The Avett Brothers

Scott Avett has said his own relationship to festivals and old-time music began with 'an awakening of Doc Watson' in his late teens, which sent him digging into the string-band and bluegrass scenes at MerleFest and Galax; Seth Avett has separately recalled meeting Watson and taking from him the lesson that a performance's power comes from character, not spectacle. That plainspoken, unhurried authority — a guitar or banjo that serves the story instead of showing off — runs through the Avetts' quietest, most narrative material.

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1964

Deep River BluesDoc Watson

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2008

Murder in the CityThe Avett Brothers

listen forSet Watson's 'Deep River Blues' against 'Murder in the City' — both strip down to just voice and steel strings, trusting a plain melodic line and a few well-chosen words to carry all the weight, with nothing added to dress up the confession.

Before they picked up a banjo, Scott and Seth Avett wore flannel and combat boots and idolized Nirvana, playing in a heavy rock band around bonfires with friends; that grunge apprenticeship never fully left the music, resurfacing as sudden bursts of loud, physical intensity inside otherwise acoustic arrangements. It shows up less as guitar tone than as structure: a quiet, almost timid verse that snaps without warning into something shouted and distorted.

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1991

Smells Like Teen SpiritNirvana

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2007

Talk on IndolenceThe Avett Brothers

listen forCompare 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' with 'Talk on Indolence' — both hold back in the verses only to detonate into a chorus that's suddenly all volume and thrash, the same quiet-loud trapdoor just built from banjo and stand-up bass instead of a Marshall stack.

Bassist Bob Crawford has named Tom Waits, alongside Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, among the songwriters who connect him to Scott and Seth, and the band has performed Waits songs 'Fish & Bird' and 'Take It With Me' live often enough to make the debt explicit. What carries over isn't Waits' rasp but his habit of building a song as a small, specific character study — a person, a place, a plain plea — building toward a refrain that repeats a single idea until it aches.

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1985

TimeTom Waits

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2007

The Ballad of Love and HateThe Avett Brothers

listen forLine up 'Time' with 'The Ballad of Love and Hate' — both narrate through sketched-in characters rather than a first-person confession, circling back to a repeated refrain that does the emotional work a chorus hook usually would.