Hear live performances from Nickel Creek’s first album in nearly a decade

Sometimes the reason you get the band back together is simple, and that was clearly the case for Nickel Creek.

“I feel like the three of us spent the entirety of the record-making process really wanting to do exactly what we were doing,” Nickel Creek’s Chris Thile says.

The California bluegrass trio has just released Celebrants, their fifth studio album and the first in nearly a decade. When Thile, Sara Watkins and Sean Watkins first started making music together in 1989, they were just kids. It wasn’t a cash grab or an obligation, and that’s the spirit of their latest record.

In this World Cafe session, Thile and Sara join us to talk about how their community inspired the songs on Celebrants, and why their unexpected pairing with producer Mike Elizondo, who is better known for working with artists like 50 Cent and Eminem, yielded some incredible results for the band.

Plus, Nickel Creek performs songs from Celebrants live for World Cafe.