Fans of Leftover Salmon who have watched the band pushing, pulling and feeding off each other on stage for the past 35 years might be surprised to learn that their studio albums have been a more isolated affair, with the musicians generally writing separately. For their newly released one, “Let’s Party About It,” the Colorado jamgrass band decided to do something about it.
“Never having all written together before, it was honestly kind of intimidating,” says Vince Herman, guitarist and vocalist. “We didn’t know how the process would happen.”
To help facilitate, the band brought in songwriter Aaron Raitiere, who has collaborated with everyone from Lady Gaga to Lukas Nelson, a longtime friend of the group who Herman met at a songwriters retreat in South Carolina.
“We just thought Aaron would be perfect for it,” Herman says. “He’s an incredible improviser who can just spew out songs kind of off the top of his head. I think he really took all the ‘how are we going to get this done?’ kind of anxiety out of the process, just knowing that Aaron was there and good things were going to happen.”
Leftover Salmon also enlisted guest musicians including Sam Bush, Del McCoury, Dave Matthews Band saxophonist Jeff Coffin and Jason Carter.
“Being that we recorded in Nashville, of course we’re thinking, who’s around? We’ve been great friends with Sam for a lot of years. He’s played on some other records with us too, and we just thought we had a good spot for him to do his thing. It was great having Jason Carter, who’s been playing a bunch of live shows with us, and I think he’s the greatest fiddle player on planet Earth. All those years in the Del McCoury Band just really taught him to do it right.”
McCoury himself sings on “Twisted Pine,” which the band’s Drew Emmitt wrote with him in mind, “setting up a song to get Del to do that high harmony thing that he does, that high lonesome thing; it’s a lonesome song,” Herman says.
We spoke to Herman as he was driving to the airport to head to McCoury’s DelFest in Maryland, which featured genre legends like McCoury and his Travelin’ McCourys, the Tim O’Brien Band and peers of Salmon like Railroad Earth. It also included up and comers like Sierra Ferrell and Larkin Poe.
“It’s a musical cul de sac,” Herman says of the multigenerational sweep represented by the festival. “It’s definitely not Main Street, but when I was starting to do this back in the ’80s, Tim O’Brien was really a role model for me as a guy who made a good living playing music, and then of course he wrote all these number one hits, which didn’t hurt. But I kind of had this image that in this genre you might not become Taylor Swift rich, but you might be able to make a living.”
It has been a big summer already for Leftover Salmon with the album release, appearances at festivals including the Dark Star Jubilee and a Memorial Day “Pick-Nic” with co-headliners Kitchen Dwellers. On July 9, the band will kick off the Rowdy Summer Nights Tour as part of the Concerts Under the Stars series in King of Prussia, outside of Philadelphia. The unique tour will rotate headliners each night between Leftover Salmon, Infamous Stringdusters and Kitchen Dwellers.
The collaborations, recordings, festival appearances and an invitation to perform at the Grand Ole Opry were not part of any grand vision when Herman met Emmitt on his first night in Boulder after moving from Morgantown, W.Va.
“I’m amazed by it. We’ve never had a plan, we never have really done anything by design and just kind of haphazardly limp along doing this stuff,” Herman says. “And it’s amazing that it hasn’t imploded at this point. But we have a great team of people we work with and have worked with over the years. There’s a community kind of around it that, I don’t know, almost protects it and keeps the ball bouncing.”
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