NICKEL CREEK Band finds new freedom by embracing influences

With its third album, the group explores country, Celtic and techno sounds.
By JOHN BENSON
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
At a time when America was awakened to its bluegrass past by the success of the rootsy "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack, California trio Nickel Creek quickly emerged with its self-titled 2000 debut as the future of the hill music scene.
Produced by bluegrass's reigning queen, Alison Krauss, the album received instant Music Row credibility. However, it wasn't until the threesome's follow-up album, "This Side," which included a cool cover of Pavement's "Spit on a Stranger," that the indie rock set took notice.
Past mistakes
Despite the added publicity, Nickel Creek vocalist-fiddler Sara Watkins said the endeavor proved problematic. "We shouldn't have done that song," said Watkins, calling from a tour bus somewhere in upstate New York. "We didn't even do it right. That was kind of Alison's idea, and we were showing her the stuff that we were listening to and she was like, 'I like that song. Let's do that song.' And it was like, 'OK, sure.' And we did it, but we didn't do it right. Pavement fans hated us for that one."
Featuring Watkins, her brother Sean Watkins (vocals and guitar) and Chris Thile (mandolin and banjo), Nickel Creek is the type of gray-area band that refuses to be pigeonholed.
Naturally, Watkins' fiddle and Thile's banjo draw country comparisons, but Sean's guitar melodies and the band's instrumentation are distinctly un-bluegrasslike.
Sara said avoiding the elephant in the room (naturally dressed in overalls and wearing a straw hat) has been Nickel Creek's studio modus operandi for a while.
New honesty
Realizing that this mindset was essentially limiting the group's creativity, the band members decided a change was needed. The result is its third studio album "Why Should the Fire Die?"
"I think we're looking to leave behind any kind of discomfort with what we do naturally well," Sara said. "And by that I mean sort of rebelling against three-part harmony because we related it to some kind of silly hokeyness. There is no way to deny [new track] 'Jealous of the Moon' is a country waltz. And there's no way we would have done that on our previous records the way that we did it. We would have tried to deny the song what it was. We would have said we were honest with the song, but we would have had these little guards up against the song."
Oddly enough, Sara feels that embracing its country influences actually frees Nickel Creek from being called a country band. This is due to the noticeably darker material that sonically defines "Why Should the Fire Die?" from start to finish.
Along the way, fans will find the Celtic-imbued "Scotch & amp; Chocolate," techno rhythm-sounding "Somebody More Like You" and raw "Helena."
"We wanted it to have a lot more personality to it," Sara said. "We feel like 'This Side' was very much a transitional record, but we wanted this one to represent that we've actually arrived in a stable place, and I'm sure that we will just continue to need to change and grow. But I feel like we kind of jumped to a different level for this record."