ISSUE #34 MMUSICMAG.COM Q&A Brantley Gutierrez Chris Thile, Sara Watkins, Sean Watkins NICKEL CREEK The bluegrass trio reunites with a new album that defies categories GRAMMY-WINNING NICKEL CREEK Did the solo projects offer inspiration? I feel like lyrically I know more about what took an indefinite hiatus in 2007 to pursue I’m sure they helped in some way. When I like and what I don’t like. Not that I’m not solo projects. Now the trio—mandolinist you listen to someone you respect, you end proud of what I wrote before, but it’s different Chris Thile, fiddler Sara Watkins and her up learning from them—whether that was now. It’s easier to analyze why I like songs brother, guitarist Sean Watkins—has returned Chris’ and Sara’s solo albums or our Watkins and why I don’t. with a new album, A Dotted Line, which Family Hour shows at the Largo in L.A. I know coincides with their 25th anniversary. that Chris and Sara have both become better How has your process changed? Featuring eight originals and two covers— singers and have gained a lot of confidence. You learn to pick your battles. There’ve Sam Phillips’ “Where Is Love Now” and Putting ourselves in these different musical been times in the past when we got too Mother Mother’s “Hayloft”—A Dotted Line situations has made us better. caught up in the little details, and our wheels is a clever amalgamation of alt-country, would spin. Now when we’re writing, we bluegrass and folk. “It all came together How’d the recording go? get down the skeleton of the song and then so quickly and easily,” says Sean Watkins, It was all a very comfortable process. The figure out the lyric later. We’ve cut out a who filled in details on how the group album was produced by Eric Valentine lot of the extraneous stuff and put those rediscovered their old magic. [Queens of the Stone Age, Smash Mouth], questions aside. It’s made the songwriting who also produced our last album, Why process a lot easier. I know I’m better now Why did you reunite? Should the Fire Die?. We recorded at his at communicating why I like something and We all wanted to get together and studio, and he really brought the best out being direct about it. It’s a lot more efficient. write songs to mark the occasion of our of each of us. It’s the right combination. We 25th anniversary. We thought it might completely trust him to guide us so we can Does your music fit a genre? turn out to be an EP or something. Last focus on the music. He helps us see the It’s a question that doesn’t really accomplish June we went to Chris’ place and started bigger picture. And the recording took such anything. We never set out to record a writing. There was way less stress this time a small amount of time compared to our other certain style. When you try to do that sort compared with past albums. We know albums. We went in later to put down some of blending or genre melding, it can end up that we can take the individual things we parts, but it was little more than a week. sounding affected. We don’t bother putting do and put them together. For example, a bunch of adjectives on it. To us it doesn’t we realized the three-part harmony was Did the time off help? matter the label you put on our music. We something we were good at, and tried to do The break helped us mature. I think we all leave that to the journalists. that more often. individually have grown up a lot and evolved. –Blake Boldt ‘To us it doesn’t matter the label you put on our music. We leave that to the journalists.’ 24 M mag 34.indd 24 4/24/14 4:01 PM.