Conceived in Illinois, born in Colorado, and raised all over the country, Yonder Mountain String Band (YMSB) earned its reputation by combining elements of rock and roll, rhythm and blues, reggae, even punk and heavy metal, with traditional bluegrass instrumentation and extended improvisational jamming in the tradition of the Grateful Dead. Its massive fan base was earned by living on the road for the last 20 years, racking up a staggering 2,100-plus live shows.
Since 2005, Yonder’s winter tours have included a stop in Tampa Bay. Friday’s show represents YMSB’s 10th consecutive year at St. Petersburg’s venerable Jannus Live.
Yonder Mountain String Band
w/The Travelin’ McCourys
Fri. Feb. 7, 7 p.m. $24.99
Jannus Live, 200 1st Ave N., St. Petersburg
jannuslive.com
We spoke with fiddle player, Allie Kral, about life on and off the road, the current state of the band, and about YMSB’s musical tendencies. Ms. Kral, and mandolin master Jacob Jolliff, joined YMSB in 2014, after founding member and original mandolin player, Jeff Austin, announced his departure from the band because of differing career goals. Sadly, Austin passed away in June of 2019 at just 45 years of age.
“I have to say, I absolutely love Jannus. There’s something about it that kind of reminds me of ‘Sesame Street’ for some reason,” Kral attested. “Everything’s laid out. I love it there. It’s super cool. And the town is so cute.”
“We go there so often that I know the yoga studio that I like to go to a couple blocks away from the venue, I know where to get a chocolate Valentine for the guys because we usually play near February,” Ms. Kral continued. “I know where all the shopping is and where the cute photo ops by the sailboats are. And it’s such a cool town. It’s really fun.”
This year promises to be a year of transition for YMSB. Jolliff announced that following the band’s New Year’s Eve run of shows, he would depart the band to focus on his own project. Jolliff is a world-class talent and his contribution to the band will be missed.
“God bless him,” Ms. Kral said with a chuckle, “he’s going to be our brother forever. But we found this mandolin player who I think does a good job of bringing together the spirits of both Jacob and Jeff to the stage.”
For Yonder’s winter tour dates, Jolliff is replaced on stage by multi-instrumentalist, Nick Piccininni of the band Floodwood.
Fans of 2015’s Black Sheep and 2017’s Love. Ain’t Love will be happy to learn that YMSB recorded two albums with Jolliff in 2019. One is “all new Yonder stuff that we had been kind of re-visioning on stage, and making it really polished on stage,” according to Kral. The other is an EP, whose surprise deserves not to be spoiled; both releases should arrive sometime in 2020.
YMSB was formed in 1998 by founding members Dave Johnson on banjo, bassist Ben Kaufmann and guitarist Adam Aijala, along with the late Jeff Austin on mandolin. The band has always proceeded according to its own direction, even running its own Frog Pad Records to avoid being told what to create in the studio. Six of the band’s seven studio recordings were released on Frog Pad. Counting live recordings, YMSB has eight records that reached the top five on U.S. bluegrass charts, including three that hit no. 1.
Like so many bands in the “jam band” scene, YMSB cites the Grateful Dead as influences.
“The guys grew up listening to rock, punk, and classic rock,” Kral explained, “and at some point later on, they started listening to the Grateful Dead and then started branching off into bluegrass from that. I feel like it wasn’t something that they started with, and the same goes for me. I started with classical music, and sometime in high school I started listening to Pink Floyd, because it was a rock band that had all the drama and the theatrics and everything like that.”
“It made sense to me from a classical standpoint. I started listening to Animals like every single night when I went to sleep, and it changed my whole musical experience,” she added. “And then I started branching out and listening to the Grateful Dead and Tom Petty and Neil Young.”
While the legacy of the The Dead may inform Yonder’s onstage improvisation, their eclectic setlists have made them favorites of live music fans. While it’s safe to assume you may hear bluegrass standards from Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys or Flatt & Scruggs, you’re just as likely to hear Green Day or Metallica, or Bob Marley and the Wailers.
Kral put it like this: “If we’re playing for an audience where I can tell it’s mostly new ears listening to us, I’ll have a split second of doubt that what I’m doing is something relatable. And then I’ll just turn that off and just dive into our Yonderness, and just enjoy what we do 100%. And then before I know it, the people who I can tell have never heard us before are clapping or up off their seats and dancing, and it’s a really good feeling,” Kral assured.
“And especially with this new band that we’ve got right now, I feel like we just need to be put in front of that audience, and I think everybody’s going to walk away loving it.”
YMSB plays Jannus with the Travelin’ McCourys, heirs apparent to the throne of bluegrass greatness. So, whether you have been a winter tour faithful, or have yet to become one of the kinfolk, now is the time to join in this decade-long tradition.
“Really in the end,” Ms. Kral said, “we’re all about just making good music together. I found my musical soulmates with these guys. So, even if I don’t play my best show, I come off that stage thinking that we had a blast.”
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This article appears in Feb 6-13, 2020.
