SAN DIEGO — In 1999, one year before Nickel Creek’s national debut album came out and began to earn worldwide acclaim, each member of the groundbreaking San Diego Americana-music trio was eager to scale new heights … in the halls of academia.
Not knowing that stardom would soon come their way — including a 2003 Grammy Award, million-selling albums and performances at such top festivals as Coachella and Lollapalooza — mandolinist-singer Chris Thile, violinist-singer Sara Watkins and guitarist-singer Sean Watkins were all pursuing higher learning.
Sara, then 18, was a business major at Palomar College. Her brother, Sean, then barely 22, was studying music at MiraCosta College. Chris, then 18, was a music major at Murray State University in Tennessee. Their soon-to-soar careers ensured that their respective student tenures were brief.
During a recent telephone to discuss this Friday’s vinyl-only, remastered reissues on Craft Recordings of the three albums Nickel Creek made between 2000 and 2005, the three musicians recalled their brief time furthering their educations — and what compelled them to drop out.
“I was ‘majoring’ at a junior college,” Sara said from her Los Angeles home, laughing at the memory. “I think I said I was a ‘business major’ because I was trying to sound like I was doing something! For a long time, we were doing extended weekend concert tours, so I would only take Tuesday or Thursday classes. I never graduated.”
“We were in the mindset of not knowing if music was something we could do as a living,” added Sean, speaking from his home in Eagle Rock. “Many of our musical mentors and heroes had day jobs.”
“I loved every minute of being in college!” said Chris, a 2012 MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant recipient, speaking from near his home in Brooklyn, N.Y. “All three of us were home-schooled, at one time or another, and me for a long time. So, going to university with other human beings — who I was not related to — was thrilling.”
During their truncated college enrollments, Nickel Creek performed a concert at a rural Pennsylvania venue whose name they do not now recall. All three members cite that gig as instrumental in their mutual decision to leave school behind.
“It was the first time where 100 or 200 people came, just to see us, and there weren’t any other bands on the bill,” Chris said.
“It felt like it happened suddenly,” added Sean. “But, in other ways, it was very gradual, like: ‘Oh yeah, this step and that step’.”
Nickel Creek’s self-titled national debut album was released by Sugar Hill Records on March 21, 2000. It went on to sell more than a million copies. That was an astounding feat for the bluegrass-rooted group, whose members combined instrumental virtuosity and inviting vocals with an already distinctive songwriting approach and a keen appreciation for alt-rock, jazz, pop and more.
“In early April of 2000, we went to a (San Diego) Padres game,” Sean said. “It was a day or two after we played on ‘A Prairie Home Companion’ for the first time and I had just got my first cellphone. I called my dad from the game and he was telling me how our album was doing on Amazon.”
“That’s right,” Thile said. “And I was thinking that if it did well, maybe we won’t have to sit in the bleachers anymore!”
Intriguingly, the dozen-song “Nickel Creek” album came out just weeks after Sean was set to begin his studies as a music composition major at San Diego State University. He never attended a single class.
“I was at SDSU’s music building the day before the semester was supposed to start, and there were all these kids running around with instruments,” Sean said.
“I remember thinking: ‘I already have the opportunity — with Nickel Creek — to do what these kids want to do.’ I made the call to focus on touring, rather than try and do both half-assed. And that show we did in Pennsylvania was a turning point that made me realize we could ditch school, at least for little while, although I had a great time at MiraCosta and learned a lot about music.”
As it transpired, Nickel Creek would have quite a lot to teach the music world at large. The group did so in a way that proved entertaining, enlightening and completely unexpected, given its initially low profile and solid foundation in American roots music. Then again, the trio’s broad artistic scope also enabled Nickel Creek to mix in its genre-blurring original songs with very distinctive versions of favorites by everyone from Bob Dylan and Radiohead to Britney Spears and indie-rock darlings Pavement.
Well, hello Dolly!
In 1999, then-fellow Sugar Hill artist Dolly Parton selected Nickel Creek to accompany her on a song from her album, “The Grass is Blue.” The group also performed with Parton during the 2001 Grammy Awards telecast, along with Brad Paisley.
The San Diego-bred trio’s ability to connect with different audiences was perhaps best underscored in 2007. It was then that Nickel Creek and Willie Nelson were the only two artists booked to perform in Indio at the eighth annual Coachella rock and electronic-dance music festival, and — a week later — at the debut edition of the Stagecoach country-music festival.
“There were other milestones like that, which showed us there were people who liked us and Radiohead,” Sean said. “It was exciting to ‘find our people.’ And it was exciting to play in venues — where a big rock band had played the night before — and see an audience that looked not unlike the audience that had come to see the rock band. It felt like we were breaking through.”
And, as fate had it, breaking up.
After the completion of its 2007 tour, Nickel Creek’s members began what ended up being a seven-year hiatus.
In November 2017, Nickel Creek re-grouped again to perform at the San Diego Civic Theatre for a radio broadcast of “A Prairie Home Companion,” which Chris began hosting the previous year. The show, whose name was changed to “Live from Here” in December 2017, was canceled this year because of the coronavirus pandemic. Nickel Creek’s most recent concerts took place last year in New York, including a date at Carnegie Hall.
The pandemic forced the trio to shelve scheduled performances this year. But the fact that Nickel Creek is still a going concern — 31 years after being launched by a trio of preteens — is a source of pride and happy surprise for its members. So is the rerelease of the group’s 2000, 2002 and 2005 albums, which have long been out of print on vinyl.
“Being in Nickel Creek just felt like part of growing up to us,” Sara said. “I remember people would ask: ‘Do you have a five-year plan, or a 10-year plan?’ And we were like: ‘A plan? What are you talking about? We just record and tour.'”
“Yeah,” Chris said: “Were planning on playing a festival this month!”
“Right,” Sean said. “I’m playing my guitar and you give me money!”
Sara laughed with delight.
