Acoustic Guitar
Acoustic Guitar
Nickel Creek
Catch up with one of your favorite bluegrass bands! Sara Watkins, Sean Watkins, and Chris Thile discuss breathing new life into classic tunes, what their kids really think of their music, and a whole lot more.
This episode is sponsored by ToneWoodAmp, a magnetically attached game-changing multi-effects device for acoustic guitars. Get reverb, delay, and more—no amp required! Learn more at tonewoodamp.com.
Additional resources:
- Access Part 2 of this episode on Patreon.
- Listen to Celebrants via Amazon, Bandcamp, or others.
- Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers teaches you how to play guitar like Nickel Creek's Sean Watkins and interviewed the band for the July-August 2023 issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine.
- You'll find music to play for "This Side" in our 2002 Digital Archive and Chris Thile's "On Ice" in our 2005 Digital Archive.
- Read a profile of the Watkins Family Hour on the site of our sister publication, Strings magazine.
The Acoustic Guitar Podcast theme music is composed by Adam Perlmutter and performed for this episode by Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers.
This episode is hosted by Nick Grizzle and Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers, produced by Tanya Gonzalez, and directed and edited by Joey Lusterman. Executive producers are Lyzy Lusterman and Stephanie Campos Dal Broi.
The Acoustic Guitar Podcast is produced by the team at Acoustic Guitar magazine, including:
- Publisher: Lyzy Lusterman
- Editorial Director: Adam Perlmutter
- Managing Editor: Kevin Owens
- Creative Director: Joey Lusterman
- Digital Content Director: Stephanie Campos Dal Broi
- Digital Content Manager: Nick Grizzle
- Marketing Services Manager: Tanya Gonzalez
People come up to us all the time and say hey, I grew up listening to your music. It's like we grew up playing it for you.
Nick Grizzle:Hello and welcome to the Acoustic Guitar Podcast. I'm your host, nick Grizzle, and in this episode we're talking with Nickel Creek. My co-host, jeffrey Pepper Rogers, notes that "not many bands can claim to have played together for well over 30 years while its members are in their 40s. Sean Watkins, sarah Watkins and Chris Thiele discuss breathing new life into classic tunes, Songwriting influences both past and present, what their kids really think of their music, and much more. Before we dive in, I'd like to take a moment to thank Tonewood Amps for sponsoring this episode. Tonewood Amp is a game-changing multi-effects device that attaches to any acoustic guitar Get reverb, delay and more no amp required. Learn more at tonewoodampcom. And, of course, thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Acoustic Guitar Podcast. Now here's Jeffrey Pepper Rogers to kick off our conversation with Nickle Creek.
Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers:So I have to say first that I heard you guys in this area out here near Syracuse on your tour, which was a great, great night oh yeah, oh yeah, super fun show.
Chris Thile:That was a really fun show on the hillside there with all the apple trees?
Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers:Yes, exactly.
Chris Thile:Sara and I had our kids out with us, and so at the very end of the night they listened to the last couple songs. I know that my little boy has made no bones about the fact that he doesn't like the music that I make. He understands that I'm competent, but he doesn't like the texture of the music that I make, and I think that's why I'm so excited to be here, except for this cover that we do of Mother, mother's Hay loft. He loves that, and so, since they were still up, there was this ping pong table backstage, so they just kept playing ping pong at far past their bedtime, towards the end of the Nickel Creek set, and our friend Kira, which is definitely kid friendly.
Chris Thile:Yeah, it is kid friendly typically, but my little boy tailor made made to piss him right off because he was kind of a hoot in the holler he wants things to sound like you're up in some club in the meatpacking district.
Chris Thile:But so he said afterwards Daddy, I like Hayloft and you know what Fox isn't bad, it's pretty good, and I would just see him. And Sarah's kid Sam, and then also Sean's kid Willow came out as well, and so getting to share this project with our progeny and significant others. In addition to all of these people who we grew up playing for they grew up People come up to us all the time and say, hey, I grew up, listen to your music and it's like man, we grew up playing it for you. It's a pretty crazy experience that we get to have out here.
Sara Watkins:We are doing. We're living life in similar stages as our audience, and so I think that when we're playing this material for the new record, it feels to us and based on conversations we've had with people fans or people who are coming to shows a lot of us are in that stage where we're choosing. If we want to have families, we're choosing the friends that we want to stay engaged with. The family we want to stay engaged with the parts of ourselves we want to stay engaged with, like all of these things that we're talking about on the record and as we're able to put our families together and continue to choose to do this band together. That's what the record is about. It all feels very full circle and it's just the essence of where we are in life as a band and just also as just mid-40-year-olds figuring out how to live.
Sean Watkins:Well, you guys are early 40s.
Chris Thile:Thank, you, sean, thank you.
Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers:I wondered. I think the last time we spoke you were getting ready to take this stuff out on tour and but the album has got so many layers of instruments, so many layers of voices and I know you were talking at the time about this process of figuring out how to make it work. Live, the three of you plus a bass. What was that process like? To take this pretty complicated studio arrangements and just make it really work with the live.
Chris Thile:I'm always more worried about getting the music onto a record than I am about taking music off of the record and putting it on stage, because we can show you what we mean. We can show you with our physicality and how we are acting in front of you as human beings and seeing where you are, seeing how you need to hear the music. We can tailor, make it for you if you're in the room, but if we're blindfolded, with both hands tied behind our backs, when we give you these records and you take it into your individual listening environment and that's the tricky part it's getting it onto record. And why for us to have Mike Elizondo and Eric Valentine on the case figuring out how it feels when we're playing this music in a room onto speakers through speakers?
Sean Watkins:That's totally true. It's really true. Once we get on stage we feel confident we can have it translate. But, nuts and bolts wise, a lot of these songs were recorded, like you do, instrumentally first and together we would be together, the three of us in triangle, and then we would do vocals later, although Sara saying long line live. Is that right?
Sara Watkins:I did a couple.
Chris Thile:Yeah, long line and maybe a couple others. Dennis Wall, dennis Wall, I sang a holding pattern live.
Sean Watkins:For the most part we were just dealing with, we didn't know the songs yet Really like we do now, which is we talk about it all the time, how making a record and touring is such a backwards cycle. So there's the learning how to sing and play at the same time and then for this album there's a lot of involved counterpoint between the rhythmic counterpoint between the instruments, rhythm and vocals. For example, in the song Going Out, which is Fast 7, there's some Ahs. So it's an instrumental, but the first time we've ever put vocals in a instrumental, I should say. There's some vocals, some Ahs, and they start at like an eighth note after an upstroke in Fast 7. It's like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, one, two, three, and so there's a couple of things like that that for me personally were a challenge to get in my body before we hit the road, and certainly now it's starting to feel a lot better. But that there's those little nuts and bolts things too, and those are always with any record. Those are going to be present.
Nick Grizzle:On this new record. Every one of your records seems to evolve so much, and this is a nine years between records is a lot of time for evolution. What songwriters have been influencing you from the previous record up to when you were started to write this record? Can you recall anything new that really sparked something for you for this record?
Sara Watkins:I don't know if there's one or two people whose music I've listened to. I wouldn't be able to draw that line. I hope that it's the case that, like a lot of the great music that I've been listening to has has seeped in in a way. That's you know, I'm sure that it's coming out some way. But I think the thing that I most credit for my personal musical growth is the different collaborations that I get to be a part of.
Sara Watkins:So in the family hour, sean and I get to be on stage with a lot of people and it's not really rehearsal collaboration as much as on stage performance collaboration and just watching how people deliver something and, you know, listening to their songs, I guess in prep, but particularly, like you know, working with Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O'Donovan and seeing how they write songs and also writing with other people. I feel like just seeing the time that people take to write something or maybe the way that they work through it quite quickly and then re-approach. There's so many different ways to writing songs and there's no one way that I've ever repeated, but I feel like I really enjoy seeing other people's process and find a lot of inspiration, in sort of like sympathetically trying to go through the, down the path that I imagine their brain went down to get to a certain point, which is definitely not the path they took, but it's the way that I can understand. So I feel like that is a huge part of my development.
Sara Watkins:I'm sure there's other art and listening and base and time, but also I think I also benefit from having a little bit of space in my life to process things, where I have time to think about what is missing in my life or missing in the world or what I want to make, and then I'm able to actually figure out what that is and how I would do it. If I were to write something to fill that space, what would it be like? And so I benefit from like a little bit of downtime to organize my thoughts. They sound definitely benefited in my mind by the amount of many approaches that we were able to, the multiple times we were able to approach a lyric and figure out what we really wanted to say.
Sean Watkins:There's also. I think there's a certain kind of inspiration that you get when you're a younger artist, when you're making your first few albums, where you can kind of like answer that question by saying, oh, I was listening to this person, this person I like, this person's this or this person's that. But I notice that as we get older and make more albums it's less that you know you're going to be influenced by everything you hear and that's just going to happen and I'm just not worried about that. You kind of just learn to trust that as you get older and it becomes a little bit harder to point to one specific thing or the other.
Sean Watkins:And the inspiration for me comes from, like writing with Sarah and Chris after so long and the things I mean. Sarah and I play together all the time but we don't necessarily write. We haven't written and you know, sat down to write in years and so, and then with Chris too, and so getting together with them. It's really that new kind of chemistry, because we've got the old chemistry, that's always there, it's always gonna be there, but there's new chemistry based on where we are in life and who we've been playing with, and to me that's the most inspiring component, like for this record.
Chris Thile:There was one thing I can point to that made a big impact on the way I go about writing a lyric. It happened right in the middle of this process, I guess our writing session, the first big writing session that we had wrapped up what like a week or two before the vaccines came out, something like that, and so touring had just started picking up again that summer and I had a little bit of time to read for the first time in a while, because in lockdown, you know, with a kid, there was just, there was no time for anything. There wasn't even time to, you know, work on the music that I really needed to work on. But, you know, so you're figuring out how to do it, and then you get to the end of the night, and I know a lot of people did a lot of great reading over the lockdown. But man, my wife and I, it was just like trying to stay sane whilst keeping this child alive was the vibe, and there wasn't a whole lot of reading going on. And so, all of a sudden, I did like a little bit of, you know, going out and playing and had some travel time during which to read, and that coincided with this incredible book by the release of this incredible book by George Saunders called A in the the Pond in the Rain.
Chris Thile:It's just like a masterclass. It's a masterclass that he teaches at Syracuse creative writing masterclass that he teaches at Syracuse in book form, about this set of Russian short stories. The short stories are in there and then his commentary is after them and it's. I've never read something that was more helpful for, I think, anyone who makes anything, whether it's music or you know. Obviously I think it would be helpful for a writer, but, like if you paint or if you just whatever it is that you make, I couldn't recommend that book more highly. It made me think about what I do in a totally different way.
Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers:I teach classes at Syracuse also and I've known him a little bit through that oh over the years. But yeah, it is a great book.
Chris Thile:You read it too?
Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers:I have read it. Yeah, I was looking back at a conversation that I had with you three 21 years ago and, in terms of songwriting and lyrical inspirations, your top three list at that time was Counting Crows, toad the wet sprocket, and Elliot Smith.
Chris Thile:Wow, that sounds like we weren't lying.
Sara Watkins:I mean, I think those songwriters made a huge impact on us. We were talking about this recently at, actually at the soundcheck of the show that you saw, jeffrey, it was raining during the day and we were on the little island of the stage during this downpour and we were talking about Adam Duritz's songwriting and how we were just playing a bunch of those songs and thinking about the influence and that was a lift off for us lyrically, out of a traditional folk world or bluegrass tonality, irish music like these themes that are touched on, and it was all of a sudden people singing about this life that we were alive in as well, and melodies and this like bringing some poetry to life and really, you know, putting your heart into it. There's so many things that those bands, those three bands, really influenced us on. Elliot Smith, like the melodies and especially like the Toad, the wet sprockets, all those chords that Glenn puts into songs and his melody writing as well. It was, it was a. Those all influenced us so much in that time.
Sean Watkins:Coming across those, those writers, and you know the 90s, what was pre-internet you just heard what was on the radio. But you know it was a wild, wild time for music, a wild decade when you think about it. The stuff that got played and the diversity, and you know that's what we came across and, like Sara said, it really helped kind of, you know, launch us into a new zone of thinking about music and, and you know, songwriters that we've come to love ever since.
Chris Thile:We're thinking about the difference between like like here two lyrics, like one from what we grew up with, like this Laurel Canyon Rambler song um, well, I went outside for a ramble round, didn't mean to stay, just a view of the town. Like contrast that with um step out the front door like a ghost into a fog where no one notices the contrast of white on white. Like that is a pretty serious disparity. And like yeah, yeah, I would think that would kind of sum up why hearing that really blew the doors off for us, and I I mean from where I'm, from where I am now. Both of those are great. Uh, like I, I love them both. And um, but they're very, very different and I think, good to hear both if you're a young songwriter trying to figure out what your voice is.
Sara Watkins:It's the same thing as like uh or it's similar to. You know you can play. You know four or five chords on on uh, you know more traditional bluegrass instrumentation and it sounds a certain way. And then you play those same chords with on piano or with uh, with like a classic rock and roll band kind of thing, or like B3 organ or whatever, and it's a totally different vibe and it's not. It's not at its essence. It's the same thing. It's just the voice that you put behind it and and you know, or the, the lyrical tone that you put behind it, and it's just, it's a. You could relate to it in uh as, as a with a different perspective, as like it, with like growing up early 20s person perspective, and it was. It was nice.
Sean Watkins:It's kind of like it feels like we've just been hanging out with with older people and adults and then all of a sudden we met some kids our own age and it's like, hey, cool.
Sara Watkins:It was also the time we were becoming I think the world was becoming aware of T-Bone Burnett's production, which, very quickly, he was also then very involved in oh Brother Where Art Thou Stuff. I mean he did it which ended up being the closest thing to our childhood music as possible, and I think it was really neat to see someone who didn't come from that world as far as we knew really dive into it and appreciate in such a high quality way like the choices on that soundtrack were so beautiful. And it was neat, I think, for me and hindsight, to see that same person exist, the person who made these great rock and roll records that we loved and then also made this incredible record that paid tribute to the roots that we grew up with. It was nice to see like, oh, this is the same thing.
Sean Watkins:Yeah, he produced that first Ken and Crow's record that we know of, and then also the Wallflower record that was on.
Chris Thile:So long ago, I don't remember when. Sorry.
Sean Watkins:Guys, we could do a 90s sing-along night all night long. Nickel Creek sings the hits 11.32, like 1.30 am on a tour bus. In the front lounge Maybe, yeah, two or three negronis in.
Chris Thile:Oh yeah you'll hear all your faves.
Stephanie:Hi there, I'm Stephanie Campos-Dalbroi and I'm a producer on the Acoustic Guitar podcast team. I'd like to take a moment to remind you all that this is a listener-supported show. We're counting on your support today to keep creating new episodes for years to come. Please visit patreoncom slash acousticguitarplus to learn more. Membership starts at $1 per month and comes with special perks, including bonus episodes of the podcast, access to live workshops, and so much more. Thanks for listening and for your ongoing support. Now let's get back to the show.
Nick Grizzle:So in this band we've got one guitar, one mandolin, one fiddle and lots of voices, but you're all also guitar players, like really, that's in your DNA as well as your main instruments in this band. How does that influence the songwriting process with Nickel Creek? Knowing, I mean, for Chris and Sara, you're probably not going to be playing guitar on these songs, do you? When you come to the songwriting table with an idea or a demo, do you start writing that on guitar? Do you start writing that on your instruments with this band? How does that how's being a guitarist also influence the songwriting process for Nickel Creek, for you guys?
Sara Watkins:Well, I don't know if you are aware of this, but you don't have to write songs on guitar. I know that's who we're talking to.
Sean Watkins:One of the songs started with a little piano. A couple of them started with piano things that Sara had, and I think you know, writing on an instrument that's not your main instrument, it can be really, really helpful, can really get you out of whatever ruts you're in. Even just sit yeah, I mean even if you don't play that instrument well, like I don't play piano well at all. But if I sit down and play a few chords that I know automatically they're not going to be the voice, like I'm voicing them on guitar, and so then I'm going to have different ideas than I would normally. You know, at least my first idea might not be the same as if I was playing on a guitar or even just a different guitar. You know that makes a difference Nylon string or like Nashville, like we use the Nashville High Strung on a couple songs too, and that can be really, really helpful.
Chris Thile:The older I get, the more I write in my head, you know, away from any instrument, just imagining what it is that I want to hear, and getting to the point where I can imagine it clearly enough, to where I can just start playing along, you know, or start communicating it to the band.
Nick Grizzle:And so do you hear all the parts in your head separately, or is it just like a melody? You?
Chris Thile:hear the gist of it. Yeah, like what kind of what it sounds like? I mean like listening to the radio, except it doesn't exist yet. I would encourage people to explore that part of their musicianship. Our bodies can be very, very lazy. Creatively speaking, our bodies want to do the stuff that they do. They want to do that more. They know how to do it.
Chris Thile:I mean, sometimes I think we find writer's block can rear its ugly head when we're tied to kind of what we can think of on an instrument as opposed to what we can dream up in our inner years. Just our heads and hearts and souls are that's what writes music. Our fingertips are pretty lazy, lazy dreamers. They're like, check out this thing I can do. And we're like, yeah, I knew you could do that already. God damn it. And increasingly I find that I write more on like a long walk via my notes. I'm not talking about lyrics, I'm talking about a song that goes like this, where this thing happens and then this kind of a thing happens and then this kind of a thing happens, just typing it out like in an outline form.
Chris Thile:Yeah, as if describing, yeah, as if, like, I'm writing a review of a song that I'm writing, and then I find it's much easier to drag something unique out of your inner ear with your instrument, like, if you know what you're looking for, then you'll know when you find it.
Sean Watkins:The other kind of writing. I was sitting down yesterday I had like an hour, while my wife and kid were out walking around I was practicing some Nickel Creek songs and then I just found myself writing with an idea. I really I hadn't written, I hadn't really just sat down and tried to write by myself for a while and I realized how much fun it is to write with other people, because the possibilities are endless. If you're doing what Chris is doing and you sit there and you think about something for a long time and you imagine something in your head until it's clear enough to where you can like bring shape to it, that's different. But for me I was just like messing around, like that's kind of cool. What if I did this? What if I did this? What if we went to this court?
Sean Watkins:And it can be really frustrating without someone else to sort of guide you. It's so fun writing with Sara and Chris because that doesn't really happen. They'll be like, oh, that's really cool, or the thing that I thought was really cool maybe isn't resonating with them, and so we go a different direction and you've got a direction. So for me, yeah, writing by myself, I think, I'm trying, I'm thinking, I'm learning. I'm going to have to like figure out how to do that in a new way now, because it's tough without people to bounce your ideas off of. Nick Grizzle: That's the end of part one, tune in to part two for more on the collaborative songwriting process behind Celebrants.
Nick Grizzle:Visit patreoncom slash acoustic guitar plus to access all bonus episodes of the Acoustic Guitar podcast. The Acoustic Guitar podcast is brought to you by the team at Acoustic Guitar magazine. I'm your host, nick Grizzel, joined for this episode by Jeffrey Pepper Rogers. Acoustic Guitar podcast is directed and edited by Joey Lusterman. Tanya Gonzalez is our producer. Executive producers are Lyzy Lusterman and Stephanie Campos Delbroy. Our theme song was composed by Adam Perlmutter and performed for this episode by Jeffrey Pepper Rogers. If you enjoy this podcast and want to support us, please visit our Patreon page at patreoncom slash acoustic guitar plus or find the link in the show notes for this episode. As a supporter, you'll have access to exclusive bonus episodes, along with other special perks and if you're already a patron. Thank you so much for your support.
