The Avett Brothers Return

Expert Sign Expert.

I'm Dan Rather and I'm joined by Modest Mouse.

Hello.

Hi, what are you reading over there?

The same intro?

Yeah.

Oh.

Today we have our friends on, the Avett Brothers.

They're back.

This is round two, Avett Brothers.

Yes.

But we get some good singing in this one.

It's so fun.

They're so, so special.

They are.

They combine to make something impossible.

Yeah, they do.

Yeah, sitting in the middle of it was transcendent.

Fuck.

That's what I want to say.

Oh, the word transcendent?

Yeah, as we say it again.

Okay.

And it's like a whole thing.

Okay.

The Avett Brothers are a Grammy nominated folk rock band.

Their albums include Closer Than Together,

True Sadness, Magpie and Dandelion,

The Carpenter, I and Love and You.

And they have a new album out now

called, self-titled, The Avett Brothers.

Yeah, they did a little loop-de-loop.

They did.

And they went self-titled now.

Yeah, most people start self-titled.

They're one, two, three, four, five.

This is their sixth album.

That's a cool move.

It is, I like it.

You're going to love Avett Brothers.

What a special performance we get from both of them.

Please enjoy.

♪ He's an objects man ♪

♪ He's an objects man ♪

♪ He's an objects man ♪

Olin here.

It's a concert.

Hi boys.

How are you?

Good, how are you?

You got some instruments for this concert.

Do you have a snare drum from downstairs?

I bet if you played it down there,

we'd be able to hear it.

Take them in, Monica.

I know.

It's once in a lifetime.

Have you guys been offered coffee and all this stuff?

Yeah, I got a coffee.

I feel like I know I shouldn't.

Scott, how has that gone?

For him not drinking coffee?

The notion that he's not drinking coffee,

I found it to be a betrayal.

An off-putting?

Yeah, who wants to hang with a guy

who's not drinking coffee?

Well, he doesn't have coffee with you.

I'll tell you that much.

And if he ain't having coffee with you,

what is he doing?

What is he doing?

And he's judging you drinking coffee.

No.

He sure is, he's feeling high and mighty.

I'm silently judging.

How's the air up there, Seth?

On that moral high ground?

What about tea?

Are you a tea guy?

It's stifling.

No, I like tea.

I like decaf.

He likes coffee, actually.

Yeah, I love coffee.

When I smell it, I'm like, ooh.

All the more offensive.

How dare you?

Oh, that's true.

It's just that I have so much self-control.

I know!

He's like proclaiming to the world, I'm a stoic.

You should have a shirt that says I'm a stoic,

because it's so much worse that you love it, isn't it?

Yeah.

That's someone who quits something every 10 days.

For sure, but I would argue the thing I quit

was driving the car into the ditch.

Seth was just getting more energetic and likable.

No, not more likable.

We talked about this last week.

I didn't have a plan.

This only happened out of solidarity,

because Jennifer was doing this cleanse, no meat, no caffeine.

I was like, I'll just do it with you just for fun.

But I had such a headache for about seven or eight days.

I moved through it, and then I was like,

well, that's it, I'm not going back.

That's a great motivation.

You don't like the headphones.

Do I have to have them?

Not at all.

You can do it over the phone.

That's a great motivation,

but similar solutions don't ever stop.

I understand not wanting to have the headaches ever again,

but just resume and don't stop.

Yeah, because it's always readily available.

It's not like you can't get a hold of coffee.

We all have our little battles

with having to depend on things.

I just didn't like, I was like,

I don't want to depend on that.

I know, I get that way too.

I didn't mean to pick a fight with you

as soon as you got in, but I took it really hard,

as you can see, I was thinking about it two weeks later.

This just feels like good motivation

just to come back to it, because I've been missing out.

Well, what would be great is if I could get you to do it now,

because as we discussed,

Michael Pollan wrote about caffeine in one of the books,

and he said that after two months off of it,

he takes his first sip and he's like,

it's like doing cocaine.

See, that's the thing.

I do have it about once every few months,

and it's awesome.

Ooh.

Yeah, rocket fuel.

Maybe that's the way to do it.

How are you doing, Scott?

I'm good.

You're good?

Real good.

Where's your energy level at?

It's solid, for sure.

We've both been up since about 2.30 this morning.

Yeah, but I'm peaking right now,

so this is midday for you.

This is good.

You're fucked for Kimmel.

Yeah, Kimmel's gonna get me the leftovers.

Sorry about that, Jimmy.

Kimmel's down river.

Why were you guys up since 2.30?

We're on North Carolina time.

Okay, but you didn't fly here this morning.

We flew here yesterday.

Yesterday.

Yeah, and I mean, I wake up around 5.30.

And you boys over at that Hilton Universal?

No.

No.

No.

Should be.

I love the Hilton Universal.

It's a lot closer to here than where we are.

Yeah, Seth was explaining to me

that you guys have to stay there

because of the tour bus parking, basically.

We have in the past, and we fell in love with it.

Yes.

Like it turned into this little thing.

I have those too.

But you've told us the story

about your relationship with it

and your perspective of the area

because you have a much more dynamic relationship

with the area and some people that you encountered there.

For people that didn't hear that episode,

I think he's referring to the time

that five gentlemen almost jumped me

in the lobby of the AMC 26

over there at Universal CityWalk.

But I love that.

I have certain, you guys must.

We were just talking about it.

There's a hotel in Austin

and it's where I stayed on my very second movie ever.

Four Seasons, we can shout it out.

Yeah, and it's the first time I ever stayed

at a Four Seasons and it's on the river

and I was doing a movie with Mike Judge.

And I walk into the lobby of that hotel

and it's, I bet, as close as I'll feel

to church that people feel.

Oh, this is so special.

Where do you most look forward to going

where it kind of delivers every time

other than the Hilton Universal?

Well, we do have a couple of those spots

that we can't say on Mike

because they are away from places

and they're really random.

Okay.

And they're usually rural.

We have found a couple of really sweet spots

in rural areas for days off that you wouldn't expect.

And they're not necessarily fancy.

They're just really good for bus parking

and for space and for being able to walk

to a place that has good juice.

Just a nice usable spot.

Here's the rule.

So somebody said, well, what's the prerequisite

to know where you're gonna go?

I say, if you can leave the bus door unlocked.

Okay.

That's hard to find.

And are you finding that's possible

at the Hilton Universal City Walk?

No, it's not possible.

No, you do not.

You do not leave the doors unlocked.

In fact, it's very rare that you leave

the doors unlocked anywhere.

You leave the motor running there.

I'll tell you that much.

Yeah.

Not the generator motor, the engine.

The one that you can put into park and drive.

I guess you gotta make a pasty exit.

Are these places so sacred that even off-air

you're not gonna let me in on them?

Cause you know, I too contend with bus parking.

We'll tell you off-air.

Give me the cheat sheet.

Yeah, we'll give you the cheat sheet.

We'll send you a map.

Are you guys allergic to fancy?

Do you feel embarrassed if you're at a fancy place?

No, I like fancy.

No.

Okay.

We're not allergic to it.

Yeah, if you broke up Scott's sections of his life,

he had a period, like if he were an artist

and he had a sunflower period,

Scott had a whole period that was G-Wagon.

Boy, I was obsessed with a G-Wagon.

Oh yeah.

I saw you live a few times.

I mentioned it on stage.

Couldn't keep it off your tongue.

I mentioned it during a song.

Yes, you did.

I can't believe at some point they didn't just give you one.

I mean, my man, you were out there promoting the product.

Not anymore.

And then you didn't get the product.

I still may eventually.

This is a really good approach to life.

You have something you can get.

It's got a little stoicism.

You resist the urge.

Because the fantasy's generally better than the acquisition.

Yeah, it must be.

But I tried to talk you into,

and I want to tell the story of this really lifetime fantasy

you guys granted me two summers ago.

I'll hit you with that first.

I had been begging you guys to just let me ride on the bus

and act like I'm in a rock band for a minute.

Keep asking, keep asking.

Apparently logistics was always the issue.

That's what they say.

Locations couldn't be provided because of privacy.

But by God, Aaron Winkley and I were driving around in my bus

and we're like, where are we going to go?

We have two weeks to fuck around.

And I thought, let's see where the Avett brothers

are playing.

That's awesome.

We were in North Dakota when I Googled this.

And I was like, by God,

they're in Indianapolis in three days.

So we hightailed it down to Indianapolis

and we got to park our bus with y'all's buses.

Fuck me, that was great.

It was nice.

Thank you for that.

You know, I've talked with Jennifer.

We've talked about this a few times.

I've always laughed about you and your bus

because there's a reason that bands lease them.

You know, it's like a house.

There's always something breaking.

They're not cheap to buy.

They're not cheap to run.

And there's a million working parts

and they're always breaking.

The brand new ones are breaking.

And we always talk about how impractical it is.

Our most recent conversation about it,

she was like, but why did he buy it

instead of like borrowing it when he wanted it?

And I'm like, babe, Dax wants to drive the bus.

That's the difference.

Like we lease a bus, we lease a driver.

He helps us.

You know, we've been with him for many years.

Sometimes you wake up and the guy's washing the inside

of the windshield while driving the vehicle.

Fully up the seat.

That has happened.

That's why I want to drive the bus.

It's not just the bus.

It's not just that type of travel.

Dax, he needs to be behind the wheel of the giant engine.

I got to spend 60% of the vacation

fixing the fucking contraption.

That's right.

Because when you say it breaks like a house,

that doesn't even begin to explain it.

And the guy who I bought it from, David Garza in Dallas,

he said, Dax, this is like owning a home

that's in a hurricane with 100 mile an hour winds

at all times.

The thought I just had was like two hands

like on the side of the house that you live in,

just shaking it.

That's what is happening to it.

So of course the hot water heater is going to break sooner.

The seals are going to come undone.

That's just how it is.

Everything's going to break inside it.

It's a perfect thing to own if you love problem solving.

You got a busy mind.

You want to get out there and figure out

why you got no power and nothing's working.

And it provides the same thing that is provided

for people that love RV and camping.

I don't think you get to have your cozy little home

anywhere else.

And the most embarrassing thing, I can bring all my weights.

How else am I going to travel

with a few hundred pounds of weights?

You're not going to be able to do it, Dax.

That's the bottom line.

So really it was imperative that you buy them.

That's true.

I had no choice.

I would love to see the little mazes in your mind

that work out how to justify certain purchases.

Like, well, I got to take the weights with me.

Sorry, Kristen.

So I guess I got to buy this bus.

Hey, Kristen, I got to buy this bus.

Got to have Lincoln's dirt bike everywhere we go.

What would she do if she didn't have her dirt bike

that she barely likes to ride?

I can't just drop this thing off at UPS

and have him chip it over there.

Okay, so Scott, on that lovely little,

what was fun about it is we were parked with you guys

and then we would wake up in the bus

and we'd come out and basically just live like the bandit.

We'd meet you all for the meals before the show.

A lot of chit chat.

It was so fun.

We were catching mice in the thing.

I don't know if you remember that part of it.

Like a house, you can get mice in the bus.

Did those come with your bus?

They are an add on, yeah.

Upgrade.

I was trying to talk you into a Raptor R.

Yeah, that's right.

And I thought I had tickled your fancy a bit.

You have.

But did you get that?

So I didn't.

Scott made a purchase recently

that you'd be interested in though,

that he immediately regretted.

How do I say this?

Some people make one really big purchase every now and again

and then some people make a lot of piddly purchases

and break themselves doing that.

So I would back off of something like a Raptor R

or a G-Wagon, which I think are just blessings

to this world.

They're not just fancy, just like a fancy hotel room.

I think this is a gift and it's not just luxury.

It's earthly, it's beauty.

I think the Hawaiians would call it mana, it's power.

Well, that too.

So what I did end up doing was buying a 1986 Ford Crown Vic.

Yes.

With 22,000 original miles.

It's like a brand new car.

It's incredible.

That's a great purchase.

I don't know.

It is.

I'm having some title issues with it

because it came from Pennsylvania.

No problem.

We're working it out,

but we're still trying to clear the paperwork.

I'm not sure.

I think I bought it because when we were watching

Men in Black, me and the boys,

we saw the black one that he's driving

and I was like, I heard it, you know.

It was like, oh man, Luke, that's an incredible car.

They didn't make them like they are

and they don't fly like that.

They're not like Men in Black.

No.

But so we purchased this car.

Do you know I was horny for the exact same car?

Really?

Oh my God.

That's one of my favorite movie cars of all time

because it's so God damn plain and stupid and boxy.

They have block.

And then the way they made it sound in the movie.

And with 22,000 miles, it is pristine.

It's like sitting in a brand new car.

It's really weird because nobody saved those cars.

They bought them for their family and they wore them out.

For us in our generation, we see that as like,

oh, I remember my buddy's mom had this car

and we rode into school or whatever, but no.

It's as close as I can get to time traveling.

It is.

So I bought the exact same thing, but the GM model

because Lincoln has a Lincoln to inherit.

And I was like, Delta needs a Delta to inherit.

And the Oldsmobile made the Delta 88.

And it is as stupid and boxy and boring as that Crown Vic.

And so I bought an 85 Delta 88

that's currently getting an LS3 and a six speed.

So that's the trick.

We got to link up when we come down to Nashville,

you and I got to do like a stupid hot rod car cruise.

So I need to do that to that car.

We have enough resources around Charlotte.

You could dumpster dive and find a NASCAR motor

where you guys live.

That's actually true.

We're like throwing away crazy parts.

It's ridiculous.

But I had started earlier.

What is the venue that never fails

to rekindle the romance and the nostalgia?

There are several.

The New Hampshire venue.

What is it called now?

El Pollo Loco Family Theater.

It's changed.

The Bank of New Hampshire.

You guys play at the bank when you go to New Hampshire?

Wells Fargo.

Financial Center Theater.

It's high interest.

APR loans to low credit score arena.

Tampa Theater.

It's like an old fairground, but there's several.

That one comes to mind just because

of the nostalgia of being there.

Is Red Rock up there?

It is.

We have such a relationship.

I mean, it's been 30, what, six times we've played?

So we have a history with it in terms of always delivering.

Yeah, it's like that.

It's been so celebrated.

It's more exciting for us to think about other places,

but Red Rocks is an obvious answer.

It's a place that could never be built now.

You could never get permission to build that.

Because what, they just blasted out.

Yeah, like in whatever, 1900, carved it out

of like one of the most beautiful.

Put seats in it.

Yeah, we're gonna make this a theater.

Thank God they got that happening before you couldn't,

in a way, but there is quite a spiritual element

to seeing a show there or performing there.

We've developed a personal relationship with it

at this point.

You know, it's one thing to pass through it

on the way as you hit stardom,

but we've developed this long lasting

personal relationship with it.

Is it the same date every year?