At last month’s Earl Scruggs Music Festival , the Wood Brothers might have seemed a tad out of left field for a gathering dedicated to the late bluegrass picker. And yet, the same could be said whenever the trio is on a bill at a jam-band show, jazz night, or some blues club. But that’s the beauty of the roots-rock act: The Wood Brothers encompass the essence of any genre thrown their way.

“Bluegrass [is] an amalgamation of different traditions, as is a lot of jazz,” singer-guitarist Oliver Wood tells Rolling Stone backstage at Scruggs. “And in the big picture, that’s kind of what we’re trying to do. What makes us happy is to take these different traditions and mix them together.”

Sitting backstage with Wood is his brother, bassist Chris Wood, and multi-instrumentalist Jano Rix. In

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