Two decades ago, brothers Oliver and Chris Wood got to share a stage when Oliver’s band, the Atlanta-based King Johnson, opened a show for Chris’ acclaimed jazz-rooted group, Medeski Martin & Wood.
Oliver sat in with Chris that evening and something magical happened. The brothers realized they still had a musical and personal connection and wanted to make music together. Soon, The Wood Brothers were formed, beginning a journey that has seen the brothers (along with percussionist/keyboardist Jano Rix, who joined the band in 2010) become one of the most accomplished bands on the roots music scene.
Looking back, guitarist/singer Oliver feels he and his bassist brother crossed musical paths at an opportune time and might have been fortunate that their meeting of the musical minds didn’t happen sooner.
Credit: Alysse Gafkjen
Credit: Alysse Gafkjen
“Chris and I started The Wood Brothers not at the beginning of our careers. We had both been in separate parts of the country and in completely different circles for 12, 13 years ahead of time,” Oliver observed in a recent phone interview. “What that did was allow us to create our own musical identities and sort of grow up and maybe shed some baggage, or just get through our 20s, let’s say, and even for me, most of my 30s, before we started The Wood Brothers. But during that time, we grew apart because we were apart. We grew apart as brothers and we were not that close. And the music, when we started The Wood Brothers, the music brought us back together. That was our bridge to becoming close again.”
The next chapter in the musical journey of the trio opened in April 2023, when the eighth full-length studio album of original material from The Wood Brothers, “Heart is the Hero,” was released.
The approach the band took to this latest album couldn’t have been much more different from how the trio’s previous album, “Kingdom In My Mind,” was made.
To create the songs on “Kingdom In My Mind,” the three musicians spent hours upon hours improvising, which created a huge body of spontaneously played source material. From that, The Wood brothers and Rix identified magical moments and shaped and edited them down into songs with overdubbed parts and lyrics added to create cohesive finished songs.
“On ‘Kingdom In My Mind,’ we really experimented and recorded all kinds of weird music and then worked with the music, where the hard part about that was at the end, trying to edit things (into songs),” Oliver said. “Some of those things were somewhat collage-y and experimental and edited, but from very spontaneous music.
“I think this process (for “Heart is the Hero”) was much different,” he said. “We used 16 tracks of tape only. And we did not use a computer. So we created these limitations. … We did it more for the psychology of the creative process, which was to create these limitations where you don’t get to edit things and you don’t get to do things a million times. We have this expensive tape spinning around and you have to actually have a performance that you like and be somewhat prepared to do that.”
That meant writing and refining songs before going in to record and being rehearsed enough to deliver album-worthy performances.
“Heart is the Hero” finds The Wood Brothers anchoring the songs in more of an acoustic foundation than on “Kingdom In My Mind.” That doesn’t mean the current album is a mellow affair. Like previous Wood Brothers albums, the new songs have an earthy sound that eludes categories, but draws from a wide range of influences that include folk, blues, gospel, jazz, Latin, world beat and rock.
“Pilgrim” opens the album on a decidedly funky note, as popping rhythms underpin a big, melodic chorus that pairs well with some playful piano. The title song mines a steady and soulful vein, while “Worst Pain of All” has a poppier accent thanks to its light beat, comforting vocal melody and bah-bah-bah vocalizing segments. “Someone for Everyone” is an easygoing gem highlighted by an intoxicating organ part that weaves its way through the song, while the barroom piano and twangy guitars on “Mean Man World” give the song a folk-country feel to complement the song’s warm vocal about a daughter’s resilience and determination.
Over the past year or so, Oliver Wood found time to make a solo album, “Fat Cat Silhouette,” which was released in June, all while The Wood Brothers have continued to tour extensively. The trio, of course, is playing songs from “Heart is the Hero” on their current tour, but the shows will encompass material from across The Wood Brothers’ catalog.
“We try to mix in stuff from all of the albums,” Oliver said, noting that the band now occasionally plays two nights in certain cities on tours. “You expect people are going to come to both nights, so you make a special effort to make two completely different shows. That’s such a luxury at this point. It used to be a little stressful. Now it’s like ‘Oh, we’ve got more songs than we could ever get to.’ So it’s kind of fun and it allows us to stretch out. So we’ve got stuff from every era, really.”
CONCERT PREVIEW
The Wood Brothers with Katie Pruitt
8 p.m. Dec. 5. $35-$152. The Eastern, 800 Old Flat Shoals Road SE, Atlanta. easternatl.com.
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