The Wood Brothers Bringing Soulful Rock to Door County

The Wood Brothers. Photo by Alysse Gafkjen.

When Americana and blues rockers The Wood Brothers pull into Fish Creek for their Nov. 5 concert at Door Community Auditorium, the “masters of soulful rock” will bring with them a whole new set of songs off their recently released album Paradise.

The trio, comprised of Wood brothers Oliver (acoustic and electric guitars) and Chris (upright bass) and multi-instrumentalist Jano Rix, is best known for its ease in moving across genres while sharing, through its lyrics, the chapters of a band (and family) navigating a life in music.

It is a life merged in 2006 after 15 years of the brothers pursuing separate musical careers – Oliver in Atlanta with a band called King Johnson and Chris in New York City with his band, Medeski, Martin and Wood.

“Oliver and I had a lot of the same influences for the most part but we ended up in different parts of the country and very different music scenes,” Chris said during a recent phone interview. “The interesting thing, even though if you listen to the two bands’ records it’s very different, if you made a list of influences, you’d find that a lot of them are the same. It was just the context – where we were at, the kind of scenes we were in – that just manifested the music a lot differently. Being in New York City, we were in this downtown creative music scene that helped shape Medeski, Martin and Wood. My brother being in Atlanta with a more rock, R&B and blues music scene shaped his band but when The Wood Brothers came together, it was going back to our roots to what we learned from our dad and all the influences that we had back then.”

Those influences, as Chris points out, included having a molecular biologist father whose attendance at Harvard University in the late 1950s included involvement in the Cambridge folk-revival scene, playing with folk singer Joan Baez, and running a radio show at the university. Chris and Oliver’s mother was a published poet whose creativity with language and words also came out in the brothers’ musical inclinations.

“Paradise” by The Wood Brothers.

By the time the brothers came together around 2005, they each had a steady grasp on the music scene and a mutual respect that brought them above the infighting that is so often the bane of family and brother bands.

“It was like reuniting family and it was nice to start a group after we had grown up a little bit,” Chris said. “People always talk about brother bands not getting along, in-fighting. I think a lot of that has to do with youth, the baggage you have and we’ve kind of grown past that; we’re a little more seasoned, a little more humble, all of our experiences of trying to be in the music business and touring and so I think we had more realistic goals and creatively we were just open and had a lot of mutual respect for each other musically. It was pretty easy and fun.”

In the near decade since, the band has released a handful of albums, making its mark on the Americana and blues scenes, and in 2013, all three members relocated to Nashville, where they came together for their fifth studio album, Paradise.

Released on Oct. 2, Paradise explores “the paradox of longing, desire and the ways in which the pursuit of fulfillment can keep it perpetually out of our reach” – a paradox evident in the album’s cover art, a mule with a dangling carrot in front of it.

“He’s never going to get it but it gives him an incentive to move forward,” Chris said of the image. “For us, that was a good way to get across the feeling of desire, something out there whether it’s in the future, something you never quite get to but if you do get it, you think it’s going to be what solves all your problems. You think it’s going to be paradise if you can get it, and then of course we learn that when you do get those things then something replaces it. There’s always something out there in the future – the carrot is always out in front somewhere.”

The album also marks three big firsts for The Wood Brothers – their first recording session at Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound, the first recording with Chris on electric bass, and the band’s first time self-producing an album.

“Since we were co-producing, it was very democratic and I think what’s beautiful about a good band that works well together is if you all have strengths and weaknesses, you balance each other out,” Chris said. “That kind of group production where one person might compromise, someone else has an idea and they’ll get in there and make it the best it can be. It’s harder in some ways; democracy is hard work but I always think the end result is better.”

The Wood Brothers will take the stage at 7pm on Thursday, Nov. 5 at Door Community Auditorium. Tickets for the concert range from $24 to $48. Advance reservations are recommended and can be made through the DCA box office, located at 3926 Highway 42 in Fish Creek. The box office is open Monday-Friday, 12-5 pm. Tickets can be purchased in person, on the phone at 920.868.2728, or online at dcauditorium.org.