The Avett Brothers: The Ongoing Saga Of The Mignonette

Photo: Emilio Madrid

***

In July 1884, a British sailing vessel sank following a storm near the Cape of Good Hope. Four members of the crew climbed onto a lifeboat and remained adrift for 24 days without food or water. Eventually these sailors resorted to the “custom of the sea,” a longstanding nautical tradition that permitted the survivors to draw straws and decide which of them would be killed and consumed by the others.

Journalist Neal Hanson chronicled this tale, including the subsequent murder trial that outlawed the macabre maritime practice, in his 2000 work of non-fiction, The Custom of the Sea. At the time of its publication, brothers Scott and Seth Avett, who’d previously joined forces in the rock band Nemo, had just founded a new acoustic project that they’d dubbed The Avett Brothers. Four years later, as the Avetts contemplated their third record, they drew inspiration from the narrative contained in Hanson’s book, which their father had recommended to them. That album, Mignonette—named after the original yacht— was a deep, resonant artistic expression that engaged big ideas, while also manifesting the Avetts’ uncertainties and challenges as they took to the road together as a fledgling collective (minus the cannibalism).

Now over 20 years since the release of Mignonette, a version of the story is being staged on Broadway. Swept Away, which shares its name with the opening track on the record, doesn’t draw exclusively on the album, as it incorporates additional songs from The Avett Brothers’ catalog, including a new one that Scott and Seth wrote specifically for the musical. So too, Swept Away is not a direct retelling of the original story, as John Logan—a playwright and screenwriter who has previously worked on The Last Samauri, Gladiator, Rango and Skyfall, among other notable films—set the narrative off the coast of New Bedford, Mass., and introduced a new element as two of the shipmates are now brothers.

Swept Away premiered at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in January 2022, following some COVID-imposed delays, and then moved to Washington, D.C.’s Arena Stage in November 2023. The musical has received glowing reviews. The Washington Post hailed it as “transfixing” and “vibrant,” declaring that Swept Away “has proved itself worthy of a Broadway christening.”

Meanwhile, it has been an active year for The Avett Brothers, who released a new eponymous record in May, which represents their latest collaboration with producer Rick Rubin. During an album release show at Forest Hills Stadium, they not only announced that Swept Away would be heading to Broadway, but they also debuted The Avetts, a new band of puppets created with the Jim Henson Company.

Looking back on the time when you wrote Mignonette, how far along were you in terms of finding your voices as songwriters and performers?

SCOTT: At that specific point, our relationship with the book The Custom of the Sea—and how it related to our story and then specifically to that album—was a big part of us finding our voice.

The focal point for us was after they’re found, how much does telling the truth cost and does it cost you your life? As melodramatic as that sounds, when you’re a younger person it certainly feels that serious and that dire.

We were in the middle of that and we were living that. It was certainly a major part of us finding our voice as far as us thinking, “Are we committed to doing this in real time or are we more interested in how fast we can get to the top?” There’s a paradox there because if we had been honest, we’d have said, “We want to get to the top as fast as possible.” But we also were compelled by the hard truth of anybody’s circumstance. In our case, that was playing shows, expressing ourselves, going to the next place and doing it again, then responding to the results of that.

Scott, you’ve said that in writing those songs, you envisioned parallels between being out at sea and driving around on tour, with a van as your vessel.

SCOTT: Yes, that’s what we were thinking. In fact, I think when we were looking at visuals and art direction, there was talk of a van with a sail on the top of it, or rudders, and other similar ideas. It was exactly that.

Since the songs on Mignonette are thematically intertwined, had you ever thought about doing something with them, even in a vague, undefined sense?

SETH: Vague would be a good word for it. We certainly hadn’t thought specifically about a musical or Broadway or anything like that because that’s not our background or our specialty, as we see it.

I think the longer this has gone on, the more time we’ve spent on this journey with this band and this music, we’ve seen our roles within it change. We’ve seen how eventually we’ll completely disappear from it. So the things that we’re making and that we’re leaving are alive to us in a certain way while we’re in the process of making them but then they change. They become part of  something else. Our energy and our life is dedicated to whatever is in the now.

So we were open and continue to be open to finding out what these songs’ identities are in different chapters. If they find their way into another form or another forum, that makes total sense to us. We’re completely open to learning what that is without trying to direct it.

To what extent do you think that you’d approach the ideas that informed Mignonette differently if you were writing that album today?

SCOTT: I think we feel a necessity as a unit to operate with a substantial percentage of discovery or curiosity. So in that regard, it would be the same as it was 100 years ago and 100 years before that, with a sense of discovery and hope to retain a novice perspective.

But as you alluded to earlier, the idea of us gaining our voice has certainly changed how we write, when we write and what we write—mostly our willingness to share.

An interesting thing about that is it has sort of come and gone and then come again because, back then, we did a lot purely on curiosity and discovery without thinking. We’ve also had a time of hyperawareness, and we now realize how suffocating that can be. So there’s a longing to be back in a position of discovery, as a little less knowing is healthy.

While most of the songs in Swept Away are from Mignonette, there are four from True Sadness. Is there something about that album, whether it’s thematically, emotionally or musically, that made them well-suited for this project?

SETH: I would say, and this is just occurring to me in the moment, that perhaps there was an element of intensity that lived around the time of writing Mignonette and around the time of writing True Sadness that may be specific to the concept of departure.

At the time of Mignonette, we were departing a relatively well-defined early chapter of life into adulthood. Then, around True Sadness, we were departing the version of that and moving into one that’s defined by service to your own family. In the 2004 realm, we were really accepting that independent young manhood time and then in 2016, we were departing that. There might be some subcurrent of intensity that comes with that sense of departure and makes everything feel immediate.

SCOTT: To Seth’s point, a song like “No Hard Feelings” is a perfect example. With some of these songs and that album, it takes more of a lifetime to live into them. You can write them early, but you can’t really share them with your true self because you’re not there yet. You just don’t believe them yet.

John Logan was writing to a holistic view of manhood with those four characters. But not just manhood—personhood and the development of people in different points of life. So True Sadness was getting out songs like “No Hard Feelings,” where we had to live more of life to be able to sing them with conviction.

Photo: Julieta Cervantes

You mentioned John Logan. As I understand it, he came down and made a direct appeal to use your music, including songs beyond Mignonette. What was your initial reaction to his pitch?

SETH: I think we were intrigued by the idea right out of the gate when it was brought to us, initially just as a concept. Our knee-jerk reaction was not one of concern, it was just one of intrigue. It seemed like an exciting thought. Then, when John came to North Carolina and we sat in Scott’s kitchen and talked about it, John brought with him a very early draft. He introduced himself in person along with his work ethic and his seriousness about the project, with proof in hand.

It was clear that this wasn’t a passing thought to John. It was something that he had already dug way into. Of course, there have been many drafts and a lot of changes since then, but when we sat down with John for the first time, it was alive. It was happening, it was moving, it was on its way, and it was super exciting right from the top.

SCOTT: We realized that we had connected with the right writer—someone who would look at it not as a task, but as a world to explore and who would have access to that inspiration.

John listened to The Avett Brothers for six months. He told us that he dedicated himself to it. He took on our catalog like it was this big piece of marble and started chipping away at what was there for this story.

When he presented that to us, it seemed more understandable that a musical could come from it because we do look at our songs as the story of many things within our lives. But ultimately, it’s this big story of our lives that we share, which must be other people’s lives too, because we’re just not that original. So that’s a good thing and it seemed more natural to use that entire pool of music.

The real-life story of the Mignonette did not involve siblings. When you learned that John’s version featured two brothers, how did you respond?

SETH: It was uncanny how he knew our story, how he understood brotherhood and our specific brotherhood, which felt like maybe was less specific than we had thought it was because he was describing so many things that we had been through with each other to a T.

That was really fascinating. Did you make any suggestions regarding songs that you thought should be included?

SETH: It never really occurred to me to make a suggestion on that front because John was the one who had really dedicated himself to a narrative. He’s also the one who understands narrative as his trade, so there wasn’t a time where I was like, “This song seems like it would fit in a maritime adventure” or anything like that.

That was out of our realm of artistry, although we were able to be a part of it as it was built and changed. We were always free to make suggestions, which we did, and we were able to be there for the casting. It also turned out there was one spot that really needed a song, so we wrote a song for it. But as far as specific song suggestions, John seemed to follow the muse and follow it well.

Did you approach writing that new song, “Lord Lay Your Hand on My Shoulder,” in a substantially different manner than the way you have created other recent compositions?

SETH: While it might seem like it would have been different, it didn’t really feel very different. It’s such a blessing to have a direction to explore, whether that’s coming from your own heart, from another songwriter you trust or the assignment is coming from somewhere different, as sort of happened here.

But it was especially a blessing for Scott and I because our songwriting at this point—and perhaps it was always this way—very rarely conceptually veers away from God, from Providence. So to have someone say, “We need you to write a song about God,” is like giving a basketball to an NBA player, and asking, “Hey, do you want to shoot around?” “Yeah, I want to shoot around! I love doing that!”

SCOTT: It’s like asking somebody to do that while they’re already in the act of shooting. You’re like, “Yeah, OK, I’ll do that!”

In this case, you had a prompt and a deadline. Is that how you’ll typically work in terms of scheduling time for songwriting or do you keep things looser and wait for inspiration to strike?

SCOTT: When we schedule time together, a lot can happen. Seth loves this Chuck Close quote: “Inspiration is for amateurs.” It was so fitting for him because he dedicated himself to those little squares and he made these impressive, massive, commanding works of art.

So we’ll set aside these pockets of time after we’ve decided that we want to put together songs and see what’s there. It doesn’t sound romantic or sexy but when you sit down together, the stuff that’s much more mysterious has already happened. So what we’re doing is seeing what’s been documented and then trying to go back there. Once we do, we inevitably find ourselves with a new curiosity and craft that we apply.

SETH: Let me also say this—there’s not really a difference between the two things. The only real difference is that in one scenario you’re deliberately making the space for something to happen, and then in the other one, the space is being made for you, although perhaps that happens at an inconvenient time. It has to be both, really. If you’re about to fall asleep and then you get this idea for the song, it’s good to push through, get the notebook, write it down real quick and then try to go to sleep. But it has to be the other side as well, where you say, “I’m going to spend two hours on this Tuesday at 10 a.m.”

Especially when you have a collaborator— although I think this can and should happen within yourself as well—Scott and I sit down and I’m basically scheduling the time to be inspired because he’ll play something that, to him, is two years old and is not super exciting, but it will create newness in the moment because it’s new to me. So it’s likely to spark something.

As Swept Away came together, did it lead you to discover something new in the songs themselves?

SETH: Yeah, and that’s always really welcome. To me, that’s one of the more exciting things in music and certainly in popular music. I’ve always been very drawn to the cover that sort of reinvents a song. The most available example might be Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah.” There’s also Louis Armstrong doing “Your Cheatin’ Heart”—you get so used to it as a Hank Williams country song, and then you hear Louis Armstrong do it and you’re like, “No, this is a Louis Armstrong song.” I’m also really over the moon about Fiona Apple’s cover of “Across the Universe.”

Basically, anytime someone dedicates themselves to a song at that highest level—with their whole self and their full heart—I think there’s bound to be new things inside the lyrics, melodies and arrangements.

The guys in the cast certainly showed us, and are continuing to show us, things about these songs that we were up to this point, unaware of. I would say it’s across the board, especially in the realm of sensitivity and nuance. I don’t know that we’ll ever hear those songs in the same way again or perhaps even sing them in the same way again because there’s a more three-dimensional quality to the lines.

SCOTT: It’s sort of a practice that I already do occasionally, where I will check in with some of our songs because I think to myself, “I don’t know who that person was. I don’t know what was being recorded, what was being sung.” Or maybe I forgot why that lyric was written, so I’ll check in.

With the musical, that’s kind of happening in a public way. The big benefit to us is that it’s something we reach for anyway, which is multiple meanings. Whenever we write, it’s nice to realize that there are multiple meanings to songs because each individual receives them differently.

So we’re being gifted in this scenario— this exchange with the musical. In a loving way, we’re being asked to accept this gift. I think of relationships with songs that way—how we present them, how we hold them, how we deliver them. That ultimately models who we truly are, good or bad. This all gets me thinking about accepting the gift of something in public, which is what happens when you go to see the premiere of a musical with your songs.

What was it like for the two of you to see the full production for the first time?

SETH: The first time we saw it was in D.C. We kind of got COVIDed out of the Berkeley experience. In a way, each step was really mind-blowing. The first read through was mind-blowing. I don’t know why I was surprised about this, but it was a surprisingly surreal experience to see it in that full, completed form, insomuch as it can be a completed form. I don’t really know how to explain it. It was otherworldly. My wife said that at some point, she looked at me and she’d never seen me smile exactly in that way.

What, if anything, has surprised you as you’ve experienced Swept Away with audiences?

SETH: You can never quite know if your own judgments are right, but one perception that I had was looking around and feeling like I could kind of recognize the diehards—The Avett Brothers fans— and then people who love the theater and are just checking something out.

So what I’ve seen a little bit firsthand, and what I’ve heard about a lot from the producers and from those involved in it on a nightly basis, is that there’s this wild cross-section of theater lovers and people who love the band. The Venn diagram is an interesting one and it’s kind of a funny one that maybe didn’t exist until now. Getting to see all those personalities and those tastes sort of run into each other is inevitably surprising and really special.

While I’m sure it’s delightful to have your fans in the house, I’d imagine it’s fascinating and fun to find people who otherwise would not be exposed to your music engaging it in that way.

SETH: For sure. And what a bizarre introduction. I thought the same thing with the film, May It Last [the Avett Brothers documentary directed by Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio]. I thought, “Man, what an interesting way of being introduced to something.” Basically, they are being introduced in depth.

It’s an interesting way of saying hello, when you’re going that deep conceptually and spiritually right out of the gate. If you’ve never heard any of our songs and you jump right into “No Hard Feelings,” with someone on the brink of death, then that’s a legit and sort of uniquely intense introduction.

I’ve heard Swept Away described as a jukebox musical, which seems a bit off-base to me because it’s not like a bunch of your songs were randomly repurposed in a new form. The whole project began with your Mignonette album. Does the term jukebox musical rankle you at all?

SETH: No, I’m OK with however anyone describes it. To me, at the end of the day, I always feel that sincerity rules. And even if it doesn’t rule in the moment, it does in the long run. I tend to go back to the things that have really touched me. If I think about Tom Waits’ Alice record, it’s just something between me and the piece. It doesn’t matter if anyone else ever got it, even if Tom Waits himself got it. The impact or the genuineness and the truth, whatever is in, stays in.

All I know about this musical is that the source was sincere and it remains sincere and it has continued through these performers and these efforts. I have no doubt that it will be shared with and experienced by those who need to see it or those who might enjoy it or might get something from it. So however someone describes it is OK with me.

Finally, when you introduced the puppets earlier this year at the same time you revealed that Swept Away was going to Broadway, it made me think of the musical Avenue Q. Can you talk about the origins of the puppets and whether they might yet surface in an additional setting?

SETH: Basically, we’ve always loved the Muppets. We’ve always loved everything to do with the Jim Henson world. We grew up on it like so many did, and we’re just so drawn to it and enamored with it. In our early days, we got compared to Muppets a lot—sometimes that could be in a complimentary way and sometimes in a not so complimentary way. But the thing is, our energy, our excitement and our enthusiasm outweighed our musical talent. That’s just the reality of it. Our willingness and the energy we had to go after it and throw down was so present, but there were things lacking musically.

In any event, we still feel connected to that wild, rough kind of monster energy. So the way it started was that after years of us saying, “Man, it’d be awesome if we made puppets of ourselves,” we finally got serious about the idea and started to ask, “What would happen if we really pushed this?”

So we approached the Jim Henson folks and they were down. There were some fans within the organization, and they were extremely game right off the bat. So momentum started cranking really quickly and then we spent the next year, year-and a-half period designing these things and getting FedExed fur samples. They debuted on stage with us and we’ve played many shows with them. They’re just amazing, cute little guys.

As for what’s to come, I won’t say specifically, but stay tuned because the journey with The Avetts, as we call them, has only just begun.