The Avett Brothers return to Fargo

North Carolina folk group The Avett Brothers will be returning to Fargo on Friday, Nov. 13, with a few tricks up their sleeves. Jill Andrews will join The Avett Brothers to perform at the Fargo Civic Center. HPR had the exclusive opportunity to chat with bassist Bob Crawford.

HPR: What was your experience like recording your new album?

Bob Crawford:It was a good experience. We recorded it with a full live band. We had seven people on stage now, and it was a really good experience and we all had a good time. It was nice to record it with a full group. Normally it is just three of us and then we go back over it and record overdubs and different things and then bring people in. Now that we have a band like that, we were able to use everyone that plays, and we all became very familiar with each other. It was a good and different experience.

HPR: How do you write your songs? Do they start with a song or a melody?

BC: Many different ways. The ideas often come from Scott or Seth individually or they might collaborate on some. Then I’ll get in there and we can flesh it out a bit, or one guy could write the whole thing. It really varies.

HPR: What inspired you to play bass?

BC: I’m a little bit older than everyone else. I worked in the film and video business down in North Carolina, and I decided to leave that to study jazz guitar at a college. I was 30 years old. That was about 15 years ago. When I started the jazz guitar program I bought an upright bass very much on a whim and that kind of led me down this road. As soon as I started to play upright bass, everyone wanted me to play in their band, because no one had seen one before. I was playing in groups before I even knew how to play the instrument. There was a guy in the jazz guitar program who was working with Scott, and he told me there was a bluegrass band that was looking for an upright bass player. That’s how I got hooked up with Scott and Seth. I didn’t super focus on bass, because I started out playing guitar. It wasn’t an instrument I really focused on until I started playing it. Now my ear really goes right there. There are a lot of subconscious influences that I gravitate to. I listen to everything, from jazz to The Grateful Dead to Bruce Springsteen.

HPR: What was it like playing with Bob Dylan at The Grammy’s?

BC: Very exciting, very surreaI … you know just kind of the feeling that you are very conscious -- you soak it all in. No pressure, no stress, just enjoy. You realize it’s one of those things that comes up once in a lifetime and won’t come again. It was very enjoyable. We were just singing with Rick Rubin and there were times of nervousness, but once we went through the initial rehearsal with him it was like we went on autopilot and it was a matter of, “You need to enjoy this.” It’s not going to make The Avett Brothers and it’s not going to break The Avett Brothers -- it’s something that will come and go. The gold of it is to just enjoy.

At this point in the interview a tiny voice comes into the background and Crawford excuses himself for a moment. The small voice is that of a child. In 2011 Crawford chose to take a hiatus from The Avett Brothers. His daughter Hailley had suffered from a seizure caused by a brain tumor. Langhorne Slim bassist Paul Defiglia took his spot until little Hailley’s condition stabilized.

HPR: How is your daughter doing these days?

BC: She’s doing well right now. She’s two and a half years off treatment for a brain tumor. We have her checked out every six months. We hope and pray that it doesn’t come back. She’s had two brain tumors. She was diagnosed in late August 2011. They removed the first tumor and she went to St. Jude’s Children’s hospital in Memphis. Here she went through about a year of chemo, and five months later it came back. Then she went in for six weeks of radiation. It’s a lot of worry and stress. She lost the right side of her brain due to the surgeries. So there are a lot of challenges that she faces and we are really thankful she’s doing well. She’s a really joyful little girl that goes to school, and now she’s about to go horseback riding in a little bit.

IF YOU GO:

The Avett Brothers with Jill Andrews

Fri. Nov. 13, 7 p.m.

The Fargo Civic Center

207 4th Street North, Fargo, ND

Tickets and info at http://www.jadepresents.com