New Legends: Yonder’s new Harvest Festival has the band excited.
Yonder Mountain String Band is a festival circuit fixture. How does that affect their music? Yonder’s Ben Kaufmann sat down with us to talk about the band’s new Harvest Festival and the experience of playing on the big stage.
What’s it like to actually play Telluride? How does it differ from other venues and festivals?
It’s a lot of things. It’s a tremendous landscape. When the music is happening on stage, you can hear it resonating of the walls of the box canyon. There’s no other place like it. When you have such a special place you treat it with care and respect. And Craig Ferguson and Planet Bluegrass set the standard for how festivals can and should be run. It’s also a very intense stage. Masters of music perform before you, after you—they’re all around you. So it’s a great place to perform at a high level… if you can adjust to the elevation, control your nerves and not pay attention that Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, Edgar Meyer, Stuart Duncan and all the other greats are standing right there. They might not be looking at you directly, but they hear everything. So don’t mess up.
What bands are you most excited to see yourself this summer?
M. Ward, for sure. I also want to connect with Phil Lesh this year, hopefully soon. As a bass player, I feel that I need to at least meet him and hopefully make music together.
What’s inspiring your music these days?
I am completely into Spotify. I’m listening to alt-Irish music from the ‘70s. I’ve got Oren Lavie happening. There’s a Dutch gentleman who performs under the name Benny Sings. His album At Home is on infinite repeat.
What can you tell us about Yonder Mountain’s Harvest Festival? What will the highlights be this year? What’s different about it?
Harvest Fest is on its way to becoming a truly great event. Last year, you could see it happening. It’s the location, it’s the alt-acoustic vibe that I don’t see offered on the bill at other festivals. It can be considered an alternative to the electronica/indie rock vibe that’s happening all over the place. (I like those too, for the record). But it is the place to be for those looking for more of a family vibe. If our name’s on it, you should be able to count on the festival being a place to meet new friends, reconnect with old friends, bring your kids or make new babies if the band is playing romantically. The best thing to do is to talk to someone who’s been. I say the same thing to people who ask about Yonder. Leave your pre-conceptions at the door, but come in the door. We’ll take it from there. Ed’s Note: Harvest Music Festival takes place October 11–13, 2012, at Mulberry Mountain in Arkansas’ Ozark Mountains.
How would you like to see festivals evolve?
We’ll see the big festivals continue to provide the things that massive budgets can produce. For example, want to see Paul Simon perform Graceland? And Radiohead? And Beck? And everyone? There’s a festival for that. Do you want to see your favorite band with a few of their friends in Mexico? There’s a festival for that. The big ones will get bigger, yet we’ll continue to see a rise in what they are calling “boutique” festivals. At this point, if you can’t find your cup of tea then you probably don’t like tea. Perhaps festivals can be categorized like this: there are ones where you can’t possibly see everything you want to see and there are ones where you can. You can have it all—big crazy freak outs to smaller, calmer vibes. •
