Al Jardine of The Beach Boys once said, “I like to be surrounded by harmonies and fullness and richness and vitality.”
If that’s the case, Jardine would find lots to love on “See You Around,” the 2018 album by I’m With Her, a trio comprised of Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan.
Although the trio has collectively released nine solo albums, co-founded a pair of bands (Watkins with Nickel Creek and O’Donovan with Crookes Still) and contributed to critically acclaimed albums by an array of esteemed artists, there was always the danger that this project might work better on paper than in real life,
Instead, it’s exquisite musicianship; a rich intermingling of vocals and melodies that more than live up to the expectations you’d have from this kind of world-class talent.
This kind of creative intimacy is a major reason the bandmates chose to head up to Vermont to work with producer Ethan Johns (Ryan Adams/Paul McCartney), who was the only other instrumentalist on the dozen songs beside them.
“A lot of times when you go make a record, there are so many different ways to record in terms of a process or a setup. A lot of times that process includes isolation of one kind or another-where you’re literally separated in different rooms connected by mics and headphones. You’re close together, but you still have headphones on,” Watkins explained in a recent phone interview.
“The most bare it can be is when you’re in a room, with no headphones on, playing to each other; what this does is capture a dynamic that is easily lost once you start listening through headphones. That was Ethan Johns’ setup and that’s how he likes to record. That’s one of the reasons we wanted to work with him – the sounds that he gets and the dynamics that he’s able to capture, which are really hard to get. It was a little uncomfortable for a bit. We found our way into it and are really happy with how it came out.”
I’m With Her opens for Shovels & Rope at 8 p.m. Thursday, May 30, at the Tivoli Theatre.
The three musicians first met while playing festivals in 2002. An off-the-cuff performance at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in 2014 hinted at the creative riches awaiting the trio. That was further confirmed when they met in 2015 to prep for a series of European shows and wound up calling themselves I’m With Her.
“We needed a name for it, so we called it I’m With Her because we felt like we were all kind of happy to be with each other and happy to be included in the company of our bandmates,” Watkins recalled. “It felt genuinely reflective of our feelings about the band. After the tour, friends referred to us like that and we just started out that way.”
On their current tour, “[Folks will] hear a bunch of songs off the record and additional songs that we’ve worked on with other projects and collaborations. We have a set list that’s different from night to night, so I can’t say what we’ll specifically play,” Watkins describes.
“We’re at the phase now that we’ve been touring for several months and it’s been fun to throw in different songs here and there and expand the repertoire that we already have. That’s a big part of this band.
“[This year will see] a new song or two. We really haven’t had a lot of time to do any writing because we’ve been pretty busy just touring,” she said.
“I think after the summer, we’ll take a little break, figure out when we can hit it again. Though we are all involved in many, many projects, including our own, we’re all going to make time for I’m With Her projects in the future for sure.”