Photo by Jeffrey Dupuis
It’s been fifteen years since Yonder Mountain String Band first formed in Nederland, Colorado, and with a full year of touring and a summer of festivals already booked, the quartet is showing no signs of slowing down. Known for their intermingling of genres, the Yonder boys have a fan base that is still willing to follow them on the road, and an attitude that ensures their sound remains full of foot-stomping energy as they continue playing by their own rules.
Yonder Mountain String Band have always been adamant that they are a live experience first and foremost, and though there is a new EP (maybe even a possible album) in the works, their priorities have shifted towards achieving the ultimate “you’ve made it” musical goal: fewer gigs but more high-profile ones, meaning more time at home with their ever growing families. Nevertheless, growing up does not mean selling out—it mostly means reading backstage instead of partying—and it’s the fans that keep the band going and who also are at the heart of the end of the band’s decisions.
Guitarist Adam Aijala and banjo player Dave Johnston took some time while on the road in Dallas, Texas to talk summer festivals, books, and the musicians they get excited about seeing and playing with live.
Best Friends
Adam: Over the years—with the exception of my wife—I think I’ve spent more time with Dave than with anyone else. He’s always a pleasure to be around—insightful and one of the funniest people I’ve ever known. Obviously, from a musical standpoint, he’s one of my favorite songwriters. I always tell the story that there was a point when Dave lived with us—with my then girlfriend, now wife— and we were on tour, so there was a period of a year or so where I was hanging out with him more than anyone else.
Writing Music
Dave: We write at home a lot—we’re trying to figure out ways to be more effective at writing on the road. In my opinion, I have three really great musical minds to bounce music off of. There are three really great musicians I can take an idea to, and they’re going to help refine it and make it better. I try to find ways to implement stuff that’s been started at home, or stuff that we have going on, and bounce it around those three guys because you can get a lot of effective work done when you have three brains working on one project. There’s also my brain, which is not really working.
Adam: Yeah, whatever. [Laughs] Sometimes it’s literally, “Hey, I have this melody with no words,” and sometimes there’s just words, or sometimes someone comes to us with a complete song already or almost a complete song. How the song starts for me personally is totally random too. Generally, it’s the melody first, but sometimes you get the words first. Dave has this idea that I like to implement, where you make an assignment to write a song, and it makes it a lot easier. It’s opposed to the typical song assignment, which is to rhyme every other line. You can make any assignment: “I want the third line in every verse to start with ‘a’,” whatever. You can make up anything to make it easier to write a song. You just come up with little ideas like that and it helps you, as opposed to just rhyming. Basically, there’s no template, it’s all across the board.
Inspirations
Dave: When I was really impressionable about music, I mean I still am, but back when I was really young, one band that really made a lot of sense to me was Uncle Tupelo. I liked the instrumentation and I liked how their lyrics were kind of brainy, but not all brain; I just liked how that band sounded. It was this big “Aha” moment for me when I first heard them, thinking you can make country music with really intelligent things to say, as opposed to all the other prevalent country music of that era. Then you start to realize that there are some old country guys who are making some great country music. Like right now there’s this guy I’m really hot for, his name is Webb Pierce, and—not to put too fine a point on it—but the more I listen to him, the more I’m like, “This guy is fucking awesome.” Hopefully you can live your whole life and always feel impressionable and receptive to music that’s either being made or was made a hundred years ago.
Adam: As a whole band, what we try to emulate or bring into our own—I always like to cite the Seldom Scene and the Kentucky Colonels, kind of as an amalgamation of those two. But we all listen to heavier music, like rock and roll. For my own personal influence, I listen to a ton of Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan. Obviously there are more bands as well, but as far as musicianship, Jerry Garcia’s guitar playing and the rest of the band, and also Bob Dylan for his songwriting and what not.
Photo by Jeffrey Dupuis
New Recordings
Dave: It’s going to be on the magnitude of Sports by Huey Lewis and the News. It’s going to be huge. Like bulky huge, like Biggest Loser huge. [Laughs.]
Adam: We’ve got the roughs recorded for a possible EP. We have an overabundance of unrecorded original material, and ideally, we would prefer to have brand new stuff when we record, but as it stands now, if we want to do more than an EP, time is a big thing. Generally, we chose to record when we are not on the road and now there are three new kids in the world—Dave’s got a little kid and Ben has a little boy—so free time is harder to come by. We definitely understand the importance of it, more and more we remind ourselves that we need to get something recorded because everyone else is recording stuff. It would be great to get this EP out. They’re all songs that we already play live but I think the oldest one is right around two or three years old, and the rest are one to two years old. In October, we had two days in Chicago to get some tracks down; we decided to make some time while we were on the road as opposed to doing it when we weren’t. The roughs were just the four of us.
Three Summer Festivals Not to Miss
Adam: I would have to say Northwest String Summit and Harvest Fest, because we headline those. The third is tough, because we love All Good and we love Telluride Bluegrass. Telluride is sold out in advance though. Telluride is called country and bluegrass, but there have been a lot of rock bands through the years that have played it and it’s a little more eclectic. Harvest is a newer one for us, that’s in the Ozarks of northwest Arkansas, and it’s kind of our deal. In that regard, if you’re talking specifically to our fans, then you get three nights of us playing and that’s the same as Northwest String Summit. Harvest is a little more eclectic than String Summit. String Summit, that’s an incredible location to see music. Harvest Fest is really beautiful too, being in Arkansas you may not think there’s much there, but it’s actually really pretty—big hardwood forests, rolling hills, big tall mountains—though I’m hesitant to go that far compared to Colorado.
Kinfolk
Adam: We did Kinfolk Festival last year in Lyons, Colorado where they do Rocky Grass, and if we were doing that this year I would throw that one into the mix too. That was a two-day deal, and that was just a really great location. I don’t know where [the term Kinfolk] came from. Was it the guy who set up our original e-groups or no?
Dave: You know, it’s a mystery to me too. It’s part of the power and its beauty, its mysterious origins. The kinfolk are great people; it’s like an extended family for us.
Fans on Tour
Adam: There’s a couple we see at every show, which is always fun. Regionally you see the same people. We had this one guy who toured with us for an entire year, I think he missed something like one show, pretty funny. He pops up every now and again, but I think he has a job now so we don’t see him quite as often. You definitely see the same faces. It’s endearing and really cool, because we know what we do every night, and that people still want to come see it is pretty cool. Even though we mix it up, it still makes you feel good that people—especially those who have been fans for years—are still coming out for multiple shows at a time.
Musical Crushes
Dave: We haven’t seen him in a while but I think it would be cool to run into Fareed Haque.
Adam: Yeah, totally. I’m looking forward to doing some stuff with Jason Carter on fiddle again, and getting Andy Hall from the [String] Dusters to play some more shows with us. I like having all kinds of guests. If I think guitar players, I like playing with [Andy] Falco from the Dusters and Larry Keel. Danny Barnes on banjo, Belá [Fleck], whatever. I like getting instruments up there that aren’t already on stage, that’s why I mentioned fiddle and dobro—Anders [Beck] from Greensky [Bluegrass] too—because we don’t have that in the band.
Reading on the Road
Adam: I’m actually reading the last book of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. Robert Jordan passed away a few years ago, the first book of the series came out in 1987 and this is the last book, he wrote part of it before he died and this guy Brandon Sanderson finished it up. Ben has already finished it and he told me the ending sucked, so I’m really looking forward to wrapping that up, it’s one of those stories where you’re like, “Come on, I started reading this twelve years ago.” It’s been a long time coming. Just like [bassist] Ben [Kauffmann], I’ve read A Song of Ice and Fire, that whole George R.R. Martin series. I’m also reading a book by William Cooper called Behold a Pale Horse, which is a conspiracy book. I probably shouldn’t be saying this over the phone; there’s probably someone from the CIA listening.
Dave: I’m reading this booked called Alien vs. Predator [Michael Robbins]. Then there’s this other book by a guy named David McGimpsey called Li’l Bastard; it’s pretty good.
