The Wood Brothers, Renee Williams
Every saint and sage from the East to the West, past or present has essentially taught we all have the ability to find happiness if we make a stand to live life on our own terms.
Athenian historian, Thucydides said, “The secret to happiness is freedom, and the secret to freedom is courage.”
However, it is rare that a musical artist has any hope of finding artistic freedom in the music business. Sometimes the hope for exposure comes with a price. Whether it is asking fans for money to fund an album or putting trust in labels to distribute music, there is always a certain cost that bands must constantly weigh.
Nashville based trio, The Wood Brothers, an Americana folk band consisting of brothers Chris and Oliver Wood, and multi-instrumentalist Jano Rix spent over a decade pursuing happiness in the music industry and has now found happiness on their own terms. As such, the band’s devotion to happiness has never been more evident than in their latest self-produced, sixth full-length album, One Drop of Truth.
Guitarist and vocalist Oliver Wood says the band’s newest album is the freest, most independent and the most fun the band has ever had making a record, and most importantly, he feels One Drop of Truth is the most purely Wood Brothers album they have ever made.
On June 26, FWB Pro and Steve Hall Productions present The Wood Brothers at Imperial Theatre. Doors open at 7:00 p.m. and the show starts at 8:00 p.m. Tickets are $35 for orchestra seating, general admission and $25 for balcony seating, general admission. For more info, visit www.imperialtheatre.com.
Following a tour with Tedeschi Trucks Band, some high profile festival dates and many sold out headline shows, The Wood Brothers finally felt free from the cyclical album release, tour, write, record and do-it-all-over-again pressures of the traditional music business.
With all three members living in Nashville, affording easy access to each other and a wealth of local independent studios at their disposal, The Wood Brothers started work on One Drop of Truth in January of 2017.
Wood recently told Augusta Chronicle, “The freedom that came from One Drop of Truth came from the low pressure atmosphere we created to make this record. We financed and produced the album ourselves. And we worked when and wherever we wanted and we allowed ourselves to be experimental—much more fun than working in the confines of working with a label, someone else’s money, a producer and the creative interference that comes with those things.”
The band also found freedom in the ability to take their time with the creative process. “Spreading the process out over a year was also liberating because we just worked on one or two songs at a time as they were written, rather than writing and compiling the whole batch first. It’s nice to focus on one song at a time in the studio and giving it your full attention until it’s done. Some songs tend to get compromised if you’re recording your whole album in one sitting. The purity I feel from this album comes from the process—we had the most fun we’ve had and were really able to be ourselves—we didn’t worry about people liking it, we just played and had fun.”
One of the songs off the new album is Happiness Jones, a song based on a news article Wood read about how our society is addicted to happiness, antidepressants and the “fake happiness”’social media often depicts. Wood feels as a result of these outside influences, most people feel like it is unnatural to be sad. However, Wood feels sadness can be a gift along the way to achieving happiness. As the opening lyrics to Happiness Jones explain, “All of my wisdom came from all the toughest days, I never learned a thing being happy. All of my suffering came. I didn’t appreciate it. I never learned a thing being happy.”
To accompany the rollicking, upbeat Americana track, the band filmed a music video for Happiness Jones that involves bassist Chris Wood performing an improv interpretive dance skit, along the lines of the little dance skit he does for live shows.
Wood says, “Filming that video was really fun. Chris has developed a dance style over the last few years just dancing on stage during drum breaks at our shows. Turns out Happiness was a fun challenge for him to put something together for video and it was fun for me to play the straight man. We don’t make a lot of videos so it’s exciting to try things like that. I’m sure we’ll see more dancing from Chris (on stage for sure). Our drummer Jano is also a great Salsa dancer so there’s a lot of potential there.”
Fittingly titled, One Drop of Truth finds three musicians being true to themselves and ultimately to their audience by writing and recording a collection of songs that is honest and pure. For the remainder of 2018, The Wood Brothers will continue being happy by being honest and pure to their craft. Wood says, “We just started our summer touring season—mostly festivals and outdoor venues. Some of our favorites are Red Rocks, Telluride and Newport. We also have a European in the fall. We’ll also be writing and recording new songs any chance we get.” For music and more info, visit www.thewoodbros.com
