Feature

After several years of sabbatical, BlueGround UnderGrass (BGUG) is back on the road with a couple of new faces, but their down home, organic attitude towards their Americana music is stronger than ever. With a new album on the shelves, BGUG is itching to perform live on stage – something every member feels a deep passion for, and was evident with every query I put forth to Jeff Mosier. BGUG is back and better than ever, and Mosier is ready to prove it to the public.

SC: When you were putting BlueGround UnderGrass together, what would you say was the driving force behind the creation of this modern bluegrass band?

JM : I’d been in rock for 10 years, and I was missing it (bluegrass) even though I was sitting in with Phish and Leftover (Salmon). I think it was kinda hitting 30 years old. I don’t know; melding Bruce Hampton and Bill Monroe was really my biggest interest. I wanted to do something truly Aquarium Rescue Unit-like, which more of an avant garde/roots thing and also have some bluegrass/Bill Monroe thing going at the same time.

SC: I always have to ask this question to bands who dabble in modern bluegrass. I’ve talked to bands like Nickel Creek and Yonder Mountain, and they really don’t like being associated with the bluegrass genre. How do you feel about that?

JM : Well, I play the banjo, so it’s kinda hard not to be associated with the bluegrass genre. You get away with it when you’re Chris Thile (Nickel Creek) and playing an instrument that nobody knows what it is (laughing). They think it’s a tiny guitar. When you come out with a banjo even in a nursing home situation, people know it’s a banjo. I really think that it’s like a jazz-fusion player embarrassed that they listen to John Coltrane. I just don’t get that mentality; I’ve never gotten it. I’m proud to be from bluegrass, and I call myself “Grassically Trained.” I am grassically trained. I feel like I bring a lot to the table. I think that other musicians like Chris who are grassically trained and who really come from the real shit and should be part of what makes them valuable. There are a lot of bands out there who started in rock and now dabble in bluegrass. We don’t dabble in bluegrass. We’re from it, and we use it intentionally to make new experimental music.

SC: Whenever you were on the road with Phish, you took a lot of time working with them on their bluegrass licks. What was that like?

JM: Perfect example of what you just asked! Phish didn’t have to learn it right, but they wanted to learn it right, which should be a lesson to a lot of people. So, they called a guy like myself, and they wanted to get the right instruments and learn how to do it around one microphone like Flatt and Scruggs.

Now, this is way before Del McCoury started doing his thing around one mic. Here’s some white guys from Vermont who wanted to learn the craft as it existed, and I think that that’s a testament to one, their credibility as musicians, and two, the power of bluegrass. I think bluegrass is almost like original jam band music. It’s truly a powerful genre.

SC: BGUG disbanded back in 2002 and recently reformed. What brought about the rebirth of this band?

JM: Really, I say it was David Blackmon. David was the original fiddle player. When I started talking to him again, he and a promoter in Live Oak, Fla., Randy Judy started talking about the possibility of doing it again. It was just time, man. I mean, I had taken a break. David and I started the band together. He was the first person that I had hired in the original band. The banjo and the fiddle together playing together with a rock ensemble was really the sound we had. You live and learn. Mistakes were made and lessons were learned. That’s all I can say. That’s all you can really ask of yourself in life.

SC: When you were in the studio making your latest album “Faces,” what was it like making this album?

JM: We had a framework and a skeleton for the tunes, but we didn’t define all the aspects of it. When it came down to it, a lot of the written tracks became what they were. Of course, they’re the foundation. We laid the stuff down as much as we could together. I believe what makes anything sound interesting is the reactionary quality of the tape, meaning that what I’m playing is a reaction to what’s going on around me live. I think that’s why studio records sound really sterile sometimes. Everybody’s playing along to something, and they know what’s going to happen cause they’ve played around it 20 times. So, after the twentieth time, your ideas are kinda watered down, and there’s no magic left. What makes music sound interesting is the sound of the player trying to get out of a mess that they’ve gotten into. That’s what I think makes what we do live interesting. It’s what made the Grateful Dead interesting. How are we going to get out of this song into the next song without it sounding like a complete car wreck? I think that’s what makes free jazz and a lot of music interesting. I think the disservice that radio did was forcing musicians to make cookie cutter/three-minute versions of what they would have normally done live. They’ve created a whole generation of cookie cutter musicians trying to come up with a hook and a this and a that so they could get this award or that award.

SC: So, what’s next for BGUG? What’s the next step?

JM: What’s next is the next square of carpet that we stand and do what we do. It will be Friday night in Raleigh and then Saturday night in Charlottesville. Soul Kitchen is great. We used to have some great shows there. What we love to do is travel together like musicians do and make sound. It’s the last of one of those really weird primal human things. There I am, and there we are in a club. It’s not reality TV, it’s not HD, it’s not iPod, it’s not Podcast, it’s not a bootleg. It’s BlueGround UnderGrass.

Stephen Centanni is Lagniappe music editor. Contact him at scentanni@lagniappemobile.com.

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