Bluegrass has had a revival, I would say, over the past decade or so, and it’s become more integrated into popular music. Have you guys noticed that with your own following and experience?

I guess since we’ve been a band it’s definitely gotten more and more popular. When we first started this band in the early ‘90s, there was more of a separation between traditional bluegrass and the kind of thing that we’re doing, bands that have been more progressive. We were playing bluegrass with drums and electric instruments, and I think it was a little bit of a stretch for people at first, but I think it’s really come around. There are a lot of other bands now that have been doing similar things and taking bluegrass to other places and expanding the realms of bluegrass. It’s been steadily growing and going to some different places. And it’s really great to see—it’s such a great musical genre, and it’s nice for a lot more people to be discovering it through different progressive bands who may not be playing the traditional circuit. It’s been great to watch a lot of young bands coming up and playing bluegrass who are able to actually work playing bluegrass. That was not an easy thing when we first started this band, because, like I said, there was kind of a separation between the bluegrass world and the more mainstream, touring band world, and that’s definitely changed.

Playing bluegrass in the modern world, do you guys ever feel torn between playing traditional stuff and also trying to make it more modern?

Yeah, there’s always going to be that. And we totally respect and honor the traditional bluegrass world. It’s a great thing. We love [Bill] Monroe and Stanley Brothers and Osborne Brothers and the older bands, as well as the newer bands like Hot Rize. We did a tour with the Del McCoury Band for about three months, and it was really, really cool combining the two bands, and we definitely got to be really great friends with them. It was interesting because we kind of brought those two worlds together in that tour.

There’s always going to be people that don’t want bluegrass to change, and I respect that. In a lot of ways, traditional bluegrass should definitely always be honored. But I think more and more that people have become more open to bluegrass going different places. There’s definitely a couple of different schools on that, for sure, but I think that people have become more open-minded to it, more of the traditionalists. But, like I said, there’s always going to be people that want it to stay the same.

How has Leftover Salmon has evolved over the years, specifically with the comeback in 2010 after the hiatus with Andy Thorn? I’ve heard you stress how much energy he brought, how it kind of revived the band.

Absolutely. It was very hard to lose Mark Vann, he was such an integral part of this group. It took us a while to find somebody who really could fulfill that role in the band, and Andy came in and brought a whole new energy and excitement and really great banjo playing. I think he made us feel like a band again—it really created that cohesion that we had been missing. We’ve had other really great banjo players play with us, but it just never really clicked like it did with Andy. So yeah, that energy is definitely still happening. And now our new drummer, Alwyn Robinson, who’s been with us for a couple of years now, has also brought great energy into the band. He’s definitely a kick-ass player. We’re just loving it. I really think this is, since the old days, the best Salmon band that we’ve had, and it’s definitely still feeling great.

When new members come into the band like that, do you think they change the band in a way? Do you think the Leftover Salmon of fifteen years ago is a lot different in general ethos than it is today, with the different members?

Yeah, I would say so. When new people come into the band, not only do they bring their own energy, but it sort of sends the band in a different direction. When you get the right people in a band, it definitely creates that cohesion that you need to really play off each other and have that energy together. There’s so many components that go into that. It’s not easy to find the right people not only to play with but also to travel with—that’s a whole other element that’s really important. It just feels like a really solid group now, in a lot of ways—playing-wise, and also just in the way we all get along and interact. Yeah, I would say that this group the way it is right now is definitely working quite well.

Do you have a favorite venue that you’ve played—you guys have played so many different places around the country; is there any one that you guys keep coming back to?

I guess the Telluride Bluegrass Festival would be one of our favorite places to play. We’ve been able, luckily, to play that one I think fourteen times now with Salmon. So yeah, that’s probably one of our top favorites. And obviously the festival thing is really where I think we shine. High Sierra and Telluride and DelFest and Spirit of the Suwannee down in Florida. So I guess as far as favorite venues, it would probably have to be the festival thing. That’s kind of where we come from, that tradition.

What is it about festivals that makes them so attractive?

Well it’s so great to be outside, obviously, and at beautiful places—a lot of these venues are at really awesome places. The energy at festivals is so great, because there’s so many people and so many different bands and, it’s an opportunity for bands to see other bands. We’re always working, so we don’t always get a chance to go see other bands, and it’s always great to see different bands that we’ve maybe only heard about or only heard on recordings.

Also to play with different people at festivals is really fun, and that’s always been a tradition with us, to have people sit in with us and to sit in with other bands as well. That’s definitely the fun of it. And also the impromptu jam sessions that happen—not necessarily on stage. The campground culture and that whole thing, getting all these people together for a weekend away from the rest of the world and the stresses of everyday life, where they can just enjoy being together and enjoy some good music—it’s almost like a little utopia.

I’m always interested to hear what genre bands place themselves in and what they have to say about how others classify them. Which brings us to “Polyethnic Cajun Slamgrass.”

I think that’s a moniker that Vince [Herman] came up with. It kind of describes what it is that we do in that we do play a lot of different styles, different genres of music. We’ve always kind of been all over the map as far as that’s concerned. And we have some Cajun influence, and some bluegrass. And the polyethnic thing is just jumping around as many different genres as we feel like. It’s just kind of a way to kind of describe what we do without pigeonholing ourselves, which is something we’ve never wanted to do, kind of a way to basically play whatever we want and not feel like we have to play any certain kind of music. It’s really fun because it’s wide open—if we want to play a rock tune or a bluegrass tune or a reggae tune or a Cajun tune or a zydeco tune, it’s all within that umbrella.

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