Smartists: Sara Watkins

“I come from a really good family…my mom always said, ‘you can do anything you want to do. You can be anything you want to be.’ I have so many friends who just didn’t hear that or have that idea in their life. I feel so lucky that to this day I say, “Oh yeah, I could do that.’”

Sara Watkins began performing in 1989 when she was 8, playing fiddle in an early incarnation of the progressive bluegrass group Nickel Creek. Almost thirty years later, she’s released her third solo album Young in All the Wrong Ways and at this year’s AmericanaFest received “Instrumentalist of the Year.” Now solo artist post-Nickel Creek, Watkins is moved by reinvention and rediscovery, constantly pulling back layers and exploring what’s inside. Daily, she’s doing as she sings in the title track of Young, “going out to see about [her] own frontier.”

Vista, CA born Watkins spent most of her young adulthood touring with the ultra-popular Nickel Creek, a group that is largely credited with the growth in roots music’s growing popularity and openness to pushing the limits. The group also included her brother, Sean Watkins, on guitar. Though Nickel Creek has been on hiatus since 2007, the siblings are close, still performing together monthly for ‘Watkins Family Hour’ at Largo in Lose Angeles.

Their family was very supportive of their musical endeavors, and a big reason she is where she is today.

“I come from a really good family…my mom always said, ‘you can do anything you want to do. You can be anything you want to be.’ I have so many friends who just didn’t hear that or have that idea in their life. I feel so lucky that to this day I say, “Oh yeah, I could do that.’”

Despite knowing she could do it, she did struggle with songwriting until her twenties, when she wrote her first song, “Anthony.”

“I thought that in order to write a song you had to say something profound. And the longer I waited the more that pressure built up. Then, a friend of mine, Glen Phillips, who was on tour with Nickel Creek at the time, decided we’d play a songwriting game. Every day we wrote a song. Pick a title, everyone writes a song by that title. Every day before bed, we’d play our songs. It was important for me because it helped unlock this pressure I’d put on myself,” said Watkins.

Watkins says she’s lightened up in her years, but she’s still found moments when she’s “young in all the wrong ways.” That was the feeling she had as she was writing this new album — the understanding that she’d outgrown something and needed to move on.

“A lot of this album is about embracing the turmoil you feel when you sense the need for a turning of the page. But also about experiencing the turmoil as something positive, a positive sign of forward motion even when it’s confusing or mournful. Sometimes you mourn the loss of a time because you don’t always know what the future will look like. But, I wanted to walk boldly into the future instead of being dragged into it,” Watkins said.

Walking boldly seems to be going well: Watkins received “Instrumentalist of the Year” last month at AmericanaFest, and Young has been in the top 10 on the Americana charts for three weeks. Watkins is honored but keeps a level-head, saying, “It’s nice to think that my musicianship is being thought of well. Awards are always a little funny, though. It’s never an absolute.”

Humility and hard work seem to be Watkins A-game. She is also warm and relaxed despite being a self-professed “serious” person. “I could never write jokey songs,” she said laughingly.

At 35, Watkins emanates ease with who she is, most likely a result of her evolving relationship to change.

“I was playing a show in Chicago and someone yelled from the audience, who was attempting to give me a compliment, said, ‘You haven’t changed in 10 years!’ I said, ‘I sure hope that isn’t true!’ The only way for me to write different kinds of song is to make an effort to keep growing and identifying myself accurately day to day. I don’t want to be inconsistent in a way that is erratic or unreliable, but I am learning to let go.”

Let go, and challenge yourself. Watkins has never played as much guitar as she has on this new album. To her, she said, there was vulnerability in the challenge but also strength in the vulnerability. As Watkins said, “For the first time I can represent an entire album of mine by myself.”

For more information on Sara Watkins and her new album, Young in all the Wrong Ways, visit her website. Watch her new music video below!