The Avett Brothers are approaching a new major label recording contract, a new album and a new producer with a track record by not changing a thing.
The band, which will perform Friday at Jessye Norman Amphitheater, will release I and Love and You on Sept. 29. The album was recorded with Rick Rubin, the early hip-hop pioneer who has produced albums by artists as diverse as the Beastie Boys, Slayer, Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond.
The album finds the group, which started life as a three-piece string band, experimenting with pianos, drums and other instrumentation outside the expected guitar, bass and banjo arrangements.
Bob Crawford, the bass player, said that although fans of the band might be shocked by the instrumentally rich arrangements, the band is in reality using instrumentation that's long been part of the writing process, if not their live performance.
"Piano, for instance, is something we've always used as a building block," he said. "It was just never practical to take one on the road. I don't know if that was a shocker to Rick Rubin. He had researched us, and then we sent him all these demos with piano and drums."
Mr. Crawford said some who have heard the new record have questioned how the band, known for raucous performances, might translate some of the statelier arrangements. The beauty of the songs is that they are easily stripped of accessories and made lean for live performance, he said.
The Avett Brothers have long operated under the realization that a recording and a live performance are separate things, Mr. Crawford said.
"It's to our benefit," he said. "We tried to do what we do live in the studio, and it just isn't possible. A live performance is a fleeting moment. A recording is a lasting work of art.
''It's important to approach each as what they are."
Mr. Crawford said working with Mr. Rubin proved enlightening. He said Mr. Rubin's talent as a producer is breaking down a song into its basics and understanding how they should work together.
"Sometimes he didn't change anything," Mr. Crawford said. "Sometimes his contribution was to just let us do what we do. Sometimes it was getting us to play a progression over and over, vamping on it, until it evolved."
He said the Avett Brothers left the studio a much sharper band than when it entered.
"That's a lot of what we learned this time -- musicianship," he said. "It's something we've always felt we were weak on."
Working in a Malibu, Calif., studio with Mr. Rubin wasn't the Hollywood experience some might imagine, he said. The band slept above the studio, never hit the Sunset Strip and only occasionally saw the sea, although the Pacific was less than two miles from the front door.
"We had some really good fish tacos brought in a couple times a week," he said, "but that's really all the Malibu culture we were able to partake in."
Reach Steven Uhles at (706) 823-3626 or steven.uhles@augustachronicle.com.
IN CONCERT
WHAT: The Avett Brothers, Slow Runner and the Shaun Piazza Band
WHEN: 6:30 p.m. Friday
WHERE: Jessye Norman Amphitheater, James Brown Boulevard at Riverwalk Augusta
COST: $20 in advance, $25 at the gate; etix.com
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the avett brothers rock! too bad i have to work at the bar that first introduced them to augusta. so stop on by the stillwater taproom and let me know how kick ace the show was!