2014 marks 25 years since the formation of the Grammy Award winning roots-music trio Nickel Creek, dormant since 2007. Violinist Sara Watkins, mandolinist Chris Thile, and guitarist Sean Watkins agreed that they should commemorate this milestone with at least a few concerts, a festival date here or there, and maybe an EP of new tunes to play at the shows. But when they convened in June at Chris’s New York City apartment for a few days of writing, their creative synergy returned with a vengeance. These practically life-long friends immediately realized they had an album’s worth of tunes in hand.

“We fell into step very quickly,” Sara recalls.” We felt like we had started right up again. Each of us seemed happy with the direction of the songs we were writing and the contributions all around. It was just really fun. We were excited enough about what we were coming up with to really go for it and make a proper recording and do a proper tour. We wanted to make it a real step forward. And that’s what we did.”

After the close of their Farewell (For Now) tour in 2007, which culminated at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Nickel Creek was not actually contemplating a break-up, as many in its large fan-base feared. These still startlingly young band-mates simply needed some time to grow up, musically and personally, away from the glare of the spotlight they’d shared since they were kids. Sara and Chris were merely eight years old when they and the 12 year-old Sean played their first gig as Nickel Creek at a San Diego pizza parlor, having been brought together by a mutual music teacher. Chris’s dad played bass. After ten years of work on the contemporary bluegrass circuit, the prodigious trio landed a deal with the independent Sugar Hill Records, championed by violinist Alison Krauss, who would produce Nickel Creek’s first two Sugar Hill releases, its self-titled 2000 debut, and the 2002 follow-up This Side, which garnered a Best Contemporary Folk Album Grammy.

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