If you’ve ever spoken on the phone with Adam Aijala, guitarist and vocalist of Yonder Mountain String Band, you’ll expect the rhythm of your conversation to be picked at by the strings of his guitar. Sitting at home in Boulder, Aijala spoke in depth about Colorado floods and his family while strumming the instrument in his lap. Relaxed, Aijala was unwinding before the band’s last shows of the tour promoting “EP 13.” The four track EP is drumless and almost free of any genre in particular, embodying jazz, rock and bluegrass, while wrapped in YMSB’s conversational lyrics. Yonder Mountain String Band plays a lengthy New Year’s Eve run from Dec. 27 to Dec. 31 at the Boulder Theater.
Reverb: So, this Dec. 30 show on your NYE run is a benefit for Colorado flood relief.
AA: We have two things going on: a silent auction which North Face is helping out with, they are donating a bunch of stuff, and basically with the silent auction and ticket sales, we aren’t taking any money from that night, we are giving it all to Planet Bluegrass, that place is a mess. (Planet Bluegrass Ranch was heavily damaged in September by the Colorado flooding) So they are rebuilding. I went up there, let me think, less than a month after the flood. Basically, the river ran behind the stage, and went left along the mesa there, and when the water came through it covered the whole property. You are talking 100s of feet wide. The old river was maybe 40 feet from the greenhouse, now itap like literally up against the greenhouse, and the other one was like 40 feet from the stage, another river, and it was fuckin deep man…Craig (Ferguson) the owner, his house was torn up, they had to tear down the pavilion, they actually found one of their refrigerators in town. They need all the help they can get, this will be a dent in what we can give them, but itap the least we can do. When I went up there it looked like literally 40 dump trucks came and dropped rock and sand, it was mind blowing.
Reverb: What is it that makes Planet Bluegrass so special to you?
AA: My wife works for Planet Bluegrass, and I went to the RockyGrass festival in ‘96 before I even moved to Colorado. I fell in love with (Planet Bluegrass) as a venue. The first time I went it was memorable. The first time Yonder Mountain went there it was memorable. We had been playing a party at Oscar Blues and Craig saw us playing there and gave us a chance to play RockyGrass. He gave us a chance. I was so nervous, I mean, in my mind it was huge. But it was our first festival experience, it blew me away. I try to go every year to RockyGrass.
Reverb: YMSB seems to have a deep connection with Colorado and its fans…
AA: For me itap because the fans gave us the confidence to leave the state and tour. Up in Nederland and stuff, there weren’t a lot of bands that didn’t have a drummer but played as loud as rock, I am not saying we are the only ones, but I can’t think of anyone else that plays like that. When we started picking together a lot of people came to our shows. For a long time there has been a bluegrass scene in Colorado. Itap a little left of center. At the time it was a little more seldom seen. String Cheese and Leftover Salmon, those bands definitely paved the way for us, even though they have a drummer. But the Colorado crowd is awesome…we have caught flack over the year, but if you don’t listen to bluegrass then we are bluegrass. People think we are. People say: I don’t like bluegrass, but I like you guys. I never know if that is a compliment. I mean, I grew up in a rural town in Massachusetts, but traditional bluegrass came when people were singing about the old homestead, nowadays bluegrass guys live in condos in Nashville and play bluegrass. I am not downing that, but we are like a rock infused bluegrass band, where we are influenced by rock. Predominantly in our childhood from Zappa to the Dead Kennedys.
Reverb: Why did you guys choose to put out an EP rather than a full-length album?
AA: It was definitely a time constraint thing. We are way overdue on material, there’s no shortage on our songs. But three of the four of us have little kids, back in ‘09 there was no kids, but we would record our records in or time off, but now Ben is moving to California, so now when we have time off we want to take time off. We basically wrote this on the road. We had one two day stint in Chicago, and then are finishing up here in Boulder. As far as gigs, we squeezed in studio gigs, I wouldn’t mind doing a whole album this way, in terms of squeezing a whole album in I’d like to keep doing it this way. But to answer your question, money is not an issue. If you get a well-known producer like Tom Rothrock, who we’ve had before itap going to cost a lot. He taught us a lot about ourselves, like what we could do musically, he comes from a rock background, oddly enough considering his last name, but his input was invaluable, he has done stuff with the Foo Fighters and Elliot Smith. But anyway, I am on a tangent, a new (full length) record would be ideal.
Reverb: On this EP you wrote “All the Time,” you’ve said itap about an old girlfriend. Has she heard the song?
AA: Itap not even that, not that specific. The funny thing was the day I wrote the majority of it, the melody and chorus, my wife and I used to share an office, she was sitting next to me as I wrote it, and I said this isn’t about you.
Reverb: And your wife’s okay with this?
AA: Oh she loves it. You get in a certain mood about things, without getting too detailed, everyone has memories about relationships gone wrong. I didn’t write it for that reason, but because the feelings are strong, and you still remember, itap an easy topic, thatap why people sing so much about it. So itap not about something in particular, itap just the feeling, like when a relationship has gone on too long, and you’re like, fuck why did I break up with her, but that is kind of where it came from. It wasn’t so heady for me. I just felt like writing a fast song. I was kind of messing around picking and thatap what came out…I like to pick, so it prepares me for shows which l like to call: ‘Yonder Speed.’
Reverb: How do you manage being a father and living on the road?
AA: When I met my wife she had a four-year-old and a seven-year-old. And Dave (Johnston) has a one-year-old. Jeff (Austin) is having a baby in January, there’s all these little kids, but my wife’s kids are out of the house, so I feel kind of retired, and the guys are so psyched, but Dave’s baby just turned one a couple weeks ago. Anyway, we play about a hundred shows a year, and we are gone about five months a year, but we are actually home a lot. We are never gone for more than 20 days, we used to go for longer, but with our mental health and kids, it makes more sense to do less.
Reverb: What keeps you out of your head?
AA: I am surrounded by people I love, people are like how do you do it? I have done a lot a jobs, but itap like why do you do it? Work in the same office every day? But to create and be the boss, I am not the boss, we are all the boss, but to actually pay the bills and make a living off this, we are one lucky group, I will never take this for granted. People always ask how long you can do this for. I can do this until I can’t play anymore. I don’t see a reason to stop, as long as people still want to come (to shows) then we will play. Dave and I live right next to each other so we can write together, he just came over yesterday, I think it is a lot easier to work with someone else, just to bounce ideas off each other, I am more productive writing with other people, I don’t care who gets the credit, the more brains you have on it the more critical it will become. A lot of times you say stuff because it sounds good, or it doesn’t mean shit, maybe like “Bob Dylan’s Dream” song, I love that song, but I don’t know what it means. You might as well have someone look at what you are writing, one little suggestion can help. People can look through different lenses.
Lucas Dean Fiser is a published fiction writer and poet. He writes freelance for The Denver Post and is regular contributor to Reverb.
Follow our news and updates on , our relationship status on and our search history on . Or send us a telegram.
