Growing In Front Of A Crowd
By Jon Bahr
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Jeff Austin (left) and Ben Kaufmann (right) |
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Bluegrass music comes in many forms and one of the most exciting evolutions in the genre is a Colorado four-piece band called Yonder Mountain String Band. Over the past six years, Jeff Austin (mandolin), Adam Aijala (guitar), Dave Johnston (banjo) and Ben Kaufmann (bass) have developed a unique sound that builds on the foundations of bluegrass while incorporating improvisation and energy. Yonder Mountain, as they are often called, has become a successful touring unit selling out clubs and theaters nationwide, playing the Grand Old Opry and gracing the cover of Pollstar magazine. The band even has a track on an upcoming Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute album. Yonder Mountain has taken a grassroots marketing approach demonstrated by their formation of a successful record label, Frog Pad Records, and their production of a thriving annual bluegrass festival, Northwest String Summit. Yonder Mountain String Band's bassist, Ben Kaufmann, spoke with Playback about songwriting, growth as a band, the first hip-hop bluegrass song and all things Yonder.
Tell me about your personal songwriting process.
The majority of the songs I write off the road, at home. The road is pretty busy. It has to be very quiet for me to write anything that I'm happy with. When I get home, I'm relaxed and I have the space to actually hear the music in my head. I write a lot these days on the bouzouki and the mandolin. I'll get a melody or a lyric idea in my head and walk around the house singing as I find the words and melodies that would work with it.
Yonder Mountain has four songwriters, each with great singing voices, which is pretty rare. How do you collaborate?
There are four distinct voices in the band. That is the thing I like about Yonder. Any one of us can lead. I respect the songwriting of all the other guys and I relate to what they're writing because we're essentially living similar lives. I've watched us all grow as songwriters for the last 6 years we've been together. The collaborative process happens more in the arrangement with in-the-moment suggestions as opposed sitting down and collaborating. We know intuitively what should go where, what the banjo will do, and what the mandolin will do. What's new is that we are hoping to get together with some other songwriters and write. I think that expanding the horizons of the bluegrass song by thinking outside the box yields some really rewarding songs. I look forward to it quite a bit.
Do you consider yourself a musician or a songwriter?
I would definitely like to consider myself a songwriter. I was so into Yonder Mountain from the beginning because it allowed me the opportunity to try to write songs. It is sort of a pompous thing though, writing songs. Like you have something so important that you have to tell everybody in song form. I think about the history of bluegrass, too. There's such a tradition and I would like to believe that I can contribute some good songs to the great canon of bluegrass music. I hope to be considered a songwriter that also played bluegrass bass and did some singing.
Have you seen a real change in the music?
Yeah. I think the music and performances are becoming more patient without the energy being diminished. We're learning to play with space more. We are tapping into that pulse or rhythm that is bluegrass music. The way we play is its own thing. It's such a subtle thing at times to steer the ship of bluegrass jamming. How we jam in Yonder is unique. We're learning in front of audiences.
How do you feel Yonder fits in with the scope of bluegrass and the scope of music in general?
Bluegrass is a thriving art form that has got a lot of different sounds. I imagine it like a great big oak tree. The trunk of the tree is the real classic bluegrass sound of Bill Monroe and that's old -- that's tradition. Then you've got all of these other branches. Newgrass is actually a pretty big branch of the tree. You've got newgrass revival. I don't like the term "jamgrass." Yonder might be a branch off of the bluegrass trunk that met with a newgrass branch and went off in a weird direction. For bluegrass, the most mainstream it's going to get was the Oh Brother Where Art Thou? thing. I think bluegrass musicians are playing because it is the most wonderful sound in the world. We love the drive of bluegrass and that's the only music that I really hear in my head.
Bubba Sparxxx recently remixed your song "To See You Coming 'Round the Bend" into the world's first hip-hop bluegrass song. What do you think about it?
I think it's great. Timbaland is responsible for the original mix and it could be a revolutionary idea. In the song, the beat is still there and what really comes through is the voice and the fiddle. I've always thought that you could take acoustic instruments and hybridize that sound with the hip-hop beat to get an acoustic hip-hop experience. There can be no limits. We're getting our foot in the door in a lot of places that normally wouldn't be interested in us. I would never in a million years have thought that anything like that would happen. Just as much as I wouldn't have thought that we'd be where we are right now.
For more on Yonder Mountain
String Band, go to http://www.yondermountain.com
