a place.

What you say feels very right. I do think the NC Piedmont region has a lot to do with where the sound comes from, just like Charlie Poole. They're in the same backyard.

In terms of Seth and Scott's age and interests, there are also a lot of musical cross-currents swirling around.

First of all, you have a father who always played music around his boys. Their parents made all the kids take piano lessons for a set amount of time. You may not want to do this forever but you need to do it for at least a year or two or whatever it was. So you've got a musical foundation. And they were coming of age at the sound of Nirvana. That sound and music like that. When you're young, you may not like your father's music, but there comes a time, a certain age where a young man comes to recognize the wisdom of his old man. Then you reach an age when you're past your early teens and you can begin to appreciate things that aren't native to your generation. That happened at a time when Scott was getting ready to graduate from college, and Seth was in college, and they were in a rock band together.

This was the pre-Avett Brothers band Nemo, right?

This was Nemo. They had always had their separate bands, and finally they were playing together in a band. When you play in a hard rock band, your demographic is 16- to 25-year-old males. So there's not a whole lot of room to grow, unless you're one of those top tier groups. And Scott and Seth didn't understand the concept of touring. They didn't understand what they had to do. When you're young, playing music in garage bands, you think that it's all going to come to you. You think that somehow, mysteriously, magically, some guy will walk in and hand you a piece of paper and you'll sign it and whatnot. About that same time Scott, for whatever reason, decided to take up the banjo.

And the rest is history.

Seth has pointed out on a number of occasions, if you think of Scott's personality, the banjo is the perfect interment for him. It suits him; it can reach across the sound spectrum and hit you.

It can also be grating, or so my wife frequently tells me.

It can be very abrasive, but it also can be very delicate.

It can be constraining too, can't it?

Yeah, Scott has struggled with that throughout our career. You know there are times when he's kind of over it, but then he falls in love with it again. So it ebbs and flows. And I think he's developed a style of his own. No one else does what he does.

A moment ago you said that Scott and Seth have grown to appreciate the wisdom of their parents. That obviously comes through in the music, but I think it's more than appreciation being expressed. I hope this doesn't sound trite or corny, but what comes through loud and clear is not just appreciation but great respect and even an honoring of their parents. This kind of thing is pretty rare these days. You see it in "Salvation Song," "Murder in the City," …

"Perfect Space."

Indeed. But it never comes across as forced or contrived. That's a very unusual thing for musicians in their twenties.

I completely agree. They've kept very close to their family. [Older sister] Bonnie lives about two-and-a-half hours away, but her family comes all the time. Scott and Seth live very close and are obviously very close with their parents. How do you, through the years, keep that bond with your family? They did it. They're great people. I learned early on that they talk the same way around their parents as they do around us.

Keith: You just mentioned "The Perfect Space" from the new album. Here's the line I was thinking about: "I want to have pride like my mother has / And not like the kind in the Bible that turns you bad." That that sort of sentiment may be a large part of the attraction of the multi-age crowds that you draw.

It's not unusual for us to have three generations of one family at a concert. And I've never ever in my life witnessed anything like it, at least with any band that I've liked or ever heard. It's an amazing vibe and it's an amazing thing. We saw early on that when Scott, Seth, and I began to travel and even before we hit the road. And Scott and Seth saw the difference from Nemo. As I told you, the hard rock demographic is 16-25. Our demographic is 8-80. Little kids, senior citizens.

One of the attractions to MerleFest, the first time I was there, was looking around and seeing that this was a place I could come to—and I was young and wild in my early 20's—till the day I die. I could come here every year and at every stage of my life and feel at home.

Maybe that explains, in part, Seth singing, "Ever since I learned how to curse / I've been using those sorry old words / But I'm talking to these children and I'm keeping it clean / I don't need those words to say what I mean."

Yeah. And with "Sixteen in July," he really touches that age.

Well, you got all my kids. Even my son, who is a bit of a musical snob. And you had my daughter with the first listen of Carolina Jubilee. Speaking of which, she wanted me to ask, How do you respond when you first the lyrics, when you're first learning the songs?

I connect initially on a musical level. I love all their songs, but I don't memorize words. I'll know the words even though I don't know the words, and just playing the music and being a part of the music can establish the music. And I still can't sing all the lines to all of the songs we've been playing since 2001. If you said, "Tell me all the words to "Love like the Movies," maybe I could get through and tell you all of them—it would take me a minute. I'd furrow my brow a little bit. But on another side of that, even with these newer songs we haven't played yet and we're just developing, there are lines that …

A lot of these lyrics are multi-layered.

The lyrics have been hard-crafted like someone who works on a craft for years and years. That is very conscious. You know, their grandfather was a Methodist minister, and they have a book of his sermons from the '30s to the '70s. I've read the sermons and they're amazing; I can hear the influence in their lyrics. This is in their DNA.

This is fascinating because it leads right into a subject I brought up last year when you were in Baltimore. You might recall that I mentioned that The Avett Brothers were given an "Esky Award" for being the Best Moralists in Esquire magazine. I know you all would be reticent to talk about that.

It's hard to take credit for something like that. Or want to admit it. The lyrics are good and wholesome, but not without conflict. We're trying to speak to the experiences people have as they move through times of trial in life.

My first reaction to the "Best Moralists" award was rather negative because sometimes it carries with it the connotation of finger pointing and …

Self-righteousness.

Exactly. But that's clearly not what's going on in these lyrics. This new album in particular has a lot of profound self-reflection and self-criticism. And with the exception of the very clever rebuke in "Slight Figure of Speech," especially the rapping part, there's no finger-pointing. The same can be said for the earlier records, with the possible exception of a few "pretty girl" songs having to do with jilted love.

Right, but that's a part of life

And the self-reflection and self-criticism has been there from the beginning. Which is why I try to tell people not to get entirely distracted with the head-banging, stage-diving, banjo-playing fun stuff. That's all a huge part of the attraction, of course, but I've insisted for years that these guys can write. And now it is being taken to a different level with I and Love and You. There's a new level of maturity in this album.

I've talked with Scott and Seth about this. Sometimes you reach a point in your life when you realize there's an end to the road. There's an end to each of our lives. And that changes you. And you get married and have kids. And that changes you. There's a time in your life when you do everything for yourself. You live to serve yourself.

Marriage tends to take care of that real fast, or else.

That takes care of it at more than one level. You realize it when the kid comes. And maybe caretaking of the parents as they reach a certain age is another part of that. So I think all this comes out in I and Love and You. Mortality has always been a part of the music. I believe it's become a greater topic. You want to question what you carry throughout life, or what you take with you at the end of life. I think there's that battle, that inner struggle to find real things to hold onto. But you're not always successful.

I think much of what you said here accounts for why so many of us have hitched our wagons to The Avett Brothers train. I remember chatting with Seth a few years ago at the Purple Fiddle in Thomas, West Virginia. I asked him how he gets the ideas for his songs and when does he find time to write with all the touring and such. He pulled a tiny hotel receipt out of his pocket with lyrics written on the back. That's a gift.

And that was a time when it was really coming like that. I think with families and the like it gets harder to choose your moment. You have to make the best of your limited time.

I wanted to give you a chance to say something about your new music project.

It's called Overmountain Men.

You were kind enough to share a track with me a couple months ago. Now that's some traditional roots music—some real bluegrass sounds there.

Yeah, and it's very much rooted in North Carolina. The name comes from the men who crossed over the Blue Ridge mountains from Virginia and the Carolinas during the Revolutionary War into what is today Tennessee. They settled that land and made their own deals with the Indians. And they fought British regulars, but also loyalists. It was pretty much a gang war. And they ultimately made a deal with the state of North Carolina. [Bob then proceeded into a long and fascinating history lesson.]

But back to the record. Would you describe it as old timey? Bluegrass? The track I heard sounded like bluegrass.

Some of it is. But it's all original material.  The key guy is David Childers. He is a great songwriter. I consider him a North Carolina legend. I call him the Sage of Mt. Holly, and he's one of my heroes. Musically, he's amazing. His son, Robert Childers, is a great drummer and has a band called 2013 Wolves, which is out of this world. Then there's Scott Daley who's from a great funk band called BellyFull. And Randy Saxon has played guitar for David Childers for some time. You know, I play with Scott and Seth and we've got a guy playing the piano, banjo.

So that "Some Place along the River" song you shared with me was original? I thought it might have been a cover of an old folk song.

The album [ Glorious Day, released in January] pays tribute to drifters, immigrants, people who have found themselves on the outside and just want to make good. And there are a lot of great characters in the songs. We've done a few videos for it. And we're going to play a show or two. We do this purely for the love of it.

Is there any chance the Overmountain Men will show up at MerleFest in April?

Not this year, coming up, but maybe next year we will be at a couple festivals in Virginia and North Carolina.

So not 2010, maybe 2011. Are The Avett Brothers going to do MerleFest this year?

[Bob waves off the question. Two weeks later it was announced that The Avett Brothers will be the closing show at MerleFest, 2010.] My friend David Childers tells me to just stay alive and we've got plenty of work we can do in the future. So maybe when The Avett Brothers take some time off someday, we'll do a nice tour.

Well, let's not be taking too much time off anytime soon.

We gotta keep it fresh, right?

Absolutely.

And we got to give our families the best of ourselves.

Keith Pavlischek is the author of John Courtney Murray and the Dilemma of Religious Toleration and of many articles on ethics, political theory and public policy. He has served as a U.S. Marine on both active duty and in the reserves since 1977. In May 2002, Colonel Pavlischek was recalled to active duty and spent five years in different assignments including Bosnia, Iraq, the U.S. Central Command, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

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