Features

The Core: Yonder Mountain String Band (Relix Revisited)

Today we look back to the February/March 2006 issue of Relix and this installment of The Core, with Yonder Mountain String Band’s Ben Kaufmann

Free associating with Yonder Mountain String Band’s Ben Kaufmann on the band’s upcoming album, its latest Mountain Tracks installment and recent outing with the good Mr. Bush (that’s Sam)

Mountain Tracks 4:

This Mountain Tracks features songs pulled from a number of shows. The trick is to narrow it down—and quickly. It’s challenging to listen to ten shows while you’re on tour. If you’re listening to any music on the bus at all, it’s not your own. In fact, I think I could present a reasonable argument that listening to shows before playing is detrimental to the upcoming performance. In order to be considered, a song can’t have been released on a previous Mountain Tracks and it has to be well executed. Everyone focuses on their own parts first. A few examples of each song will pass those tests. Then, we each pick which version we like best and take turns kicking each other in the privates until we have a winner.

Sam Bush:

His playing and tone are legendary. I’d find myself onstage, with my eyes closed, just soaking in the sound of his fiddle and voice. Sometimes I’d need to remind myself that I wasn’t listening to a recording because I could very easily drift into that space. One time, after I took a bass solo, Sam came over and gave me what felt like genuine props. That meant a lot because “good bass” is a fundamental requirement for Sam in his bands. When we have a guest like that, they become the fifth member of Yonder for the night. When you hang with someone for four days, you get to hear the amazingly embarrassing moments of your musical heroes.

Nickel Creek:

Nickel Creek and Yonder Mountain have become, in my opinion, the representatives of the new bluegrass “youth movement.” They are the “poster children” and we are the “bastard children.” For a while, it seemed like we couldn’t really connect with each other—it almost seemed like two strange cats locked together in a room when our bands were around each other. But Chris showed up at the Sheridan [in Telluride] and was ready to play. I’ll tell you what—it was the greatest thing getting to watch him experience our audience for the first time. He’s a musical revolution unto himself.

New album:

We wanted to continue to investigate our music and sometimes the best way to do that is to work with someone who doesn’t bring preconceived ideas to the table. [Producer] Tom Rothrock (Beck, Badly Drawn Boy, Elliot Smith) came to see some shows and I could see him coming to his own understanding about what we do, where we fit into his ideas of tradition, and where we are pushing boundaries. Tom would say something like, “I want a song at this tempo where you all sing,” or “I want something that has a sacred or gospel feel to the music.” We’d work an idea and make suggestions and end up with musical sections that felt right. Tom would put them together into a form of verses and choruses and then ask us to write lyrics for it—lots of notebooks and walking around the house. Once the basic structure was together, we’d think about solos or ways that the instruments could provide texture, and that’s one of Tom’s great strengths. Working with Tom was the single greatest musical experience of my life.