Yonder Mountain returns to Missoula for 10th anniversary show

April showers aren’t the only thing in store for musician Jeff Austin and his fellow band mates this month. The artists mark their 10th anniversary as the collaborative minds behind the unique Yonder Mountain String Band with a stop at the Wilma Theatre tonight en route to other acoustic hotspots.

“We’re looking forward to coming back,” Austin said. “Montana fed us a lot of inspiration in the early days.”

After expressing his gratitude for Montana’s role in the band’s initial success, Austin sounded eager to be returning to Missoula and the bluegrass energy within.

“We try to make it out there every year,” he said. “Missoula has a great vibe.”

The four musicians behind Yonder Mountain have beamed independence since they emerged from their own label, Frog Pad Records, in 1998, and continue to amaze music lovers nationwide with a flourishing grassroots network.

Although Yonder Mountain has primarily steered clear of mainstream promotion and commercial pathways, the band has become one of the most successful bluegrass bands in the country. 

University student and Colorado native Rachel Shearer recently became engrossed in the band’s street teaming process “Kinfolk,” which establishes community interest.

“It’s a great way to get involved,” Shearer said. “Yonder has an impressive fan base for a bluegrass band. It’s still growing.”

“Kinfolk” is a wide community network that uses volunteers to help promote upcoming shows and album releases, Shearer explained. Each region has a main coordinator that orchestrates the community involvement in a specific city. The e-mail based arrangement allows for rapid “word-of-mouth” progression.

“I get into the shows for free,” Shearer said. “It’s basically like getting paid.”

A first-time headlining performance at Red Rocks Amphitheatre near Denver, Colo., last year was living proof of Yonder Mountain’s success as they played a sold-out show for a crowd of 10,000.

“It really says something about a band’s talent when their fans follow them all over the country,” Shearer said. “It becomes a lifestyle.”

Austin said he observed such loyalty at his first Grateful Dead show when he was in sixth grade, and gained an appreciation for those performances that soon became legendary.

“Dead started the whole movement,” Shearer said. “Their fans followed them everywhere, and it just took off after that.”

While the “Godfathers” of improvisation may have started a musical revolution, Austin found the masters of eclectic style variation in the members of funk-band Phish.

“They were the first band I saw that could sound like bluegrass in one song and metal in the next.”

Celebrated for their live shows and jam sessions, members of Yonder Mountain have integrated such eclectic skills into their own harmonic beats, generating profound energy and poignant lyrics. The band’s fifth volume, the two-disc Mountain Tracks, is composed of handpicked live shows stretching from 2004 to 2007.

“Jeff Austin has a great voice,” Shearer said. “It’s unique in comparison to other bluegrass artists.”

Turning to Bob Dylan’s classic mood for further inspiration, as well as the Beatles’ harmonious vocals, Austin has become a well-rounded musical artist.

His journey started over a decade ago after discovering the mandolin, and he fought to master its technique shortly before meeting fellow Illinois native and current Yonder Mountain member Dave Johnston.

After jokingly referring to himself as the “mack daddy” behind the band’s operation, Austin emphasized the group’s efforts as collaborative, rather than the masterminding of a sole conspirator. He did, however, admit that subtle manipulation was involved when reuniting with Johnston.

“I did some scheming and plotting along the way,” Austin said. “I convinced Dave to check out Nederland for a while.  He’s been visiting for 10 years now.”

Austin settled on the mountainous outskirts of Boulder after realizing that the Midwest was no place for a struggling musician.

“Colorado was willing to experiment with acoustic-based music,” Austin said. “It was great.”

Having attended several Yonder Mountain shows over the past five years, including the band’s annual New Year’s Eve appearance at Denver’s Fillmore Auditorium, Shearer said there is something unique about Colorado’s music industry that lures artists from various walks of life.

Shearer, who grew up in the Littleton area, said Nederland, Colo., has primarily transformed into a musician’s dreamland, especially for bluegrass artists. The town is a small community of about 2,000 residents.

With each performance, the Colorado transplants of Yonder Mountain String Band bring unique qualities to the table, illustrating a machine of working talent in the group’s smooth vocals, improvisation, and raw beats. April’s anniversary tour will allow Yonder Mountain enthusiasts to capture a 10-year transformation from amateurs of an experimental genre into the icons of new-age bluegrass.

“It’s really something,” Austin said. “When an audience is willing to participate in the listening exercise that is a concert.”