Democratic Conventions

Here’s an easy rhetorical question: What Nashville sidemen would pass up the chance to do their own thing once in a while? Probably not many. Hell, aptly named Station Inn regulars the Sidemen did it weekly before members formed the more serious Grascals.

The Infamous Stringdusters, too, joined forces amid other gigs a few years back. Dobro player and vocalist Andy Hall, fiddler and vocalist Jeremy Garrett and mandolin player Jesse Cobb met while backing Ronnie Bowman. But from the beginning, this band was the focus. “Everyone quit their gigs, some of us even moved to Nashville to start this band,” says bassist and vocalist Travis Book.

Not that the Stringdusters—rounded out by banjo player Chris Pandolfi and guitarist Andy Falco—just started. Last year’s debut, Fork in the Road, won the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Album of the Year award. Now they’re releasing a new album—The Infamous Stringdusters (their second on Sugar Hill). Applying the typical first-album self-titling move to their second one could signal that they couldn’t agree on what to call it. But highlighting their band name also drives home what a serious band they’ve made from a varied group of singers, songwriters and instrumentalists, and how far they’ve traveled from their strictly sidemen days.

Considering how democratic and well balanced the Stringdusters are, it’s unlikely the album title came from a quarrel. Almost every member—except Falco, the newest addition—contributed a song. “[Andy] Falco had just joined the band, so we were all still integrating his sound,” Book says.

And egos don’t dictate that the one who wrote a song sings it (example: Book co-wrote “You Can’t Handle the Truth” but Garrett sings lead on it). “I think between all three vocalists, they generally know whose voice will fit a particular song best, and it actually happens very naturally,” says Falco. “It’s just the type of situation where a song is introduced and it’s almost obvious who will be the lead vocalist for that song.”

The sextet’s non-territorial approach probably has something to do with their having supported other performers. “We all have a lot of experience swallowing our pride, and that comes in handy,” says Book. “We know that being in this band is infinitely better than any sideman situation we’ve ever been in, and that’s helped us stay focused on what’s important—staying together and making music as a group.”

The Stringdusters have been cementing their partnership on the road since Fork, and the songs on the album reflect that process. “I think a lot of what made the tunes we recorded—especially the originals—so appealing was the fact that they had been written while we were playing as a band,” Book says.

While the band members are fairly young, unlike some of their peers, they’re not experimenting with wildly complex Chris Thile-esque compositions (though original Stringdusters guitarist Chris Eldridge left to join Thile’s Punch Brothers) or slipshod string-band approaches (like Old Crow Medicine Show). But neither are they keeping it traditional. Flexibility is key: Anything they didn’t write this time came from fellow acoustic musicians, but Fork featured a cover of John Mayer’s “3x5.”

The Stringdusters also frequently detour from straight bluegrass drive. “Get It While You Can”—a track with a syncopated R&B backbeat—is a good example. “We strive for a lot of variety in our material, which poses a real rhythmic challenge,” says Pandolfi. “To create different rhythmic feels with bluegrass instrumentation can take a lot of work. Each guy has to find a role to play, and they need to add up to something solid and musical. That is one of the most rewarding things about playing with the same group of people every night—everything gets tighter with time.”