There’s a dark, progressive shadow looming over Nickel Creek’s current single, “When in Rome,” and it is much larger and more unwieldy than the contemporary folk group’s actual demure size and impenetrable youth.
The music is as intoxicating as it is menacing. The relentless drum of a funeral march leads the procession, and the fiddle, mandolin and guitar play an aggressive backup to vocals posing questions that are as probing and dead-on as the crystalline, bluegrass-affected harmonies.
And then there’s the band. Regardless of its immense musical growth and vocal maturation, it still looks like – and is regarded as – a group of 18-year-olds.
The trio, made up of brother-sister duo Sean and Sara Watkins on guitar and fiddle, and multi-instrumentalist Chris Thile on mandolin and banjo, has been together more than 15 years. And while it seems foolish to keep referencing a 16-year-old band by its youth, it’s also important to know the numbers of Nickel Creek, which plays the Fillmore Auditorium on Thursday.
Nickel Creek has released only three records, the first of which was its Alison Krauss-produced label debut in 2000. Also important: Sara Watkins is a child of the ’80s.
So the three musicians in Nickel Creek have been playing together since 1989 – but the young Watkins sister was only 8 when they started. And her honesty about the music, which is largely written by her brother and Thile (with a core of surrounding songwriters), is refreshing.
“Sonically it might be a little darker than our earlier stuff. It’s not as sparkly as the other albums were, and our voices sound different. But it’s not as if this came completely out of the blue. Our first record had ‘The Lighthouse’s Tale’ on it, and that was about suicide. So it’s not like there wasn’t any sadness, no hints at this sort of trend in our music beforehand.”
“I (stink) at writing. Songwriting really is a craft. I feel like an idiot talking about songwriting because I’m not a good songwriter. But I guess it’s a matter of knowing how to communicate in a certain way, and you can rely on inspirations as much as you like, and there will be magic moments, but it doesn’t always come down to that. Some people are born natural songwriters.”
“That might have been a mistake for us to do. We didn’t do it justice. We sort of made some Pavement fans angry with that, and that’s never been one that we play live. … We just didn’t really do Pavement right.”
If that experience made Watkins anxious of unfamiliar songwriters’ music, you wouldn’t know it from her subtle interpretation of Bob Dylan’s “Tomorrow Is a Long Time” on the band’s new record. The song benefits from her soft caress, which is delivered here minus the curled-lip attitude and sassy roar she picked up from working with Krauss for two records.
She’s plainspoken, and almost sweet and innocent and honest, not all that dissimilar to Dylan in the early-’60s when he wrote it.
“I was nervous,” she said of the experience. “I had to figure out what it was about, and I’m still learning how to sing that song. I don’t think I ever really will. It’s a big deal to cover anybody’s song, and it’s kind of hard because you have to learn to identify and sing it as if it was you. So to do that for a Dylan song is a little intimidating. Because it’s him.”
As she embarks on a career in performance and songwriting (she co-wrote three of the songs on “Why Should the Fire Die?”) she looks to an impressive variety of talent for inspiration. But it all starts with her partners in music.
“I’m constantly learning a lot from working with Sean and Chris,” Watkins said. “I learned a whole lot just by talking my way through things like why certain options could be better thought out, when to pursue an idea, when an idea is worthy of a song.”
She also talks of her love for the poetry of Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke and Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy. “I don’t really have any hope of reaching that kind of level because it’s so specific to who they are,” Watkins said. “But they just communicate so well.”
For now, though, one of her biggest heroes is Gillian Welch.
“Gillian Welch is one of the best (songwriters) out there right now,” she said. “And that has all set the stage for this entire experience right now, for me.”
Listen to the single “When in Rome” till your ears are blue, and while it’s a genius departure for the band, the rest of the record is back in tune with the band’s trademark: sunny, bluegrass-loving folk music peppered with the occasional pensive instrumental. The title track, which brings the record to a close, is a sharply tuned meditation on the close of a relationship.
“Even though it ends with such a sad song,” Watkins said of the new CD, “I’d like to think there’s an overriding sense of hope.”
Pop music critic Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-820-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com.
Nickel Creek
NU-BLUEGRASS|Fillmore Auditorium, 8 p.m. Thursday, with Andrew Bird|$25-$27|via Ticketmaster, ticketmaster.com or 303-830-8497
