{"id":802602,"date":"2019-12-26T14:43:16","date_gmt":"2019-12-26T21:43:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=376515"},"modified":"2019-12-26T14:43:16","modified_gmt":"2019-12-26T21:43:16","slug":"golden-years-adam-aijala-reflects-on-two-decades-of-yonder-mountain-string-band-ahead-of-sunday-concert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/golden-years-adam-aijala-reflects-on-two-decades-of-yonder-mountain-string-band-ahead-of-sunday-concert\/","title":{"rendered":"Golden years: Adam Aijala reflects on two decades of Yonder Mountain String Band ahead of Sunday concert"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Progressive bluegrass group Yonder Mountain String Band will perform in Breckenridge on Sunday, Dec. 29, as part of their New Year\u2019s Eve tour. Tickets cost $37 in advance and $40 the day of the show.<\/strong>
Courtesy Emily Butler<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

BRECKENRIDGE \u2014 A guitarist for the progressive bluegrass band from Nederland since its founding, Adam Aijala has an origin story about as far away from those twangy roots as possible. Aijala grew up in Massachusetts listening to various records that were constantly playing around the house. He begged his parents for an electric guitar and they finally relented when he was 13.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know why specifically I was drawn to it,\u201d Aijala said. \u201cWish I could tell you. All I knew is that I got goosebumps when I heard it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a teenager he was skateboarding and listening to punk bands such as The Clash, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag and others introduced to him by his older sister. He then moved on to metal and eventually the Grateful Dead after experimenting with drugs in high school. The Grateful Dead\u2019s Jerry Garcia banjo picking was his first true introduction to bluegrass.<\/p>\n

Aijala graduated with a degree in forestry in 1995 and worked in the wilderness throughout Idaho and California. When a knee injury put his job on hold, an old college friend living in Nederland convinced Aijala to move to Colorado.<\/p>\n

Yonder Mountain String Band, which returns to Breckenridge on Sunday, Dec. 29, as part of a New Year\u2019s Eve tour, formed in 1998 after banjo player Dave Johnston, mandolinist Jeff Austin, bassist Ben Kaufmann and Aijala met at one of Nederland\u2019s various open picking nights where musicians would freely jam together in the small mountain town.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very open and welcoming for all abilities,\u201d Aijala said of the music scene in Nederland. \u201cI had no idea what the hell I was doing. I didn\u2019t know any fiddle tunes or bluegrass songs. But people were really nice and it made it much easier. It gave me confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though he never played punk professionally, his experience with the genre was part of what made the switch in genres \u2014 and from electric to acoustic \u2014 easier <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of similarities between the two,\u201d Aijala. \u201cMaybe not like sonically, but the literal lyrics, the shorter songs, high energy. It was something that made me go \u2018Wow, there\u2019s something to this.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

Coming from a blue-collar family that frowned upon pursuing the arts, it was the first time that Aijala believed he could make a living as a musician rather than playing for fun. \u201cIt kind of fell on my lap, to be honest,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The band almost exclusively plays acoustic, but Aijala still loves playing his electric guitar and the band will play an electric show at the Fox Theatre in Boulder before coming to Breckenridge.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the uniqueness of it mostly, for us,\u201d Aijala said. \u201cWhen I\u2019m playing electric with Yonder its just something I don\u2019t get to do as often. We\u2019ve log over 2,100 plus shows with Yonder and most of those, like 99.9%, have been acoustic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
Yonder Mountain String Band may play predominately acoustic bluegrass, but they still know how to put on a wild show.<\/strong>
Courtesy Keith Griner<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

To new heights<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1999 Yonder Mountain recorded their first album, \u201cElevation.\u201d The band\u2019s popularity exploded from there, with fans appreciating their unique sound that set them apart from both traditional bluegrass bands and regular jam bands.<\/p>\n

\u201cI exceeded all of my original expectations in the first three or four years of the band,\u201d Aijala said. \u201cWe kind of just shot off like a rocket in the beginning because there was no competition and no one really doing what we are doing. We were very marketable for that reason. We were a band that played loud like an electric band but we didn\u2019t have a drummer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some highlights and lowlights over the years include performing for at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in 2008 and having the tour bus pulled over and searched in Ohio. But one thing that Aijala will always remember is playing at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time we played Bonaroo, playing for that many people, those are the things that stick in your brain because there\u2019s literally tens of thousands of people and your can\u2019t even see that far back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aijala has taken none of it for granted and says he has just as much fun making music for guests at a small coffee shop as he does at a sold-out show at Red Rocks Amphitheatre.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t believe how fast things blew up in the beginning,\u201d Aijala said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot more bands now and we\u2019re the old guys now. It\u2019s funny because we used to be the young guys hanging out with The String Cheese Incident and Leftover Salmon. Now they\u2019re the grandfathers and we\u2019re the dads.<\/p>\n

\u201cElevation\u201d was re-released this past fall for the record\u2019s 20th<\/sup>anniversary. Except from a handful of self-made solo tracks, it was the first thing Aijala professionally recorded. The album, which features guests like Mike Marshall, Darol Anger, Sally Van Meter and Celeste Krenz, is unchanged. Most of the songs, roughly two-thirds, according to Aijala, existed before Yonder Mountain String Band officially coalesced. Witnessing that creativity first hand gave him even more confidence in the band.<\/p>\n

The only new additions are some minor labeling tweaks and a written tribute to Austin, who passed away in June. It isn\u2019t the first album Yonder Mountain released since Austin parted ways in 2014, but it is the first since his death.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spent 16 years with that guy and we were a family for a long time,\u201d Aijala said. \u201cEven though we haven\u2019t been in touch these last few years, it still was terrible news. \u2026 It wasn\u2019t weird listening to \u2018Elevation\u2019 or anything, it just took me back and I look back on it fondly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though the band hasn\u2019t performed the album in its entirely since this past summer, a few of the tracks on still in rotation at live shows, such as Austin\u2019s \u201cHalf Moon Rising.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only time will tell if the band can double their lifespan and give newer albums the same anniversary treatment.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
Yonder Mountain String Band formed in Nederland in 1998. The band recently released a 20th anniversary edition of their debut album, \u201cElevation.\u201d<\/strong>
Courtesy Emily Butler<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re all still around and able, I can do another 20 years,\u201d Aijala said. \u201cAs long as we\u2019re still creating and not boring ourselves and the crowd, I don\u2019t see any reason why we can\u2019t keep doing it. Doesn\u2019t seem like there\u2019s a shortage of ideas.<\/p>\n

For those trying to have a similarly long and entertaining career, Aijala\u2019s advice is to simply \u201cdo it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything you love to do, try to do it,\u201d Aijala said. \u201cIf it works, cool. If it doesn\u2019t, you can always do something else. Shoot for the stars, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Progressive bluegrass group Yonder Mountain String Band will perform in Breckenridge on Sunday, Dec. 29, as part of their New Year\u2019s Eve tour. Tickets cost $37 in advance and $40 the day of the show.Courtesy Emily Butler BRECKENRIDGE \u2014 A guitarist for the progressive bluegrass band from Nederland since its founding, Adam Aijala has an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-802602","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-29 20:30:09","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}