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Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2009 > September > 29 > Entry
ACL 2009 Preview: Sara Watkins
Jeremy Cowart/SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN
The spotlight is nothing new for Sara Watkins — as one-third of progressive acoustic bluegrass trio Nickel Creek, she released her first album, “Little Cowpoke,” at the tender age of 11. But with her self-titled solo debut, released on Nonesuch Records in April, the now-28-year-old fiddler, guitarist and ukulele player — and one heck of a singer, to boot — steps out on her own for the first time. Fortunately, she’s had some help in the form of famed producer and former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, who produced her eponymous album. Both will be playing the Austin City Limits Music Festival this weekend — Watkins behind her own album and Jones with newly minted supergroup Them Crooked Vultures. We spoke by phone with Watkins from her Los Angeles home about the rigors of songwriting, her thoughts on the dissolution of Nickel Creek and the joys of working with Jones.
American-Statesman: You’re about to set off for six weeks of touring, both playing your own shows and supporting the projects of friends and family, including your brother Sean. You’ve been playing professionally for a long time — have you gotten used to that frenetic pace or is still tough?
Sara Watkins: I’m accustomed enough to it so that I know everything will be fine. But it’s funny, I’m tour managing myself now so I have to stay on the ball every second. I had a couple of near-anxiety attacks but it’s going really well. But there’s no relaxing and having a beer after the show. It ends up being a very dense six weeks, but I’m looking forward to it. It’s a lot of variety. That helps tours a lot. It helps to have little phases like that where I’m doing different things. It helps me anyway.
In a 2005 interview with PopMatters, you mentioned that you found songwriting challenging, probably more so than the guys in Nickel Creek. Has it gotten any easier for you?
Well all the songs are always a challenge. But I’ve learned that, for all the songs that I’m happy with that I’ve written, I wasn’t really thinking about the success or failure of what that song was. I’m the type of person who, lots of times, I can just psych myself out while I’m working on a song — my brain goes in spirals really fast. But looking back on those few songs on the record, I didn’t do that. I wasn’t really conscious or thinking about them as a goal. I was just kind of writing them. It was very pure in that way. I sort of take it as a bad sign if I let myself be distracted and try to figure out what I want from it. I don’t have children myself, but I feel like it’s like having a kid and deciding it’s going to be a doctor when it’s 2 years old instead of just loving it and hoping it will be a functional part of society. That’s how I want to approach songs
Nickel Creek was famous for its wide range of covers, from Pavement to Britney Spears, and that’s a tradition you keep up with this album, with songs by Jimmie Rodgers, Tom Waits and even Austinite David Garza. How do you select which covers you record and put onto an album?
(David Garza) will be playing with me at ACL! I’m excited. Anyway, a lot of the material comes from the family hours. Over the course of the last of five or six years I’ve been doing the Watkins Family Hour at this Los Angeles club the Largo, frequenting the club with me and my brother sitting in with people. For this thing we definitely wouldn’t do Nickel Creek songs. We’d do songs that we liked, or had written on or were working on or cover songs that Nickel Creek would never play. So it started off with things that are near and dear to our hearts, like bluegrass stuff we loved forever and knew and identified with. And very quickly over those years, we started digging into a wider range of material. And it was really fun. It was a totally different outlet for the band and for the different people who came in and played. So it was a much more by the seat-of-your-pants kind of thing and that was kind of refreshing for us. So the things that made the record are things that became part of the family hour over the years.
It’s been about two years now since Nickel Creek played its final shows. In retrospect, do you feel good about the decision to disband and pursue other projects?
Totally. We’re all very grateful for that decision. When we were making the last record I was like “How long are we going do this?” Not because it was lackluster, but because we all worked so hard on that record and worked so hard on touring and trying to get it out there. We got exhausted. With that record we wanted to say bye in the best way we could, and after that, just sort of basically lay fallow and start forming some new stuff. We’re all huge fans of each other and we love each other and had we pushed it because we were scared of seeing what was on the other side, we probably would have started resenting each other.
You’d worked with John Paul Jones before, playing with him on Mutual Admiration Society, before you tapped him to produce your debut. What kind of strengths did he bring to the table as a producer?
He brought a whole lot of legitimacy. All the guys on the record either knew him personally or musically and I’d never heard them play better than they did knowing they were playing for John. For him, nothing but your best will do. You want to make the right decision because everybody respects him so much. And he’d work 10 hour days and he’s just so good at making decisions that you’re confident in. And he and I were both on the same track, so when I didn’t know what to do, he’d be like “This is right” and I’d be like “Oh, yes, you’re right, it is.”
Can you point to any specific times when he had that kind of insight?
He’s a little bit more invisible than that. I couldn’t necessarily pinpoint things he did or didn’t do. He’s really good at making everything seem natural in the studio. He sends people in the right direction and guides them in such a way that they don’t realize they’re being guided. He has a discussion with you and it keeps coming around to just the right place in a really healthy way. Since you feel that you are not being forced, nothing is manipulated. When you come up with something in the way that your brain works best, it’s going to be more honest and it’s going to last longer than if you’re doing something just because somebody says “Play this way for me.” If you are guided around your own understanding of a certain idea it’s going to be much more effective than if you are just expressing the producer’s idea.
Jones will be at ACL this year, playing with Them Crooked Vultures. Has there been any talk of him joining you on-stage for any of your songs?
You know, I haven’t asked him. I have no reason to think that he will. I should talk to him, though. He’s been very busy, so I’ve been trying not to pester him. I’m really excited to see his show. I was in LA when they were working on the record, and he was just so happy working on that project. He would come and hang out late at night smiling ear-to-ear, really excited. And that was before anybody really knew what was happening; we just knew he was working on something.
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By Amrit
September 30, 2009 8:14 AM | Link to this
Hey there… thought you might like to see this article on the Nickle Creek fiddle player. ACL is this weekend by the way….
By dave
September 30, 2009 11:10 AM | Link to this
who..? no wonder everyone is still trying to sell their passes. hey yall wanna hear a joke?? —a bluegrass cover band.