JPG: You allowed him to sequence the album. Was that something that he asked to do or were you confused in how to do it and had him take a shot at it?

SA: We always sequenced the albums, and haven’t always done it in the past. It’s something that we enjoy to do, but we were looking forward to stepping back on this record and letting this record be that group effort, and letting Rick be what he was going to be with the record. We wanted that. We wanted to make something with Rick. That was great. And we really, really enjoyed it. What’s the difference in me doing it, Seth doing it, or Rick doing it as far as all of our involvement in making a great work that we can be proud of? It was great to have him do it.

JPG: With previous albums I imagine you were recording with the thought of the live show. With the added instrumentation and the arrangements here, were you not thinking about playing the stuff live or because it’s four onstage with the addition of cellist Joe Kwong, you felt the sound can expand?

SA: We just wanted to make a record be whatever it would be. We didn’t bring any thought of what it would be after. We wanted whatever became in the studio to dictate what we would start with, and I can already tell songs are gonna change. We can already foresee some different versions of these songs as they adapt in live settings. In the studio one of the lessons that we learned right off the bat was when we were attacking the very first song we were trying to record, which was “Laundry Room,” and we were doing it just like we were doing it live. And it wasn’t anywhere close to the spirit, to the energy, we have live when we do it. And we were having a lot of trouble with instrumentation being the source of the problem. So Seth and I switched gears a little bit to the way it was written, which was just acoustic guitar, piano.

That was the first lesson learned saying, ‘This is a recording. This is not a show up here. We’re not setting up like we’re on stage. We’re setting up on here to get the most out of this as we can for it to be what it is.’ And we ran with that the whole time. We actually did decisions based on that in the studio saying, ‘No, we’ll do this. You wrote it on the piano, let’s stay on the piano. Don’t shift over to the banjo. Keep it on the piano.’

JPG: And I see that you kept that going onstage, using the piano for certain numbers. Now, as far as the album’s artwork, which you painted, I find it very interesting the way you portray the three of you as well as the cover portrait. Could you give me some idea behind it? The person on the cover looks Native American and there’s a skull and I’m not sure what the other image is due to the lighting…

SA: When she leans in, it’s her shoulder; she’s leaning and turning the other way. She’s wrapped in a black blanket, which (slight laugh) makes total sense to me when I was painting it because the depth. I was bringing bright light meeting dark. So, much of it was disappearing into the darkness. It made a lot of sense to me. I answer this question a lot, which is simply her shoulder.

JPG: Okay. That’s what I thought at first, but I wasn’t totally sure. Are you the type of artist that it pains you to explain…?

SA: No, no, not at all. In music, I think it’s less important. I think in visuals, it is very relevant as far as when it comes to concepts. If you are interested, I could tell you exactly what I started with everything.

JPG: Yes, please go ahead.

SA: She’s basically a model that works for the university that I went to, East Carolina; a very, very dependable one and great, great individual and artist as well. She actually does have some Native American blood, but I don’t think that’s relevant to the picture. The picture and the setup, it was to be a representation of the vanities of human life. I went through all the symbols for the vanities of human life and there are many of them — hourglass, musical instruments, seashells from faraway places representing travel, gold representing death, timepieces and just basically riches of life — and how in Ecclesiastes in the Bible, how they really amount to nothing. It’s kind of a pessimistic way of looking at things but I think on the other hand it’s extremely optimistic if your interpretation of it is, I guess, it shows go in another direction. But we started with quite a few symbols around her and that was to be the direction, to have many more symbols in it and as I worked, I started to reason with myself. It was very cluttered. I did not like how it was looking because a little too forced. And I started pushing out pieces. The drumsticks went, the hourglass went, any symbol. I had a flower it there. That went.

So, as I left the skull I started (slight laugh) reasoning with myself that with the female figure, being an hourglass in shape, and derive from it enough that I can keep the timepiece within the female; the lust between, between lustful people or the lust directed say between a man and a woman, just lust period can be in the longing of want to win or succeed or have or possess is to be in the position and the posture of her as well as it doubles over with there should be a bit of concern and torment in her face. And then the skull is the inevitable death that is looming over all of us.

I wanted it to be subtle when I turned it. It didn’t need to be a threatening death, but it needed to be an awareness. So, I also saw a correlation with the three. And I probably tied that in over years as I write about it for myself and think about it. I’ll probably re-work the whole thing again anyway. With the portraits [of the three band members], I just wanted to do the same thing in the same light the same setting, seriousness and keep the depth because to me it was key. I look at so many pieces of album covers and artwork and I’m often disappointed. I’m sometimes really delighted and love to see them, but I wanted to keep it in the fine art realm and not just jump into a quick fix on the computer. Not that the computer’s bad. It can really be great but for what I was trying to do, I really needed to stay away from it.

JPG: I like the idea that the credits describe it as oil on canvas, which gives it an idea of the level that you were giving to it, that it wasn’t just a photo or something that was thrown together. We started off talking about music festivals. You have played so many. What do you feel the Avett Brothers offer a festival and what do festivals offer you?

SA: Hmmm…Well, they definitely offer an opportunity to have fun, where sometimes the theater and club setting we go in much more serious about the dynamics. And festivals are kind of like big picnics. I think that’s needed for everybody to cut loose. That’s really enjoyable for us, and I think that translates. That’s kind of like the painting, kind of like we were talking about the grassroots thing. That is an organic action that we can have and continue to have where the elements, the weather, the variables of just being outdoors can affect us all. And we can all react to those limitations, which is great.

Bonnaroo is a great example of that. I remember 30 minutes into that set leaning over and asking our tour manager, ‘How long we got?’ I was thinking I’m totally going to pass out during the show. For those limitations and for the push that they give you, you react and I think that translates as well. I think that is very exciting.

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