Wood Brothers live in the moment onstage and in the studio

At first glance, the Wood Brothers are a couple of good ol’ country boys from Nashville, just a-pickin’ and a-grinnin’, but a closer look reveals that Oliver and Chris Wood, who actually grew up in Boulder, Colorado, are much more than that.

“I like to think of us as real people playing real music based on real insights,” said guitarist and lead singer Oliver Wood - whose photos make him look a little like an old-time mountain man with his long hair, moustache and goatee - by phone from his Nashville home.

Backed by his brother Chris on upright bass and Jano Rix on percussion and keyboards, Wood will perform Thursday, March 7, at Santa Rosa’s Luther Burbank Center of the Arts.

For the Wood Brothers, Nashville is just an address rather than a style of music, Oliver Wood explained.

“People think of Nashville as the center of commercial country music, but there is a large music community that is not connected with that scene,” he said. “There are a lot of great writers and creative people here. Just to be here among them, you can feel that energy.”

At 68, as a musician writing, performing and producing new haunting and thoughtful tunes that draw on the roots of American folk music, Wood feels comfortable with his musical identity.

“I still feel as present as ever in my own head,” he said. “I don’t know how it looks to other people.”

In the band’s videos, it looks like everyone’s having a good time. It’s not unusual, on both videos and in live performance, to see brother Chris break into a dance that combines an old-fashioned, mountain-style with improvisation.

“It was spontaneous. A couple of years ago, he got inspired to just put down his bass and start dancing,” Oliver Wood said. “Now sometimes the crowds expect it.”

The band has half a dozen albums to its credit, dating back to 2006, but Wood considers the newest - “One Drop of Truth,” released in February - a breakthrough.

“This is the first time we’ve invested in our own studio,” Wood said. “We could experiment, and not be watching the clock or paying an hourly rate. We could just go to our clubhouse and play.”

The change in atmosphere helped produced songs like “Strange as It Seems,” accompanied by a somewhat eerie video featuring a dream sequence with puppets, and “Happiness Jones,” a country rocker featuring Oliver Wood on electric guitar, which features the intriguing line, “I never learned a thing bein’ happy.”

“Now we do what kids do,” Wood said. “We’re into the childlike part of things. We’re more interested in conceptualizing first impressions, and recording those impressions. We’re reacting to each other, like jazz musicians.”

The opening act for the Wood Brothers at Luther Burbank Center will be New Orleans-based singer-songwriter Carsie Blanton, whose newest album, “Buck Up” came out Feb. 15. Blanton is co-founder of an online tool for the music industry, Quidplayer, an embeddable “pay what you please” MP3 player and store.

Of her music, NPR Music reported: “Her smoky vocals recall Nina Simone and Billie Holiday, while her wit as a songwriter is in the spirit of Cole Porter.”

You can reach staff writer Dan Taylor at 707-521-5243 or dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @danarts.