Grammy-winning Civil Wars enjoy breakthrough success after flirting with failure

TORONTO – It was just a few years ago that John Paul White — now one-half of the gritty Americana duo the Civil Wars — was ready to surrender his music career.

White had released his debut solo record to little fanfare in 2008 and toiled for years prior as a songwriting hired gun in Nashville who had made few contacts and fewer industry inroads. So he decided to head back to college for a second degree, with an eye toward possibly becoming a teacher.

“I knew I didn’t really want to do the solo artist thing anymore, and I had no other thoughts of any other kind of way of staying in the business,” White recalled during an interview this week in Toronto.

“I thought, I had my run. I got to do what most people never get to do, and that was make music for a living. So I was slightly bitter that things didn’t turn out the way I wanted them to, but I was content and I was OK with it.”

It was then that White was paired up with another struggling Nashville-based artist with nearly a decade of false starts behind her. Joy Williams had put out solo records in obscurity since 2001 when she was randomly paired with White in a songwriting session.

Both artists entered the collaboration with a weary skepticism honed through years of go-nowhere pairings and projects in the country music capital. But they hit it off.

The unlikely coupling — neither Williams nor White had been interested in forming a band, let alone a duo — has led to even more unlikely success. Under the appropriately backward-looking moniker the Civil Wars, Williams and White put out their debut album, “Barton Hollow” — a sparse, elegantly subtle collection of rustic roots tunes — back in Feb. 1, 2011.

Almost exactly a year later, the pair strolled across the Grammy Awards stage to claim trophies for best folk album and best country duo/group performance, disparate categories hinting at the group’s uniquely difficult-to-classify blend of styles and genres. They also put in a quick minute-long performance of their album’s title track, which resulted in an 80-position leap up the Billboard chart as Grammy viewers scrambled to hear more.

The Civil Wars had arrived, and White thinks part of it has to do with the fact that both members of the duo had more or less come to terms with failing.

“I think that’s why this worked — because neither of us was desperate,” he said. “Neither one of us was scrambling, scratching, trying to make something happen.

“So when it did happen, it was just like: ‘Yeah. Let’s do this. I want to do this.'”

Well, they’re doing it now.

“Barton Hollow” has reached the 10th spot on the U.S. album charts and 16th here in Canada. Their Canadian press sojourn is just one part of a post-Grammys blitz that has sent the duo shuffling around the world promoting their debut record and capitalizing on the glow afforded by their award wins and the popularity boost that came from having two songs on the soundtrack to the recent film smash “The Hunger Games.”

(Not that they mind the travel. Even through bleary eyes, it’s with obvious excitement that White — a self-proclaimed music geek — brings up his recent discovery that Toronto’s Pearson International Airport has the airport code YYZ and is thus connected to the famous Rush instrumental of the same name).

All the travel is made more “complicated,” Williams says, by the fact that she and her husband are expecting their first baby this June (White is also married with kids). The band is planning to take time off over the summer, but it won’t exactly be a time of rest and relaxation for the expecting California-raised chanteuse.

“There will be no vacation,” laughs the affable Williams.

“But we’ll be in our own beds for the next three to four months,” White replies.

“Suitcases in the closet, thankfully,” Williams finishes.

Even over that “break,” the duo plans to schedule time to work on writing new music. Unsurprisingly, the pair isn’t planning on deviating too dramatically from the formula that helped them finally break through.

“We’re definitely maturing to a different place — hopefully it’s just a different version of us,” White said. “The first record was made with us following our nose and it ended up she and I on guitar most of the time.

“Maybe (it’ll be) the same way around this time. Whatever feels good, is good.”