Yonder Mountain String Band Still Loving The Jam

Dave Johnston, co-founder of the Nederland, Colorado-based bluegrass group, Yonder Mountain String Band, has been helming a set of musicians throughout a long, steady and prolific career. The jam band, which was founded in 1998, has played to countless fans, released five studio albums (and many more live recordings) and toured with famed artists like Bela Fleck and the Dave Matthews Band. During those two-plus-decades, Johnston has learned at least one very important lesson about how to treat his relationship to music. And that is to treat it like a relationship to a person he loves.

“I was talking to one of my wife’s friends the other day,” Johnston says. “She’s a photographer and we were talking about loving what you do. And she said, ‘Well, if you love what you do, treat it how you would treat a person you love.’ Meaning, you can’t be overbearing and you can’t demand stuff that just isn’t there.”