Kral & Jolliff Aboard For Yonder Mountain String Band 2015

One of the biggest surprises of 2014 was Yonder Mountain String Band parting ways with mandolin wiz Jeff Austin. Since Austin’s departure, YMSB has called upon a number of guests to perform with them and none more so than Allie Kral and Jake Jolliff. It appears 2015 will feature more of the same for the group according to Yonder’s Dave Johnston.

Johnston told Listen Up Denver that while Yonder is reluctant to use the phrase “permanent” to describe Jake and Allie’s status, they’ll both be aboard for what looks to be a big 2015 for the band. “We’re looking forward to having them out with us in 2015. We’re really pumped about it. Everyone throws the word permanent around and it’s hard to answer that because I don’t think any band is ever permanent. That said, we are going to be working with them all next year. That’s what I want to emphasize: the five of us will be working next year. We’re really psyched and they’re psyched. It feels like a really good group of collaborative people with a lot of potential,” Johnston explained.

The banjo player also revealed Yonder Mountain String Band has a new studio album “in the can” that is due out in 2015. Both Jolliff and Kral contributed to the LP. “Recording it felt really good. There were kind of two processes happening. One was the recording but a bigger part of it was the compositional aspect of it and coming up with how we wanted to do different parts and how we wanted to arrange different solos. We have Jake on mandolin and Allie on fiddle and they’re both on vocals as well. So we have five different voices now all working together and it feels like the first record we did. It has that energy to it and it was really a fun process. We’re really psyched about it,” Johnston said about the new album.

Yonder Mountain String Band kicks off a guest-filled New Year’s Run at the Boulder Theater tomorrow.