Yonder Mountain String Band Discusses Mental Health, EP With the Late Jeff Austin

When Yonder Mountain String Band released I'd Like Off, a five-song EP that showcases the group's original lineup — including late mandolin player and impassioned singer Jeff Austin — many fans of the Colorado jamgrass all-stars were thrilled to hear lost takes from when the former frontman was part of the group's well-loved mix.

Yonder, which also just finished working on a new album that includes its present-day lineup and is set for release this November, continues to tour and perform. Its current tour brings the band home to Colorado later this summer for a three-night run with Railroad Earth and Leftover Salmon — at Levitt Pavilion on Friday, August 16, Dillon Amphitheater on Saturday, August 17, and the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater on Sunday, August 18.

While I'd Like Off was welcomed by fans upon its March release, it also stirred up emotions and memories. Westword spoke with Yonder Mountain bass player Ben Kaufmann, who shared his own thoughts about the five-song reveal.

Westword: What's the story behind the release of your latest EP, I'd Like Off?

Ben Kaufmann: We've been gathering together our archives. We have lots of live-show recordings and videos and things from all over the place. In the process of looking at it all, we came across a bunch of recordings from a number of different sessions that we did around 2010 and 2011. We started listening to those and being reminded of when we had plans to make a new record. That record never happened, but we discovered some demos and rough recordings and, in some cases, actual studio basics. When we listened to them, it was a really positive experience, and we thought that the fans, especially those of the original Yonder Mountain lineup, would really enjoy hearing them as well. So we had some discussions about releasing the recordings, because there are many different opinions out there about our band, some of which are very vitriolic and polarizing. So the decision was tough. But ultimately, we're responsible for making our own creative decisions in terms of what we think is important to release and what we think people would like to hear, so we decided to release them.

And now people can finally hear them.

Yeah. The I'd Like Off recordings came from a very interesting and challenging time in Yonder Mountain's history. They're from the era of the dissolution of the band and the decision to go our separate ways from Jeff. That time was fraught with conflict and half a lifetime of playing music together; it was incredibly complicated. We were trying to make a record, and we all brought songs to contribute to the project. The intention was to have them on a full-length Yonder release, but the reality of that time, and all the complications of touring and the interpersonal stuff that was happening, all conspired to keep us out of the studio. We were on the road so much at that time, and we just wanted to be at home and with our families. But listening back to it and rediscovering the songs, we found that it was good to listen to it.

So you're glad that you decided to release the songs?

For a long time, I resisted and refused to listen to recordings of the original Yonder band, because it brought back up some of the very real and difficult relationship issues. It was just challenging. But I've found that as time passes, that trauma and grief become easier to re-engage with or consider. The analogy I like is that if you pick up a rock with sharp edges, it's hard to hold, but if you put that rock in the river for a hundred years and then take it out, it's easier to handle and maybe even pleasant to hold at that point. So yeah, I found that listening to these songs and offering them to our fans was a good thing. We also knew that by releasing the record, we were going to kick the hornet's nest. That's what the art on the cover implies: It depicts a guy stomping on a hornet's nest.

Did putting out the EP provide any kind of therapy for you?

Well, music can be a vehicle to express and channel things that we're working through or working on and that we might not know how to deal with. Many of Jeff's songs and his powerful performances were born from the challenges and the trauma and the struggles that he was attempting to deal with in life. It was a way to channel some of his feelings. What we realized when we were revisiting this material was that it was us attempting to address these difficult issues. It's a complicated thing, but the songs on the record deal with mental health and the struggles of repeating self-harming patterns or having suicidal thoughts and not knowing what to do. To me, it's important to have these songs released with this discussion about mental health attached to them. Looking back on it now and knowing what unfolded, there's a lot to learn from them.

What can you tell us about the tunes?

There are five songs on the EP. Their themes all touch on what we were going through. They include "What the Night Brings," which Jeff wrote and sings, and "I'd Like Off," which I wrote and sing. "Ripcord Blues" and "Don't Lean on Me" were written by Dave [Johnston]. Adam [Aijala] wrote "Pockets." Jeff's song is a lot about the repetition of harmful patterns that you can't seem to escape. It was something that we were observing in the band at that time.

We all were struggling in our own ways. My song was written from a place of not knowing if life was worth living anymore. The genesis of the song came from before I'd even met anyone in the band. It was written while I was in college, a year or so before I met Jeff. It came from my general depression at the time. My mental health story is unique to my experiences, but at the time, it was born of some general angst that I felt as a young adult and as a creative person. Artists can struggle. I struggled, I certainly did. Music, lyrics and performance was something that helped me and soothed me. It made my heart and soul more whole.

Do you think these kinds of emotional issues can be addressed and healed?

Well, therapy helped save my life many times over. You have to do all you can to break the chain and survive your trauma and issues, or you can choose not to confront them, because it's not easy to do. I haven't solved all my problems, that's for sure. The human experience is complex. Part of why the original Yonder broke up is because we couldn't be around each other without being triggered. But yeah, I'm trying to solve some of my problems. To be alive is to struggle and suffer, and that doesn't mean there isn't also tremendous joy in life. The human experience is complicated.

Do you want to say anything else about all of this?

I was profoundly impacted by Jeff's death. Looking back, I'm a little more balanced about it now, and I can see that stuff wasn't right. The fact that I wrote about some of these things before it happened speaks to the universality of the human experience. You can't know why someone comes to the point where they've had enough. I felt a true brotherhood with Jeff, though I was also challenged at times. He was loved, and love can encompass a lot and be complex.

I'm trying to use my life as an opportunity to make music that's reaching people and having a positive impact. We're finding positivity and wonderful moments by bringing back some of Jeff's songs. Some of the tunes that he made his own we'll never touch, because to do some of what he did, you'd have to suffer profoundly. People genuinely cared about those moments in time. They were profound and possibly life-altering events. Everyone's doing the best they can to live their own life.

I pray that people find themselves on a path of love, light, health and friendship. Life presents challenges, and hopefully we find ourselves well resourced to handle those challenges when they come. We're all navigating existence to the best of our abilities. I want to put out into the universe that it's okay to struggle, have trauma and to suffer, but the thing that has to happen is that you as the individual have to be self-motivated to take the hard steps down the path to self-preservation. And it's hard. I share my own experience in the off chance that it might be valuable or useful for someone else.

Learn more about Yonder Mountain String Band and its tour dates at yondermountain.com, where a 10' vinyl edition of I'd Like Off is also available.