Yonder Mountain String Band has 17 years and a whole lot of miles underneath their belt. Along the way, there have been a few changes, and incredible growth is among the most notable. On April 23, 2014, they announced that long time member, Jeff Austin, would be leaving the band. In the coming months, Allie Kral (violin/vocals) and Jake Jolliff (mandolin/vocals) were added. To quote Tom Petty, “The future was wide open.” Anyone concerned with the changes needed only attended a performance to be instantly enlightened. If the goal of art is to push boundaries and grow exponentially, then YMSB is nailing it. There newest release, 2015’s Black Sheep, proves that they are taking all the right chances. Black Sheep’s punk influence has transformed their already inventive, jam based approach to bluegrass to a whole new level. Recently we caught up with banjo player extraordinaire, Dave Johnston, to talk about getting his feet wet, both figuratively and literally.
Strings and Sol is a premiere destination getaway in mid-December, full of beaches, boats, bars, ballads (also the name of a Jimmy Buffett box set) and beautiful weather, all set in PTO. Morelos, Mexico. Besides performing with YMSB, Johnston was a part of a special set with Ben Kauffman and Jake Jolliff (of YMSB) and Alwyn Robinson and Greg Garrison of Leftover Salmon called “Not Nearly as Cool as Sinatra.”
Blank: Tell us about your trip. What were your highlights?
Johnston: For the very first time, I got in the water. I usually don’t get in the water. It was fun to sit in the waves and kick back and listen to some Leftover Salmon. (As to Not Nearly as Cool as Sinatra) That’s something Kauffman put together. As a kid, he spent a lot of time playing those Frank Sinatra type tunes. He’s always had a soft place in his heart for those tunes. I just like to try to keep up. I’m just barely hanging on when I get up there. I was excited to play with a lot of really great musicians.
Blank: (Laughing) You say, “just barely hanging on.” I have a friend who recently picked up the banjo. When she talks about your style, she has trouble completing sentences. It sounds like, “He’s just…,” or “When he does this, it is so…” Do you remember your first instrument?
Johnston: I worked at a dairy. I decided, when I was in high school, that I would learn to play guitar like everybody else. I ended up saving a lot of money and got a guitar. I don’t remember the brand. I took some lessons from a friend of mine from across the street, whom I grew up with. I thought that it was incredible that he could play “Wish You Were Here.” I wanted to play that song in the worst way. (Laughing) I was not very good at it. My interest in the guitar weened until I heard finger style picking. One of the friends that I was running around with at the time, figured out that you could play with your fingers, that you didn’t have to play with a pick. I wasn’t really focused on learning stuff. I got as far as learning “Bird Song.” I didn’t think I was very good, so I stopped playing.
Blank: How about your first time getting up on stage and playing live?
Johnston: I do! I lived with all these very creative and generous people in college. One of the guys, John Sampson, came back from spring break with his dad’s banjo. I checked it out. I found, that because it was tuned to a chord, that I felt like I could make music pretty immediately on it. I felt like what I heard was musical enough to keep me engaged. In college, I found a teacher. He showed me all this music by a guy named Ben Eldridge. I learned a bunch of Ben Eldridge tabs. (Laughing) I don’t know if I was playing them right, but to me it seemed like I was playing them right. It was the first moment that I finally found something that I could do. I spent all my time playing. Eventually I ran across this guy who liked to play Neil Young tunes and “Alice’s Restaurant.” He would come over and play with me and it was fun. Eventually, he backed me on an open mike night. I played a Ben Eldridge piece. It was really fun and it was really cool and I remember the place being really excited about it. I’m sure it was a nice change of pace from all the liberal, lefty, folky, finger style guitarist, to a sort of spaced out banjo player, hacking through some really fast stuff. (Laughing) It was a really interesting time. I think that all my ideas about doing this kind of stuff began there.
Blank: I love hearing people talk about open mike nights. My first time was all jitters. I completely left the bridge out of my own song. This guy that was playing with me, was looking at me calmly and patiently. He said, “No ones ever heard this. Go back and do the bridge.” (Laughing) Like, “who are you performing for? There’s 18 people here.”
Johnston: Damn right! (Laughing) They don’t know…They don’t know. Before I played, I was staying at a friends house and we were having dinner and I drank a shot of Sambuca and walked to the gig. I was strangely not fazed. No jitters. It was nice. It wasn’t until several open mikes later, with large groups of people, that I started to get the jitters.
Blank: It’s funny that you mentioned “Alice’s Restaurant.” If you were ever going to pick a song to settle into the groove, you’ve got plenty of time with that one.
Johnston:(Laughing) Yeah, right?!? Harmonically though, it’s not really that great for a beginner. I don’t know what made me think I could do it, but I thought I’d give it a try.
Blank: Black Sheep is steeped in punk undertones. That was my favorite kind of music. (Laughing) Some kid growing up in Arkansas and Tennessee thinking that the world was too hard or whatever. Who was it that influenced you growing up and for this album?
Johnston: I think that the punk rock influence is so deeply embedded in me and Adam, (Laughing) that we don’t even know that it is there anymore. It was one of those things that was very formative for me. I think of influential in a manner that you don’t even recognize until you hear where the music comes from. I would be hard pressed, musically, to say who influenced me on this album. The chord structures and chord schemes are very punk rock, but they are also very bluegrass. I don’t see the two forms of music as very different as far as they way they are set up. As far as influences for the record, I really like Jay Farrar and Uncle Tupelo. (I like) music that presents intelligent lyrics and that engages the intellect as well.
Blank: Both bluegrass and punk music come from a rebellious stand point. They’re both from a stand-offish place.
Johnston: Absolutely.
Blank: “Annalee” is filled with nods to both The Band and Grateful Dead. Who is Annalee? What does this song mean to you?
Johnston: You can’t sing about anyone named Annalee without referencing The Band, or without someone making that immediate reference, in my opinion anyway. Annalee, in the song by The Band, is someone who gets bailed on, right?!? Annalee is the buzzkill in the song. Why don’t YOU stay and you keep her company? I gotta go downtown. YOU stay. It’s sort of like someone you love to hate. That would be in keeping with what Kauffman was talking about, but I can’t guarantee that’s what he meant. (Laughing) I’m guessing anyway.
Blank: I read an interview with the Anna Lee (Anna Lee Williams of Marvel, AR). She said that Levon used to be the guy who would take her and her friends out to do stuff like robbing watermelon patches and sneaking into the local “haunted house.”
Johnston: Well good for Levon. I had no idea that there was an interview with that woman.
Blank: You have quite a year ahead of you. It’s the 15th year of Northwest String Summit and you have tons of tour coming. After all of the changes and adventures along the way, what stands out to you?
Johnston: To me, the biggest one is the idea, and it’s mind blowing, that we’ve been doing this 17 years. (Laughing) It’s just an absurd amount of time to be touring and to be playing music. It’s been a really wonderful career. As far as shows, Red Rocks last year was a lot of fun. It was really fun to go down to Mexico and work down there. I feel really lucky that we get to develop music with each other and participate in making stuff for people to enjoy and have a good time. I don’t have a specific example. It’s a telescope sort of thing. Holy cow, it’s been pretty great!
