Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
Great interview from the Austin American Statesman:
American-Statesman: Anyone you’re looking forward to seeing during SXSW?
Scott Avett: Yeah, I want to see our friends Jessica Lea Mayfield and Valient Thorr. I haven’t seen Valient Thorr in a while, and we’re all from the same area. We went to art school together. But I just want to focus on putting on as great a show as we can. I try not to think about other shows, because they affect you. They get you inspired in some ways that’s distracting — which is good and bad, I guess.
Lots of people are hearing “St. Joseph’s” on the NPR SXSW sampler this week.
That’s great. Like most of our songs, that was written about a life experience. It was after one of our New Year’s Eve shows in Asheville, North Carolina. I went from on top of the world playing the show and this huge celebration to spending the rest of the night in the emergency room. It was an interesting night with bloody thugs in the ER and people storming out.
Have you finished off the new album yet?
We have. I think the majority has been mixed, and it’s set to be out in July. The title is “I and Love and You.” My brother wrote a sort of mission statement or — how would you put it — an essay or thesis almost on the concept. It’s very intense and weighted and all encompassing. I think our intention is to print it nicely and have it written in calligraphy by a friend of ours. It’ll be in the vinyl packaging and the CD and I’m sure you’ll be able to download it.
Talk about working with Rick Rubin. In Rolling Stone, I made the comment that we grew up with the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” and lots of work that Rick produced and wrote. We were very impacted by it. It’s coming full circle now that he’s a peer that we work with. There’s a really awesome tie there, an understanding. What I tried to articulate — it wasn’t Rolling Stone’s fault, it was mine — was about working on a project with someone who’d affected us so deeply. He shaped that influential time in our life when we were 13 to 18 years old. A lot of those records from the Beastie Boys to the Chili Peppers were high on the rotation.
