Interview: Sara and Sean Watkins

Whether in Nickel Creek, their various solo and side projects, or the monthly Watkins Family Hour variety show at Los Angeles’ famed Largo, Sara and Sean Watkins have become synonymous with quality roots and folk music.

In 2015, they shared the magic of the Family Hour nights with an album and a tour that brought Fiona Apple, Benmont Tench, and other L.A. all-stars to The Grey Eagle for two intimate nights. But in April 2020, the siblings took a different approach to the Family Hour with the duo album brother sister, which focuses on their long-running vocal, instrumental, and songwriting chemistry.

Prior to bringing those new tunes to The Orange Peel on Thursday, Sept. 30, the Watkins spoke with Asheville Stages about being back on the road, adapting during the pandemic, and why Asheville has long been a special place for both of them.

Edwin Arnaudin: How's it going today? 

Sean Watkins: Pretty good! We had the last few days off in a new city. Sara and I've been talking about how amazing that is just to get to walk around a new city and how great it feels, because we've been playing shows in different towns, but we haven't really had any time to just experience the towns. And so it feels really, really good to be seeing new things. [Laughs] 

EA: Yeah! And just being back on tour in general, what's that like?

Sara Watkins: It's a little weird, but it's been great. I think that like all the reentry into our normal work rhythm, it's different, but it feels really good to be seeing seeing faces out there in the audience — largely masked faces, which is great. And some people who, even from the  stage and with the masks on, we've been able to recognize a lot of people who we've come to see at shows over the years. It's been really nice being out.

Sean: It's just…it's weird. I think it's going to be weird whenever we go out because we're going to be living with this for a while — a couple of years to come, for sure, in some capacity. So, it's always going to feel a little unnerving getting out and being in groups of people — for us and the audience, I'm sure, too. It's got to happen sometime and everyone's doing their best, so it feels good. And once we kind of get past that, the shows are really joyous. And every night, we've been asking people if it's their first show, post-pandemic, and for fair amounts of them, it is. So,s it's such an honor. [Laughs]

EA: Nice! Yeah, are there things about being back on the road and playing shows that you didn't realize you missed or feel especially meaningful now?

Sean: Yeah! I mean, everything. While we were home just sitting around, we found ourselves reminiscing about the stuff that we used to complain about. I remember talking to my friend Tyler and being like, “Oh man, I just miss having to go and do an hour and a half long sound check and driving after a show, a couple of hours under your belt before you get to the next town, just driving through the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere.” It's all part of who we are because we've been doing this so much. We've been touring for so long that this lifestyle is really kind of in our DNA. And like I was saying earlier, just seeing new people and new areas of the country and the world just feels really good. You know, seeing green trees, seeing the fall happen — that's a huge deal for us because we live in California.

Sara: And we're getting to return to places that, for instance, Asheville is a place that we normally would get to once a year or so. Maybe a little more, but really frequently enough to have our favorite places and to feel we know the town a little bit. And Asheville's a place that's been near and dear to our hearts since our first experiences — The Grey Eagle and the many shows that we've seen, too, in Asheville. And the community of players and folk tradition that's around the region has been super influential to us. And so, to get to come back to places like Asheville on this first real proper tour that we've done in a year and a half or two is something we're looking forward to. I mean, we're playing The Orange Peel, for crying out loud!

Sean: I know! The Orange Peel is one of those places where, if people ask us, "What are your favorite venues to play?" Orange Peel is right up there for us. I mean, really, Asheville in general is just…it's always such a pleasure to play for people there. The audiences — it's such a music-heavy town, and there's so much of the music that we grew up playing. Bluegrass and old time has deep, deep roots around there.

I remember the first time we played in Asheville was maybe 2001, maybe 2002. The first one was Grey Eagle. I remember our bass player at the time, Byron House, he was a lot older than us and had played a lot of places, and he was filling us in on the history of that place. And then he told us about Jack of the Wood and the old time jams that would happen there. And I remember I was immediately kind of falling in love with the scene and that town. And it's just always such a pleasure to come back to it.

EA: Nice! Yeah, we were so lucky that y'all included us on the 2015 Family Hour tour. I was lucky enough to see one of the Grey Eagle shows, and I'm just forever grateful to y'all for getting the chance to see Fiona Apple up close. I still get goosebumps when I think about y'all's version of “Mistake." That was just such a lovely night, so thank you for that.

Sean: It sounds like you're like talking about wildlife. It's so funny. [Laughs] Seeing a Fiona up close, in the wild. 

Sara: It’s not unlike wildlife. Sort of one of nature's miracles. It was really cool for us to get to bring that group of people to The Grey Eagle. It was a full circle moment for sure — which I’m sure that we talked about that from the stage — just getting to bring our family, our musical family from Los Angeles to this place that feels so foundational to us was really, really special.

Sean: Yeah, it was. 

EA: Yeah, who are you getting to bring on these tour dates? 

Sara: Courtney Hartman is on tour with us. This album, brother sister, is different from the first one in that going into this record, our goals were pretty specific. We wanted to write and record an album that was much more duo centric, because the Watkins Family Hour has a lot of forms and it's always changing and it's very flexible. But at the core of it, the thing that it needs is just Sean and me to be there. And we've been we've been doing some more duo centric shows at Largo and decided that we really wanted to write and arrange songs that were exploiting all the potential that we could muster into arrangements, and making the most out of what we can do as two people. And still letting those songs be flexible enough to be supported by musicians here and there. 

And so this tour has been that. It's celebrating the brother sister album and focusing on all the things that Sean and I have been involved in — or at least a lot of the things that Sean I've been involved in together, which have also in turn been a big part of the Family Hour. And we are joined by Courtney Hartman, who's opening the show and and then collaborating with us throughout the night. Interestingly, we've recorded one of Courtney's songs that she wrote with Taylor Ashton. We recorded one of those on brother sister, and that kind of makes the combination even a little bit more special. 

Sean: Yeah. 

EA: And, obviously, this tour has been postponed twice and probably gave you a lot of time to think about planning. In what ways is the current version different than what you had planned in spring 2020, or even this past spring? 

Sean: Not really that much different. I mean, we maybe would have had an extra musician with us at some point, when it made sense. But it was really always going to be kind of a duo centric tour, but we also want to make use of people that we know in these towns that we're playing. It's a great excuse to get to meet and play with people who live across country and in different cities. You know, a lot of cities, we don't know anybody, so we know spoken Asheville and 

EA: And then also with timing, this album was released just a few weeks after lockdown. Did you consider delaying it, or were the gears too much in motion at that point?

Sean: I think we thought about it. You know, the powers that be, our management, they were kind of reading the tea leaves nationally and they were realizing this was going to be a much longer thing than we'd hoped. And there were a lot of people that were putting out records around that time and everyone just kind of collectively decided to just put it out because it really didn't look like things were going to open up soon.

But we kind of just thought, “Well, let's put it out. And then, depending on how long this lasts, we can make another one.” But, you know, the world needs music no matter what and really needed music even more so, maybe, at the beginning of last spring and summer. 

Sara: I think things that we were writing about, too, were timely. They are still timely. But there's a sense of urgency when you record an album that, you know, this is of this moment and the idea of just putting it off until this great unknown future can be a little bit depressing. You want to get it out there as soon as you can. Generally, a band just really wants to put their music out. [Laughs] It’s kind of hard to wait for those months after it's finished for the strategized release date. Sometimes it can be hard to wait even those few months. So, I’m glad we released it when we did. It was really helpful that we were able to do these Patreon livestreams twice a month throughout the pandemic. It was nice to be able to have brother sister out for those, so we could play that material and explore it relatively close to when we'd written it.

EA: Yeah, the Patreon seems like it's been a great success. How you feel that has enriched your lives?

Sean: Well, like Sara was saying, it gave us a reason to [Laughs] musically get up in the morning — metaphorically, over the pandemic. Without that, there wouldn't have been a real reason to practice and learn songs. We would have, because we love to do that in front of an audience or just at home. But having those shows every other Thursday gave us a reason to play these songs and to practice them. And in a way, it enabled us to keep our engine sort of idling this whole time until we were able to get back on tour. Even after the first couple that we did, it was just Sara and I in my backyard with two microphones and, you know, the amount of maybe a normal audience for us watching live — normal for us. We felt the nerves and we felt a lot of the stuff that comes along with playing a show, just from being live for patrons. And that was such a gift. It really, really was.

Sara: Mmmhmm.

Sean: And we looked forward to it, every other Thursday. And we also, as part of our Patreon, gave away these songs from the archive. We've been recording all of our shows for a long, long time, and there's some real standout moments that we've personally kind of marked and listened to ourselves, but we haven't really shared with anybody. And a lot of them have been at Largo, which does not allow any kind of recording, so they're not widely available. So that was fun for us to dig through the archives, find these full performances, and comment on them. It kept the juice flowing and I'm just so grateful for everybody who signed up.

EA: Have there been some standout moments from those livestreams that you especially value?

Sara: Yeah. I think about the time Dan Wilson and Mike Viola were guests. So, we have these condenser mics that work well from a distance. [Laughs] And we would have one that was for the guests to use as we were gathered outside. Generally once we figured out once there was testing involved and we were allowed to have a little bit of understanding of this mysterious pandemic and how it was operating, we were able to have some guests outside. Anyway, one of the first guests were Mike Viola and Dan Wilson, who had written this song together for Semisonic's album [You're Not Alone] that came out just about a year ago now.

And it was one of the first times that I sat down and listened to musicians play a song. I was in the audience in that moment — you know, Sean and I were the audience. [Laughs] But it was really kind of a heart moment for me getting to be on the receiving end of a performance. I mean, really, it was a gift for me to get to hear them. And they played this song about the road and about life on tour in a van.

Sean: It was nostalgic.

Sara: It was a perfect storm of what I'd been missing. That was a real standout moment. There were many, but that was one of the first. 

Sean: We also did a holiday show at a place in Los Angeles called Hot Shot Muffler, and, you know, very spread out. Everyone had their own microphone. It was outside. And Willie Watson came, and this really great band called La Santa Cecilia — kind of a...I don't even know, like, not a mariachi, but really great local band from Los Angeles. And it was like Sara was saying: It was that feeling of getting to see live music. 

I think we get numb when we get to see it whenever we want, and especially living in a big city, the amount of shows that we would normally kind of say, "Oh, I don't really want to go see them," because you've got so many opportunities. When that's all taken away, just getting to see and sit in front of someone who's putting their heart into singing a song, it just means so much. And I remember that evening or afternoon, doing that show, just feeling like, "This is the best musical experience of my life." [Laughs] You know? It's getting together with a few friends and getting to see these songs. And it was the holidays. Everyone was in a good mood. But yeah! There definitely are some memorable times from these Patreons.

EA: And then talking about missing things, have you been able to resume shows at Largo or is that something that's going to be coming back after this tour?

Sara: We’ve done two live shows at Largo, and that's been really great. End of July, we did our first and then end of August. And we will get to go back — we'll just skip September, but they're resuming the monthly. The monthly residency continues! [Laughs] And that's been kind of surreal.

I think a lot of us…Everyone, I think, regardless of their profession or lifestyle, is kind of dealing with this weird thing of feeling like no time has passed, but yet there's this giant space in our lives where an enormous amount of things have happened. And it's a very strange dichotomy. And I definitely felt that when we were at Largo. It was like, it'd been a couple of months and we were back at our place. But then when you think about all the crazy…just this wild ride that life has taken us all on…I think we're all going to be working through it for a while.

EA: Definitely.

Sean: Yeah. It felt like A Wrinkle in Time in a way. It messed with your head in that you know that a lot of time has gone by and we've all experienced a lot of life and the hardships, but then it doesn't feel that way when you're on stage. Like Sara said, it felt like a couple months, and so grappling with that disparity is [Laughs] something everyone's doing in their own way.

Sara: Yeah, I think that's why when we are able to come back and do these shows, it feels healing in a way to be able to be with people and to know that we're all still processing it, but we can do it together, safely, and, hopefully just start this healing process that we all need to go through. I think coming together is going to be crucial for healing. 

Sean: Yeah. 

EA: Yeah, definitely agree. I was just at MerleFest last weekend and it was the first big festival thing I'd been to. I'd been to some shows in Asheville, but that was definitely surreal. But also, you just felt connected and it felt really great to be back in that setting.

Sara: Yeah. Did they do the full four days? 

EA: Yeah, it was cranked all the way. And they did it right. They required proof of vaccination or negative test and you had to mask up inside. It just felt really responsibly done and just amazing performances all around.

Sara: That’s great.

EA: Yeah! Well, thanks so much for taking time out today. It was really great to talk with you both together. I'd interviewed you individually over the years, but it was cool to have the interaction over the phone, so thanks so much for that.

Sean: [Laughs] Of course! Yeah. 

Sara: Absolutely! Thanks for your support. We're really looking forward to coming to town. 

EA: Absolutely. Yeah. And if you're taking requests, I'm going to put in a plug for [Beastie Boys’] “Sabotage.” I thought that was an amazing cover y'all did. [Laughs]

Sara: [Laughs] 

Sean: [Laughs] Oh my god... 

Sara: Thanks! We need Gabby Moreno for that one. 

Sean: I know. [Laughs] 

IF YOU GO

Who: Watkins Family Hour with Courtney Hartman
When: Thursday, Sept. 30, 8 p.m.
Where: The Orange Peel, 101 Biltmore Ave., theorangepeel.net
Tickets: $32 advance/$36 day of show

(Photos by Jacob Boll)