Ben Kaufmann Archives - The Bluegrass Situation

Yonder Mountain Never Meant to Change the Bluegrass Landscape, But They Did

Posted on April 23, 2026May 11, 2026 by Justin Hiltner

Following instructions for listeners to Get Yourself Outside in 2022 and declaring they’re heading Nowhere Next in in 2024, jamgrass torchbearers Yonder Mountain String Band have reached their zenith on Good As True.

Released March 27, the collection finds the band embracing the skill sets of its newest members Nick Piccininni (mandolin, vocals) and Coleman Smith (fiddle) more than ever, as they dissect the human condition through nine tracks highlighting everything from falling in and out of love (“Brand New Heartache”), to confronting regret (“Blind”), and frustrations with today’s political climate (“The Lie”).

During a recent phone call, bassist Ben Kaufmann spoke with BGS about working Piccininni into the writer’s room, lessons learned from touring, how former band member Jeff Austin’s spirit sticks with him, and more.

This is your third album having Nick in the writer’s room with you, Adam [Aijala], and Dave [Johnston]. What has that evolution of bringing him into the fold there been like?

Ben Kaufmann: Yonder has always had its own special sound. There’s a very specific energy and communal taste with the music that we’ve been tapping into collectively for so long. Nick had already been writing for a while before coming aboard [for 2022’s Get Yourself Outside], so once we got him up to speed with our style we realized how intuitive he is. He has his own understanding of what a Yonder Mountain song is, which has made it fun when it comes to overhearing him workshopping songs or when we swap ideas backstage and on the bus.

We also knew, with recording time on the calendar, that we’d need more material. For most of Yonder’s lifespan we’ve had four writers – going all the way back to the days with Jeff, so it only made sense to give Nick the same opportunity when we saw what he could do. After putting songs from all of us “through committee,” a bunch of his wound up being cut [recorded] these last handful of years.

It’s especially important because Nick is such a wonderful singer. He’s great at everything he does, which is really inspiring to be around. He’s really stepped into his own as a featured vocalist and as a mandolin player. It’s been fun encouraging him to cultivate his own voice while also hearing him take the reins on some of Yonder’s oldest, most beloved songs.

What’s most satisfying for me with this band is writing my own songs, playing them with the band, and having people who are ostensibly there to hear the music enjoying it. There’s no better feeling than that and we wanted Nick to feel it too, since he’s currently in what seems to be a really prolific time of his life for songwriting. He’s the perfect fit for what we do. I’m so grateful he came into our lives and continues to enjoy making music with us. Being in a touring band isn’t for everyone, but everything with Nick has felt very natural from the start.

You just mentioned touring life, which I know the band touches upon with the song “Long Ride.” Do you have any good tips or wisdom you’ve picked up from your 28 years on the road with this band?

It’s like two hours of the greatest time of your life, every day, followed by 22 hours sitting in an airplane. [Laughs] In all seriousness, it’s been very different depending on the time in my life we’re talking about. I’ve handled it really well, but I’ve also handled it terribly. I’ve made mistakes and overcome them, but I’m sure I’ll make even more. When I was young I felt invincible. I’d drink too much and do all the drugs – not to the point of turning disastrous, but I lived that life. Doing that ages you so much faster than otherwise, and touring in general is already not easy.

Because of that I’ve spent so much time, energy, and money working on my personal growth through therapy and reading about ways I am deficient and could improve, to realize my full potential. A massively important part of my life is having a deep curiosity for how to be a better person, which is something I’d like to think I’d still be doing even if I worked in an office or at a place like FedEx. I don’t even know what else I’m qualified to do at this point except survive on the road.

What’s helped me through it all is paying attention to the people around me, investing in myself, and embracing the group dynamic so we can create the highest possible energy state and vibe. Essentially, don’t be a dick! [Laughs]

Lyrically, this record deals a lot with relationships, communication, and the fallout that can occur when those two things break down. With songs like “The Lie” and “One To One Another” this seems to deal partly with politics, but were there any other factors that motivated this direction on the record?

Not in the sense that we spoke about it ahead of time. We didn’t say, “Hey, we’re going to do a record so let’s write about A, B, and C.” A lot of our songwriting is done individually, but there still are some collaborative opportunities for us to get together, as well. As we got closer and closer to our recording dates and the song started being developed, [that] was when we first noticed those common themes. At the same time, I’m not surprised when common themes like this do emerge due to being on the road together and living the same life a lot of the time. When you’re seeing, doing, and talking about the same things regularly it’s easy to have a lot of synchronicity between what we’re writing about and creating.

Ultimately, we’re at our best when we’re writing about our own experiences and what we know. With “The Lie,” I like to think about Jesus, [and] all the bad actors in our world, many of which wield immense power. It makes me feel helpless at times as a bass player and musician – like, what am I supposed to do? It’s an overwhelming predicament, and that song for me speaks to that feeling of, “How did we get here?” It’s also very empowering to sing a song that speaks truth to something like that.

“The Lie” was also one of the songs that got my explicit vote when it came to making the cut for the record. When it came to sequencing, I also wanted that to be one of the first songs you hear when you put the needle down on your vinyl or press play.

“Blind” seems to be a song about regret, mental health, and realizing too late how much someone truly mattered. Have you ever thought about how that tune and what it’s describing relates to your fallout over a decade ago with the late Jeff Austin?

To this point I hadn’t connected that song with how I engage with Jeff’s spirit, but maybe I will now. His spirit and my thinking about him happens at every show. As time has passed, I’ve found that the thoughts I have about him that stick out are all the good times we had together, which wasn’t always the case for us. It was a deeply challenging and complicated relationship we had together and it wasn’t wonderful at the end, which is ultimately why we stopped playing together.

But as time passed, and with his passing – which remains one of the most tragic things I’ve experienced in my life – I became more and more crushed that he didn’t get the help that he needed. I don’t think he knew how important he was to so many people. I think more and more fondly of his spirit, energy, and memory with each passing day.

That original version of the band really changed bluegrass music by building a bridge between it and the jam world. What it did was really powerful, so it’s very interesting trying to think back and conceptualize what it was that we accomplished because we didn’t mean to do anything – we were just trying to play music the best we could.

As I look at it – especially as far down the road as we are now – I see the scene that’s developed from it and all the people doing amazing things with the music as a result. It’s all very humbling, and Jeff was a huge part of that. There’s never going to be anybody else like him, good and bad. We had a pretty complicated relationship – we were the best of friends for a while until we weren’t – but I always have and will love him.

One of my favorite moments on the record is the 17-minute jam on “Barroom Feather.” How did it come about?

One of the things that’s always interested us once we were able to start accessing the data is what our most-streamed song is, for better or worse. [Laughs] What we found is our most-streamed song is a cover of “Dancing In The Moonlight,” which is a good song, but not an original like I wish it was. Then our second most-streamed song is a tune called “Midwest Gospel Radio” that’s an instrumental from our self-titled record. On the album, when we first released it, the song was only two and a half or three minutes long, but along the way someone else released a nine-minute version that’s gotten millions of streams and is now second on our list of top songs.

It got me reflecting on our version and how comfortable we all were in the studio recording it, so when Dave brought us this song we pivoted from doing a shorter, “radio edit” version [that you also hear on Good As True] to something much longer. We recorded a couple takes that way, allowing ourselves to exist in that space and jam a bit, and I couldn’t be happier with the spaces and textures we came up with. It has this time-travel, hypnotic space-time warp thing about it that we were really psyched about. It works really well as both a more streamlined song and as a long jam like what we end the album on, so I’m excited to see how people listen to and engage with it.

You’ve been touring with Yonder for 28 years now. What continues to motivate you nearly three decades in?

First and foremost, I love music. That will never change. I also have a 14-year-old son that I love more than anything in the world. Music is part of the fabric of my flesh, blood, and spirit – I simply don’t know what else I’d be doing if not for it. I’m so blessed that this weird little music project called Yonder Mountain String Band happened, because looking back it doesn’t make much sense. Going from that to seeing what bluegrass music has become, having schools and colleges now devoted to bluegrass music, to [the] elevation of the music’s degree of technicality and musicianship, has been mind-blowing. None of that was the case when we were starting out in the ‘90s. We loved bluegrass music but were a lot more beholden to the spirit of the Grateful Dead than we were Bill Monroe, but we still wanted to play it.

I look at it in the sense of me being good at what I do, but by no means am I the best bass player around. None of us were the best at what we did and when you put it all together it goes against all the laws of physics, mathematics, and common sense. But two plus two equaled five for that one moment in time. I can’t tell you why, but it did and here we are now.

As a result, I get to live this extraordinary musical life that’s navigated some big ebbs and flows. That, along with all the fans who’ve embraced our music through the years and found us in different ways, is what keeps us going.

Photo Credit: Lead image by Robin Vega; alternate images by Mountain Trout Photography, Trent Grogan

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25 Years On, Yonder Mountain String Band Keep Redefining Bluegrass

Posted on December 10, 2024June 20, 2025 by Justin Hiltner

For a quarter century Yonder Mountain String Band has inspired a generation of bluegrass fans with its fusion of traditional sounds and intricate jams. That trend continues on Nowhere Next. The band’s first full-length album since 2022, it showcases the abilities of its two newest members – mandolinist and vocalist Nick Piccininni and fiddler Coleman Smith – front and center.

Piccininni connected with the group in January 2020 and Smith was added earlier this year, joining the band’s longtime core of bassist Ben Kaufmann, guitarist Adam Aijala, and banjo player Dave Johnston, collectively bringing a new energy to the band that harkens back to its early days – when they also consisted of the frenetic and oftentimes unpredictable Jeff Austin. Despite being in the band for nearly five years now and co-writing nine of the album’s 11 songs, Piccininni says that joining up with such an established collective was intimidating at first.

“It’s definitely daunting when you come into something that’s been around as long as these guys have,” Piccininni admits to BGS. “But working with Adam, Ben, and Dave has actually come very naturally. They’ve made me comfortable in expressing opinions about the music and giving my two cents. They’ve not once made me feel like I was an outsider.”

In our latest installment of First & Latest, we chart the band’s evolution and trailblazing nature from their 1999 debut, Elevation, all the way to their brand new album, Nowhere Next, a collection that features old favorites familiar to longtime fans alongside new songs sure to make you fall in love with them all over again.

Two songs on this record – “Didn’t Go Wrong” and “River” – have been a part of your live show for years, even making it on to different iterations of your Mountain Tracks compilations. What made y’all want to finally give them a proper studio treatment?

Adam Aijala: Ben sings on and had been pushing both of those. We have about 30 songs we’ve written over the years that aren’t on a formal record yet. Even before Nick joined the band, we’d been thinking about getting into the studio and recording some of them. That being said, I still prefer to write new stuff. When people ask me how you keep going after a quarter century, I always say that if we weren’t writing new material I don’t know that we would still be around. You’ve got to keep things fresh, whether that’s learning new covers or having your own new stuff to perform.

Given the mix of new and old on this record, both in terms of the song selection and rotation of band members, what are your thoughts on where Nowhere Next stacks up with the rest of the Yonder catalog?

AA: When Get Yourself Outside came out, I thought that was our best record, but now I think this one is. I still hold an affinity for albums like Elevation and Town by Town, but I’m really happy with Nowhere Next and what we were able to do on it. It’s still bluegrass, maybe not the traditional kind, but Yonder Mountain’s bluegrass with varied rhythms, tempos, and styles.

One of our biggest influences is The Grateful Dead, and they’re the same way. In the years between their albums – from their self-titled first album to their Skulls & Roses live album, Wake of the Flood, Terrapin Station, and Workingman’s Dead – they evolved in different ways, but always stuck to a similar blueprint no matter what musicians happened to be around them. Similarly, you can still hear elements of what we did on our first few albums today, which songs like “Didn’t Go Wrong” and “River” further help bridge the gap to.

One song that I feel ties together all of the elements that make up “Yonder Mountain’s bluegrass,” that you just spoke of really well, is Nick’s song, “Secondhand Smoke.” Mind sharing a bit about how that one came to be?

Nick Piccininni: The basis of that is that I went through a divorce and when I separated from my wife the first apartment I got had my landlord living downstairs. He was unfortunately confined to a wheelchair and just sat there chain-smoking cigarettes one after the other. I only lasted a month there before I went out and found a new place. In that sense the song was very literal, but there was also the aspect of going through a big change in your life while living in a small town and feeling like everyone is watching you and talking behind your back.

Interesting. I picked up on the themes of deceit, but the literal reference to secondhand smoke is a nice touch. What does the band’s songwriting process look like as a whole, especially with Nick and Coleman now part of the band?

AA: Everybody in this band has written songs that I really like. With that in mind, I don’t think it’s a “too many cooks in the kitchen” kind of situation. It’s more like, I trust that we’re going to get the best song by letting everyone have a listen, peek at it, and hear what they have to say, whether it’s with one of my songs or someone else’s. I’m not someone to hold my ideas close. It’s better not to be married to them, for me at least. For instance, when Dave tells me he doesn’t like something of mine, it doesn’t bother me because he’s not saying it to be hurtful, he’s just giving his opinion and I trust him when it comes to that.

For me most of my songwriting ideas start with music first. I don’t have a great writing regimen or practice, I just wait for something to spark interest and roll with it. But if it’s music first and I don’t really have an idea on what it would be about, I think on the mood of the music and what those chords and potential melody makes me feel and go from there.

What about you, Nick? And has your process changed at all since joining Yonder?

NP: Historically, for me, I’ve been a music-driven ideas guy too. On most days I’ll sit down at home, pick up my guitar and record or work on a few voice memos. Lately I’ve also gotten into a better habit of working on a lyric while on an airplane or sitting at a hotel because we have so much downtime with all of our travel. At the same time, things have changed a lot in the last four and a half years of being with Yonder though. Prior to joining them I’d never co-written. Getting that outside perspective on my songwriting is something I’d not experienced before and has been incredibly beneficial to me.

Although it’s not Nowhere Next or new songs, I wanted to briefly discuss your I’d Like Off EP, a previously unreleased project from 2010 featuring former member, Jeff Austin, that dropped earlier this year. What was the motivation behind finally sharing those recordings?

AA: When we recorded it our intent was to do a full album. We recorded about 13 tracks for it in pre-production at my house, some of which ended up on the EP and others that were never recorded. We’ve had a couple projects like this that we’ve sat on so long that we didn’t see much of a point in releasing so far down the road, but with this one we decided to move forward since everything was done aside from it being mixed and mastered. We’ve been playing “What the Night Brings” and other songs from it live regularly, as well. It helps to keep us interested, which in turn keeps the crowd interested and connected to what we’re doing as well.

What has your time with Yonder Mountain String Band taught you about yourself?

AA: It’s helped to hone my social interactions. If there’s one thing in life I’ve learned it’s that the world doesn’t revolve around you, especially when you’re a traveling outfit with multiple people. You’ve got to learn to roll with things and when we first started the band I wasn’t like that. Before I joined the band, I traveled all over the country in my own vehicle by myself. I got so used to going where I wanted when I wanted, but in a band it’s the exact opposite.

NP: It’s taught me how impatient I can be. Musically, it’s been cool because I’ve usually played banjo, fiddle, and more melodic instruments, but stepping into a mandolin role has taught me just how much of the snare drum of bluegrass it really is and learning to just do one very simple thing repeatedly and lock in on it. It’s been one of the most challenging things I’ve had to take on and pushing myself to do it to the best of my ability has been neat.

Photo Credit: Robin Vega