Photo by Stuart Levine

Black Sheep got a strong reception from the fans, which had to feel good given the lineup changes and new blood in the band.

Yeah, I’d agree. I didn’t read a bad review—I mean maybe they’re out there, but I didn’t see one. I guess I don’t really search for it, either. I’m really happy with the record. It was a really fun experience. I was more involved in the engineering than I’ve ever been before. I did almost all of the editing. A lot of the overdubs I did at my house and on the road. For me, I was proud of it because I felt like the final product was good and I actually had a hand in it besides just playing guitar. I think everybody played really well, I think the songs are really good. I haven’t listened to it in a while, actually, but I was definitely happy with it and the songs are translating live pretty well, too.

This last tour, we talked about it a little after the fact, like maybe two or one and a half weeks into the tour. We really feel like we’re stretching out more. We’re feeling more confident in each other when we do that and open-ended stuff where we can take someone’s lead if someone is doing something and we’ll follow it. If Ben starts doing something cool, we’ll follow it, or I could start something, or Dave or Jake could start something and just go for it. I feel like that part of our live show is starting to develop. I really felt that on this last tour. Ben Hines, our front of house guy, on a couple of occasions on the tour made it a point to say, “Wow, I’m really digging what you guys are doing,”—just stretching and opening it up a little bit. We played with Jeff for like 16 years, and we were so in each other’s heads it wasn’t even a thought to stretch stuff out. When you play with new people, you’ve got to get comfortable first. Even though I felt like we’ve been jamming all along it just feels even more and more comfortable the longer we play together.

Does that comfort just come with time, or is there an off-stage component to it as well?

No, offstage I felt immediately connected to Allie and Jake. And I can’t speak for Dave and Ben, but I imagine they feel the same way. Those guys are both super cool. They’re both team players, which is—I grew up playing soccer and baseball. My parents taught me to not be a little selfish shit, and so I feel like that’s the vibe that the band—I think it’s healthy for the band and I think everyone has a good sense of humor, demented as it is, and we all clown around a lot and carry on. But we also—both the new people have a strong work ethic, too. It’s just a good combo. I think it’s time and just putting the hours in onstage in front of people. Part of it is monitor mixes as well. Because those guys, neither of them were ever really used in-ear monitors. So for them, getting their sound dialed in is only going to help the live show as well. You know what you want, if you’ve been playing into a wedge for all those years, you know what you want to hear. When you switch to ears—and we switched so long ago it’s getting hard to remember, but I do play in wedges now and again. There’s pros and cons to both, there’s definitely more pros to having ears in my opinion, for the kind of music we play, at least.

I’m getting to the point now where we’ve done so many shows that even if I feel like I’m not playing as good as I possibly can, I can still have a good time because I’m vibing off what everyone else is doing. It’s a weird thing, because generally on a night where I don’t think I’m playing guitar well I usually can hear my voice really well. I don’t know why, and vice versa. Maybe it’s the way the sound is interpreted, because we can hear the room through our ears as well. Outdoor places always sound the best to me. There are some great indoor venues, don’t get me wrong, but I definitely like playing outside. We’re going to be playing on the beach next week!

Speaking of Strings and Sol, it’s an event that is still going strong and this year you guys have recruited some of the best in the genre. What do you like about what you’ve put together this year?

I think first and foremost, playing music in December, in the tropics, that’s pretty good feeling—just being down there in December, never mind the show. The crowd is actually really cool, because everyone is co-mingling. It’s not as close-quartered as Jam Cruise, because it’s a resort, but it has a similar vibe where everyone is kind of hanging out. And the crowd is really chill. All the bands have their core fans and there’s obviously a lot of cross-over. It’s a cross-section of bluegrass-slash-Americana type fan base. It’s cool, man, I never feel—it’s not vibe-y, I don’t know if that makes any sense, but it definitely feels like people are there to chill and have a good time. Granted, people party, people get ripped, but they’re still chilling. The one thing you’ve got to realize, going down there with an all-inclusive resort—you’re not going to feel relaxed when you go back to work the following Monday. You feel worse about it, but while you’re there it’s awesome. And obviously the bands, not including that, having those guys down there and having Sam Bush Band down there this year will be cool, and missing the Dusters, of course, and everyone else. It will be a good hang.

You have Sam Bush, obviously, but you also have Stanley Jordan coming out for New Year’s, and that’s a unique pairing. You guys were really excited about that when you announced it. What are you looking forward to playing with him?

I just reached out to him. We played together really early on when Yonder first started playing up in Nederland like years ago, probably fifteen years ago? And we’d run into him here and there at festivals and he always made a point—we actually saw him in Arizona, he was at the same festival as us maybe three years ago? And he made a point to come into our tent and say hey and he gave me his number and email and was like, “Man, we should play again.” We’ve been trying to find the time to do it.

I don’t know what the hell we’re going to play, to be honest with you. I told him, I just reached out to him and sent him an email saying “Hey man, was there anything specific you want to play?” Because obviously, he’s welcome to play the whole show. He can just stay on stage and rip. If he wants us to play some of his stuff, we’re happy to play that, assuming it’s in our abilities. He’s sick, man. He’s one of a kind. I’ve watched an interview with him two years ago where he talks about how he developed his style. He grew up playing piano but his parents didn’t have enough cash so they had to sell the piano, and a year or two later they were able to get a guitar and he kind of incorporated the sounds of the piano into the guitar, which is why he does the two-hand tapping deal, which I thought was kind of cool. That will be fun—and obviously Sam and Jerry are going to be fun. Those are more in our wheelhouse. The Stanley show is going to be interesting for all of us. I’m excited to hear him and Jake do some trade-offs, that will be really cool.

What do you have coming up for 2016—are you looking to release a record next year?

I hope so. We’ve been talking about releasing a live record in the meantime while we record an old—we probably won’t call it Mountain Tracks but like a Mountain Tracks type thing, just to have something to put out. It’s possible to have the record out by the end, or by the third or fourth quarter of next year. But we’re not going to rush it. Right now I’d say we have over half—if we do a similar time length of the number of songs—we’re a little over halfway there with just brand new material. There’s so many songs that have only been on live records and have never been on a studio record if we need to go back, but we’re kind of just moving forward.

We thought of the idea of releasing EPs every now and again. We’ll make an EP like, “Here’s an EP of songs that never made it to a studio record,” and they could be ten years old. There are songs that are older than that that were never on a studio record. We could do an EP of instrumental, we could do an EP of all one guy singing—all Ben’s songs, all Dave’s songs, all Adam’s songs, or whatever. Or we could just record them and put them up online. Now the ability to record anywhere is just more and more real. There’s stuff on the new record Black Sheep that if I said, “Hear that, right there—I did that in a hotel room.” You wouldn’t even know. Obviously it’s just overdubs, we weren’t doing the live rhythm cut or anything.

We’ve got that. We’ve got Telluride, we’ve got String Summit. We have Red Rocks. Hopefully Strings & Sol, we might change the location. It’s doing so well. That would be the only thing, if people say, “Oh, you should mix it up,” and we’re thinking about doing that for this year, but we just end up going back to the same place. And I don’t mind, I like it down there. It’s super convenient, too, as far as travelling there. I live in Boulder. Denver to Cancun—it’s a straight shot, like a fifteen minute drive from the airport to the resort, so it’s pretty ideal. Although I’d be up for trying something new, as well.

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