When a successful band features a set of brothers, it’s easy to make assumptions. They probably got together in the garage for their first band, set off together for the bright lights, and overcame squabbles and power struggles on their way, right? 

Not The Wood Brothers. They took a different path.

That path leads them to The Clyde Theatre on Saturday, April 6. 

I talked by phone to Oliver Wood, lead singer and guitarist. He’s the kind of guy you talk to for a couple of minutes and realize he’s really thinking about what he’s doing, and he’s pretty good at thinking. He’s had a lot of practice.

Time apart

Growing up in Boulder, Colorado, the brothers separately decided to take an academic approach to their music, moving east for formal music instruction. 

Chris Wood went to New England, where his journey continued to New York with the formation of the avant-groove trio Mideski, Martin, and Wood.

Oliver Wood settled in the Southeast, taking to the road as a rhythm guitarist with the hard-working band of Atlanta legend Tinsley Ellis. Ellis saw his potential and eventually pushed him out of the nest to form his own band, the similarly hard-touring funk-blues act King Johnson.

The brothers’ journey connected in 2005 with the foundation of The Wood Brothers. 

Oliver believes the time apart had a positive influence on their long-term relationship.

“It was like we just went separate directions: A little bit musically, but more so just psychologically and physically,” he said. “We went to different parts of the country and we had different friends and mentors and musical circles.

“We grew up, you know, on our own. And we were able to mature as humans and as musicians and sort of create and understand our identities a little bit before we got together and actually tried to have a band together. We attribute our lack of infighting to that, that we were able to become individuals before we put our brother band together.”

The time apart also helped the brothers find their own musical identities.

“It made it very exciting for us to bring our music together because we had such different experiences musically,” Oliver said. “(Chris) had all these influences that I was not as familiar with, and vice versa, and we brought that together. And that made it really special. And, honestly, the best thing it did is it brought us together as brothers, because we had really sort of drifted apart, and it was a way for us to bond again.”

The Third ‘Brother’

A big part of the easygoing dynamic of The Wood Brothers comes from the third member of the band, multi-instrumentalist Jano Rix on drums. However, Rix’s support is not just behind the kit.

“Jano, both musically and personally, just as a personality, is a great fit for us,” Oliver said. “He has his own musical identity that’s very strong. He’s an amazing drummer, percussionist, but also keyboard player, and has incorporated both of those things. For those who don’t know, he plays keyboards while he plays the drums, so he has a keyboard set up as part of his drum kit. He kind of sounds like two guys at once. 

“Beyond his musical talent, he’s also just a good fit for us, and I think he’s a good buffer between us, and he’s also just… he’s become one of the brothers, really, when it comes to the music. He’s right in there in the mix.”

Old-School recording

Another part of The Wood Brothers’ sound is their unconventional studio method, which they most recently used on their 2023 album, Heart Is the Hero. 

They record directly to tape, with no computer to correct and tweak the sound. It’s not in defiance of technology but a very intentional technique to keep the band fresh.

“I think the best way to explain that is we wanted to create limitations so that we would be more on our toes, and more innovative, and more present,” Oliver said. “And, what people find, I think what all of us find as artists now in the digital world, is when you’re working with computers, you have unlimited power and control over what you’re working on. In other words, you can fix any mistake and you can enhance anything any way you want. 

“I think it just creates so many choices and possibilities that it’s a bit overwhelming, and I think you almost feel like you have to use it. I think what we found is, when we’ve gone down that rabbit hole before, it’s not fun. It actually becomes tedious and then the end product becomes a little less human.”

The possibilities of what can produced can also take away from the playing in the studio.

“We’ve started realizing how fun it was just to capture a live performance as it happened. We have these limitations now,” he said. “We found we had so much more fun, and I think we found we were much more present. Because, when you’re working in that fallback position of the digital, you know in the back of your mind that you can fix mistakes. And I think what that does is it makes you less present. In the back of your mind, just having this fallback thing is not good for the art. It makes you lazy and not present.

“Treating it more like a performance, we are performing for the tape machine here, and it’s like when you go play a concert: you don’t have any fallback. It is what it is. And I think that makes for more fun and exciting music. It’s fun on the front end for us, and it’s fun, I think, on the back end. You can hear that it was real, or you can hear some authenticity.”

Staying in the moment

That idea of being present in the moment is a big part of a Wood Brothers show.

“There’s an art to just paying attention to what’s happening in front of you,” Oliver said. “And we talk about that when we’re performing all the time. There’s a feeling that, when we’re really on, we’re really listening to each other, and we’re not listening to ourselves, we’re listening to each other. 

“If we’re having trouble focusing or we’re having a hard night, we find things to focus on. Sometimes, I’ll just listen to my brother’s bass while I’m singing the song or I’ll listen to Jano’s hi-hat for the one part of his drum kit, or I’ll try to make eye contact with somebody in the audience or I’ll focus on my breath or my lips touching the microphone. There’s these little tricks of just being present. And I think those are the kind of things that come out in the songs, too.

“I like to write about the process of how to perform a song, or how to write something, or how to be in a conversation with somebody, and it has to do with being really present and listening.”

Fans of The Wood Brothers should know that every show is unique. Heart Is the Hero is their ninth album since 2008’s Ways Not To Lose, and it’s chock full of solid songs. The band is having fun playing them.

“For those who haven’t seen us in the last six months, we have this new record,” Oliver said. “We’re really excited about those songs, because a lot of people haven’t heard them live yet. 

“We’ll certainly bring back a lot of the old favorites, and a lot of deep cuts, and a couple of covers. We do like to mix those old things in, but we also like to give them new twists. So, we might play new arrangements of old songs and, depending on what night you get us, you’ll get a different set each time.”