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Program #3 - Interview with the band Nickel Creek. Listen to program
I had the good fortune to meet the innovative Nickel Creek a few summers ago at the Cambridge folk festival. Our dressing rooms were right beside each other, and it was immediately clear that they were having an enormous amount of fun. A circle of musicians quickly formed outside their door where they sat playing together, Jon Paul Jones had a huge acoustic base on his lap, and anyone who didn't stop by to sit in stopped by to listen. I felt hugely honored when they asked me to come on over and sing. And Nickel Creek hadn't even made it to the stage yet ' the best show around was going on in a row of a few plastic chairs behind the scenes.
What struck me that day was how devoted Sean and Sara and Chris are
to music. They never stop thinking about it. Their instruments sit in
hand and on arm like a natural extension of their bodies. They practice
every moment they are awake. With love. They are virtuosos in the truest
sense, they've won awards, they've exploded genre clich's in their wake,
they've traveled the world with critical and commercial success in hand,
honed their songwriting together to come up with their best material
yet on Why Should The Fire Die, and have even been a band for
over 20 years. (Yes, the staggering math is that they were under ten!).
But what is most amazing about them is that they are all ceaselessly
at work on their music right now with an enthusiasm so genuine and fresh
that it is nothing short of a cool drink of water.
So many thanks to my friends Nickel Creek for letting me jump on their tour bus with them after our first UK meeting. So many thanks to them for being on the program. I borrowed some furniture from a hotel hallway in Tuscan, Arizona to set up a little recording studio in my hotel room on our night off from touring a leg of their Farewell for Now tour, on the eve of the bands hiatus. Check it out.
P.S. Also check out Sara's new awesome solo material as she tours with me on our west coast run this April.
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