Interview with the everybodyfields

TheEverybodyFields, a band from Johnson City, Tennessee, lead by Sam Quinn and Jill Andrews, literally shushed the usually rollicking crowd at the Garage in Winston Salem, N.C., last Friday night, enchanting the beer drinking, stogy- smoking lot .

Like a fresh set of fingerprints in the archives of bluegrass, country, and folk history, the conjugal synchronicity of Sam and Jill’s voices carve a new niche in the music genre, as if they dashed a sprinkle of special Eastern Tennessee seasoning to make a brand new recipe.

Jill’s harmonies lilt like liquid silver, as serene as a Nightingale, dovetailing in perfect concord with Sam’s ardent crooning.

Their lyrics are potent poetry, masterpieces quilled by erudite masters who have tasted the bitter bile of a broken heart, throbbed with desire in newfound love, and fallen headfirst into the dark, black abyss of loneliness.

There is an underlying current of electricity between the 27ish duo. Jill places her hand affectionately on Sam’s leg and they hug with genuine care. They also banter and barb with that “you know I’m kidding but I’m half serious”, sparring about Jill’s old boyfriends and Sam’s girlfriend whose photographs he forgot to credit on their last CD.

Sam and Jill met as camp counselors in 1999 in Johnson City, Tennessee, where Sam was already playing the guitar and singing.

“I was envious at his ability to NOT be a camp counselor and play the guitar around the campfire with his friends because he didn’t want to hang out with the kids,” Jill explains.

“I had pigtails and hair down to my butt,” chimes Sam, who coined the name TheEveryBodyFields from the backyard of his home in his early 20’s, where “we hung out with people and drove around drinking beer with our eyes closed.”

“I liked that the name included everybody,” says Jill. “Everybody and fields aren’t usually put together in one space.”

The band toured the East coast in the early years behind the wheel of their Buick Rendezvous, booking gigs under Jill’s pseudonym, Ellen Y Larson.

The first song together was, “We’ll Sweep Out the Ashes in the Morning,” as performed by Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris.

Inspired by artists like Gram Parsons, Joni Mitchell, Wilco and the JayHawks, Sam and Jill write their own songs, with the exception of one.

“Sometimes our song writing is a collaboration, but most of the time it’s his song or my song,” says Jill. “Or, we’ll take a song to each other and say, “Hey, can you help me out?

"For me,” she continues, “when the feeling isn’t there, I can’t do it. I have to be alone. I put on these “weed eater” earphones when we are traveling in the car so I can think.”

“I stop a lot of songs to sit on them awhile,” Sam grins. “It’s tough to be your own boss when your fiends are all slackers or border line losers.”

Sam and Jill’s first release, “ Halfway There: Electricity in the South,” featured the song written by Sam about the plight of the victims of progress in the Roosevelt Era , “T.V.A., which won first place in the Chris Austin song writing competition at the 2005 Merlefest in Wilkesboro, N.C.

“And God, the Father, said,”Jesus Christ, I don’t know about this electricity. They use the day to steal the nights and made my waters rise, and trying to take my job away

Jill’s song, “The Silver Garden,” from the same release is a profound, though somewhat impatient promise to her sweetheart.

“There’s a part of you, deep inside of me, not the part that hides, not the part that leaves. You’ve loved me for years, I won’t ask you again. There’s nobody else, don’t ask me again. And I’ll go to the Silver Garden to be with you.”

Their second release, “Plague of Dreams,” in 2005 features the song, “Magazine, in which Sam writes that he’s, “two feet knee in doubt, a round of bases and at home I’m out. But if you’re never home, I doubt, that you’ll ever see me out. The parking lot is a hiding place, ‘cause under the cars you can’t see my face.”

Sam actually did hide underneath his family car when he was a boy playing Little League and got tagged out.“Everyone hated me because we lost the season because of me, so I went out to the parking lot and hid underneath our car,” he explains.

Unlike the first two releases which features Sam and Jill on vocals, bass, and guitar, former member David Richey on dobro, and guest musicians on fiddle, Sam and Jill’s third masterpiece, “Nothing is Okay,” expands the usual musical line up with lap steel instead of dobro, keys and drums.

Outstanding on this CD is Jill’s song, “Wasted Time, a desperate bargain with her lover, co-written by Megan McCormick , is a two- in- one song bridged brilliantly by an interlude that ends with Sam’s repetitive and reassuring words, “It’s not your problem”

“Hey, it’s me. I know it’s 3:00 a.m. Saying please, pick up the phone, I’m all alone and need a friend. I’m so grateful, and you’re so tired of me. If you hold me now, I promise to let go when you leave.”

On stage at the Garage, Sam and Jill play two riveting sets, trading bass and guitar back and forth like proud parents of new babies.

Jill’s beautiful, unclouded face is unperturbed as she closes her eyes during each song.

Sam, with his quirky, curly brown hair and thick muttonchops, turns his head sideways, almost grimacing with emotion as he sings, the perfect contrast to Jill’s tranquility.

He takes a step back and nods his head in steady affirmation while Jill stills the crowd to silence with, “Wasted Time, accompanied by Josh Oliver on keyboards and vocals and Tom Pryor on lap steel.

Pausing between songs, Jill tells the audience wryly, “Sam has this cryptic way of telling us what we are playing next. He plays the G cord and he thinks we should know what the next song is.”

Sam takes a sip of red wine and slams the house down with “Don’t Tern Around.”
He likes to misspell words on purpose because he thinks it looks “neat.”
“Terd looks better than turd, don’t you think,” he muses.

They close the second set with another new song,“That was my favorite show I’ve ever seen these guys do,” says David Butler, a 50ish volunteer DJ for WQFS 90.9 from Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C.

“I love TheEveryBodyFields. I find them totally unique. I’ve never been to the Garage where you didn’t hear loud conversation and beer bottles breaking. There were a couple of numbers where it was “whisper quiet.”
David Butler and countless other fans believe Sam and Jill will be quite famous.

“I wouldn’t want to work for someone else,” admits Sam. “I’d just like to keep making records with 100% artistic freedom.

“I’d like to be widely respected and to have enough money to build a house,” says Jill. I’d want to be like Gillian Welsh, who can still walk down the street unnoticed.”

Their upcoming tours include gigs on the West Coast, the Midwest, as well as their well traveled route along the East Coast.

In the meantime, Jill says her dog just died and she thinks about her all of the time.

“I cried in the car coming here today,” she says.
Sam looks surprised. “I was asleep,” he says.
“No,” corrects Jill gently, “You were in the back seat.”

Visit the everybodyfields' website