For a band that never actually broke up, Nickel Creek sure made it seem like they did. After their 2007 Farewell (For Now) tour—because adding “For Now” to a farewell tour always works out—they went their separate ways, diving into solo projects, collaborations, and in Sara Watkins’ case, basically guesting on every Americana album that mattered.
But in 2014, they were back. And they didn’t just return—they kicked the door in with A Dotted Line, an album that sounds like Nickel Creek, but with a few years of freedom, frustration, and maybe just a little bit of spite baked in.
“We never actually said we were breaking up,” Chris Thile insists. “But we definitely needed a break.”
By “break,” he means six and a half years of not touring together after spending the better part of their lives in a relentless cycle of albums, shows, and the occasional Fiona Apple collaboration. “We toured really heavily for seven years,” Watkins adds. “Never more than two months off. And even then, we were writing. It was exhausting.”
Thile doesn’t disagree. “It was like an arranged marriage that wasn’t actually arranged,” he laughs. “We just grew up together, started playing, and never stopped. The time off was about making choices—as individuals first, then as a band.”
And those choices led them back to each other, starting with an album that wastes no time getting to the point. The very first line on A Dotted Line? “You don’t owe me anything.” Subtle.
“It wasn’t intentional,” Thile claims. “But yeah, it kind of works.”
So does the album title, which sounds like a cheeky nod to the reunion’s uncertain status—Is this for real? Are they just testing the waters? “It means something to us,” Thile says cryptically. Watkins is a little more direct: “It was nice to have control over something again.”
Not that it came easy. Relearning how to play old songs felt weird at first. “I felt like I was in a Nickel Creek cover band,” Sean Watkins admits. “Like, ‘Oh yeah, this is how we used to play that. But does it still fit who we are now?’”
Turns out, it did. Maybe even better than before. “We originally just planned on an EP and 25 shows,” Thile says. “Then we got together, and it just worked.”
Of course, Nickel Creek has always been hard to pin down. Too folky for indie rock, too weird for mainstream country, too progressive for bluegrass traditionalists, and too good to be ignored. They proved it again by tackling Mother Mother’s “Halo,” a song that absolutely no one thought needed a Nickel Creek rendition—until it did.
“That one just felt right,” Thile says. “Sometimes a song raises its hand.”
Covers have been a Nickel Creek specialty for years. This is the band that turned Pavement’s “Spit on a Stranger” into a bluegrass staple, made “Toxic” by Britney Spears a live favorite, and occasionally torments audiences by teasing Radiohead’s “Creep” just to see their reaction. “We love doing covers,” Thile says. “But there are two kinds. There’s ‘We love this song and just want to play it,’ and then there’s ‘We love this song and actually have something to say about it.’”
“Toxic” was the first kind. “Halo” was the second.
And despite their best efforts to ignore genre debates, people still try to box them in. “We’ve been battling that from the beginning,” Watkins says. “We were never quite bluegrass, never quite folk, and people don’t always like that.”
And if you’re one of those purists still hoping for them to sound like they did on Nickel Creek and This Side, well, Thile has a message for you: adapt or die.
“We’re a different band now,” he says. “We should be.”
Not that they don’t appreciate the early stuff. “For the first time in a while, we’ve really felt a pull from audiences to hear the first two records,” he admits. “But what’s been satisfying is seeing the excitement for Why Should the Fire Die? and this new record. That’s what we’re most excited about. That’s who we are now.”
And who they are now is a band that finally knows how to exist without being suffocated by it. “Nickel Creek doesn’t have to be the most important thing in our lives anymore,” Watkins says. “That’s what makes it work.”
Which means that whenever the next comeback happens—five years from now, ten years, who knows—it won’t be a farewell tour. It’ll just be Nickel Creek doing what they’ve always done: showing up when they feel like it, playing circles around everybody else, and leaving the genre gatekeepers confused in their wake.
Watch the interview above and then check out the videos below.
