THERE are hundreds of reasons to start a band, but Tim O’Brien’s bluegrass band Two Oceans Trio has the best one.
 “We formed just so we could go to New Zealand. [Guitarist] Gerry Paul asked if I wanted to do a tour there and I said ‘ah, yeah!’ Then Trevor [Hutchison] said he wanted to come too. We all wanted to go so bad that it fell together really easily,” says Grammy award winning frontman O’Brien.
The trio, who live on different sides of the globe - Hutchison and Paul in Ireland and O’Brien in Nashville, Tennessee - realised their dream of a kiwi tour in 2009. Unfortunately the tour was cut short when O’Brien’s father passed away, although he resolved to return as soon as possible.
“[In 2009] It is such an incredible, beautiful place, and people are really excited about music. New Zealanders go along to see a band they don’t know just because someone says, ‘you should check this out’,” he says.
O’Brien, who has performed with musicians like Steve Earle, Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, picked up a guitar at 12 along with every other young American who’d fallen in love with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.
“For a lot of kids that was a fad, but I never get over it,” he says.
O’Brien is a virtuoso on the banjo, mandolin, guitar, fiddle and bouzouki – although he’s only bringing three of them to New Zealand. “That way I can carry two in one hand, one in the other, and leave the big stuff to the others,” he laughs.
Practicality isn’t the main reason O’Brien picked up these smaller instruments, but it does lead to some interesting stories.
“Mandolin’s great for long car trips. As soon as you hit the open road you chuck it in cruise control, steer with your knees and get some practice in. I’ve got a friend who was pulled over driving their Volkswagen while playing a fiddle. It was the bow moving back and forward out the open window that gave him away.”
O’Brien assures us he won’t be trying that here.
Tim O’Brien’s Two Ocean’s Trio, The Paramount Theatre, 7:30pm, February 27.