NICKEL CREEK
BIO FOR “FAREWELL (FOR NOW) TOUR”

This might take a little while. Nickel Creek is pulling out the stops for its 2007 tour because there won't be one next year. Maybe not the following… Calling for an “indefinite hiatus,” is not hype, but indeed, a needed break.

The band's three members - Chris Thile, Sean Watkins and Sara Watkins - have spent two-thirds of their lives in Nickel Creek, creating a mutation of pop-smart bluegrass-influenced music that earned them a still-growing audience. The process was simple and has been in place for years: Record, promote, tour. Repeat.

Performing over 100 dates a year since 2000, Nickel Creek’s fanbase hasn’t stopped expanding. With their virtuosity, surprise covers, ever-changing setlist, and staggering improvisation -- every show is a unique experience. In 2006, their broad appeal secured performances at such diverse festivals as The Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Lollapalooza, Merlefest, Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits Music Festival, and the Cambridge Folk Festival in the UK.

Talk to the three, and not one of them suggests some grand plan for a non-musical wind-down. Thile (mandolin, vocals) has a new bluegrass album, How To Grow A Woman From The Ground that he is promoting. There's also project with bassist Edgar Meyer, and touring with that. There's also an ambitious composition about which he's rather vague.

Sean (guitar, vocals) says he has a number of “irons in the fire,” including a bluegrass EP, and a collaboration with Switchfoot singer (and neighbor) Jon Foreman. He's also looking forward to “surfing a little more.” He and sibling Sara have also created a sort of anything-goes jam session at the popular club Largo, where a number of notable musicians drop in.

Sara (fiddle, vocals) is “… looking forward to finally making my own record next winter, but I'd also love to be a part of as many other projects as possible. . . mixing myself in new musical scenarios that may make me a little uncomfortable, but cause me to grow.”

They all have juggled other work with Nickel Creek for years. But Sean explains that amid its successes Nickel Creek became something of a “big machine. It needs to go or stop. The people working with us, it's their main thing. It's hard for them to work a few weeks here and a few weeks there. The other side of it is that we'll finally have a big chunk of time to explore these other areas that have been looming the past few years. As a musician, you always want to explore new territory.”

Just for the record, nothing bad happened. There were no dishes flung, insults or instruments hurled at one another (though only the guitar would REALLY hurt . . .).

The usual combustible suspects aren't here, because this break wasn't a decision made in fiery times. The band's third album, Why Should the Fire Die?, was bigger, louder and more daring and different than anything Nickel Creek had done. Surely such a creative stretch caused growing pains? Yeah, not really.

“It's actually in part due to how satisfied we were with Fire that we're doing this I feel like it was definitely what we were trying to do. Certainly more so than the other two records, says Thile. “It’s not that now we are banging our heads against the wall creatively, but we'd never want it to come to that. This is just maintenance for the band.”

It should also be noted that this year's tour will wrap a few months before Nickel Creek turns 20. Thile points out that he and Sara have done this since they were eight. Your average band's members would've hit this point in their 40s.

None of the three expresses any regrets for the early start. “I think maybe more than any other attribute that the band has, that kind of defined us, how early we started,” Thile says.

That early start has been well documented. Three fresh-faced pre-teens in San Diego met at a bluegrass event at a local pizza place in 1989. Each happened to play an acoustic instrument. Gigs grew into festival appearances. By 1998 bluegrass star Alison Krauss helped secure a record deal with independent Sugar Hill, and produced a self-titled debut.

That album grew as albums once grew. It didn't make a monstrous first-week splash with a six-figure Soundscan tally. It sold in small bunches, then larger bunches, then much larger bunches, reaching a million in sales. Some credit a bluegrass boom prompted by roots music soundtrack O Brother Where Art Thou? That film surely didn't hurt anyone, but some credit should be placed in the direction of Nickel Creek itself. Small wooden instruments took on rock & roll swagger. The group dazzled with its chops, particularly with marathon runs through their song “The Fox.”

This Side was released in 2002 and advanced the band's fidgety relationship with bluegrass. It included a whispery take on the traditional English folk ballad “House Carpenter” and a cover of “Spit on a Stranger” by alt-rock totems Pavement. It wasn't your grandfather's bluegrass, and fittingly it earned the group a Grammy.

The successes were enviable, but they also create demand for more -- more touring, more experimentation. That led to Why Should the Fire Die? made by a tougher, flintier Nickel Creek.

Now there's the tour. Despite the hints of hiatus, Nickel Creek plans to make this tour its best. The group will be bringing along a number of the friends they’ve made over the years: superproducer Jon Brion, bassist Edgar Meyer, singer-songwriter Glenn Phillips to name a few. Longtime bassist Mark Schatz will again accompany the band.

The shows already have a feeling of event-ness. Comments about the need to recharge are peppered with enthusiastic chatter about the tour.

Says Sara, “The timing for this break is perfect for each of us. It's been a long while that the great majority of our creativity has been focused on this band, this personnel, for these instruments and I know we're going to flourish personally and musically by allowing the Nickel Creek ground to lie fallow for as long as it needs to.”

Sean sounds confident that there will “be a next time around. For the first time, we just don't know when that's going to be.”

So this might take a while. The way good things do.