When Jerry Garcia left the party prematurely in 1995, many fans of the sonically adventurous freeform jamming pioneered by the Grateful Dead mourned the passing not just of a certain brand of music but of the scene that followed it from show to show. Though Garcia was an irreplaceably unique rock presence, longtime jam fans didn’t have to go without worthy substitutes for very long. From Phish to moe, a reassuring number of eager young upstarts quickly arose from college towns all across the continent to fill the void with soaring solos, spontaneous playing, eye-opening setlists, and a happy renewal of the anything-and-everything-goes ethic that lies too often forgotten at the very heart of rock and roll. Chief among these was a quintet of part-time musicians who’d connected in the ski towns of Colorado and decided that playing for meals was better that paying for them. Little did they know what kind of meal ticket their idea would turn out to be. Within months of its formation, the band known as String Cheese Incident was on its way to well deserved international acclaim. Steeped in everything from bluegrass and jazz to classic rock and funk, theirs was a sound that quickly captured the imaginations of music fans seeking something more than risk-free concerts played by the numbers for a easy paycheck. Today, the now six man ensemble is known for the nearly bottomless musical talents of its members and the daring live shows they come together to create. Followed from gig to gig by legions of self-proclaimed cheeseheads, String Cheese Incident has reached the rarified level of bona fide phenomenon. And they’re showing no signs of slowing down. Recently, we spoke with bassist Keith Moseley who, through the miracles of modern technology, talked to us about the band’s past, present, and future while doing yard work at his Boulder, Colorado home.

Let’s start by finding a little bit about where you come from.

I grew up in Edmund, Oklahoma, a suburb of Oklahoma City. Started playing guitar about age 10. I guess my first musical experience was six months of piano lessons and then I quit that and played some trumpet in junior high band for about two or three years until I got my first guitar and was all about rock radio and burning the guitar. I was taken by Aerosmith and Kiss and AC/DC. Then that grew into the Stones and the Beatles. I was big into Neil Young.

Was yours a musical household? Was there a lot of music going on?
Or was it just you in your room.

Mostly my own. I guess my dad had played some trumpet in school and liked to listen to music. There was music in the house, but it was kind of that early teen years escape (for me). Rocking out in your own room with the radio, and then once I discovered that I could play guitar, once I started to learn to play, I spent many hours locked away doing that.

How did you get into the music business. At what point did you say,
“ I think I would like to do this all the time.”

I played some guitar in college, at San Diego State. I played in a couple of party bands. Covers mostly and that sort of thing. Classic rock stuff. We were doing some more sort of roots things too - some Creedence, some Stones. That sort of thing. Then I got out of school and moved to Colorado with the intention of doing some ski-bumming. I started playing music again just for fun. Then I kind of got introduced to the whole bluegrass thing. After I got out in Colorado, I went to Telluride Bluegrass and got into that. I reconnected with the acoustic and started playing some bluegrass music. I was doing that part time and one year I had an epiphany when I was at Telluride as a fan that what I really wanted to do was play music. From then on I set out to make that happen.

When did you make the shift from the guitar to the bass?

When String Cheese started. When we were putting together the band, Billy was a friend. I had played some guitar with him, and we started talking about putting this band together. He was a better guitar player than me and there wasn’t a bass player, so there you go. I said, “Well, I guess I’ll try to become a bass player.”

So String Cheese Incident started as just you and a bunch of guys just kind of hanging out in Boulder wanting to play together?

Actually it was in Crested Butte, Colorado. The first gig we ever did was kind of a local talent show, a talent night kind of thing. And it was Billy and Michael and Travis and myself. I think we had a 15 minute slot and played a little bluegrass. I don’t remember exactly what we covered. I think we covered a David Grisman tune. And maybe a bluegrass standard or two. It went over well. We had a lot of fun with it. Of course, the next thought was, “Well, can we get some work doing this in the ski town scene?” because any work playing music, obviously, is better than any other kind of work we could do there. So that was the goal, and we started working up happy hour gigs here and there where we were just playing for meals and drinks and that kind of thing. And that led into some real bar gigs. And from there we got the van together and started driving to other ski towns to play. That was really kind of the birth of the band. Hitting the ski towns.

Were you guys always String Cheese Incident? Did you have a different name at any point?

I think for maybe a month we were the Bluestring Experience, or something like that. But we very quickly became the String Cheese Incident.

Where does that name come from?

You know, it’s kind of secret actually. We don’t talk about it much. But it is based on an incident and the idea that every show is a new incident. That’s kind of the thing that’s made it stick. Every time we get together and play music, it’s an incident. You never know what’s going to happen. The relationship between the band and the crowd is important and dynamic. We thought that it all kind of worked with the incident (idea).

The band recently released One Step Closer, which was produced by Malcolm Burn. What did he bring to the recording process?

Malcolm was great. We were looking for a producer who would come in and kind of be a member in terms of contributing with arrangement ideas and even some writing ideas. We do our thing and play a lot of live shows (but) over the years we haven’t had that much studio experience so it’s great to bring in a producer who has the studio experience and can offer suggestions. Different ways to try songs, to arrange songs, to produce songs. Malcolm was quite involved. He’d come up with hooky guitar lines here and there, and suggest vocal parts. He ended up playing some on a couple of tunes. I played guitar and Malcolm would play bass. We switched some things up in the studio just to give it a fresh feel.

Did that help with the creative process?

Yeah, I think it was exciting for everybody, that we did mix things up a bit and really let everyone do their thing. That was the beautiful thing about recording at our friend Dan’s place here in Boulder. It was a house in the foothills of Boulder, where Dan had moved. We set up a whole studio in his place so it wasn’t like a normal recording studio where you go in and the clock is ticking and you’re worried about spending all this money. It was a much more relaxed organic let’s-get-together-and-see-how-these-songs-come-together-without-a-lot-of-pressure thing. So that was a nice way to make the record.

A bit more “Big Pink” than “Record Plant.”

Very much. In fact, it was something we had mentioned a few times in terms of the way we wanted to put the album together and the vibe that we were looking for.

Do you think you would record that way again?

We’d probably love to do it again. I think everyone was really excited about the outcome and the process itself, and I’m sure we would love to try and repeat that if we could.

You all live in the Boulder area. So it must be really nice to go just
a few miles into the canyons and record and go home to your own bed when it’s done.

We did it this last winter, and I had a newborn at home. So it was important for me to be around as much as I could. I think everyone just liked the atmosphere. We’d go to work and do our thing and then we’d come home and continue with our regular lives. It’s not like being away on tour or anything.

Your studio records typically differ quite a bit from your live releases. They’re more song-centric as opposed to jam-centric. Does the band approach studio albums differently than it approaches concerts? Is that
an intentional thing?

Yeah, it is. Certainly in the live setting we like to feel like we can stretch things out a little bit and go long and jam the songs out or do extended solos or whatever. In the studio, our focus was more like, “Well, we do that live. So let’s just make an album where we’re just really focusing on the songs.” There’s really very little soloing on the (new) record at all. It’s a whole other side of being an artist. Just wanting to focus on making a great studio record. To just develop that part of our musical vocabulary. Working on just making a great three-minute song. Something that just doesn’t have to be more than that.

You co-wrote “Brand New Start” on the record with Jim Lauderdale.
Tell us about that collaboration.

I’ve been a fan of Jim’s for a long time. I got turned on to him a number of years ago, and then we saw him four or five years ago, the first time we played at the Merle Watson festival (MerleFest) in North Carolina. He did a little songwriters workshop thing that Billy was in on, and I went and saw that and met Jim, and said, “Hey, I’d love to write with you some time.” And he’s like, “Sure.” So we got together. He’s an amazing creative dude. He’s written a lot of country hits on the radio, but he’s also done an album with Robert Hunter. So he really walks the line between traditional country and bluegrass. He’s written and recorded with Ralph Stanley. But he’s totally aware of the whole Grateful Dead scene and the rock thing as well. So he was a neat guy for me to get together with because I obviously have roots and interest in bluegrass and country as well as the rock and the jam stuff. He was a good fit for me. It was great for me to be able to bounce my song ideas off of him. He’s just crazy. We’d be working on a song together, and all of a sudden he’ll say, “Oh! Hold on a second…” And he’ll punch record on his little recorder and just start humming something different into it. and I’ll say, “What was that? The chorus or something?” And he’ll say, “ Oh no. That was another song idea I’ve got.” In the course of a couple of hours together, he’ll maybe have snippets of three or four different songs as well as the one you’re working on. His brain just works that way. I really enjoy him. He’s just a great guy to be around, and it was a pleasure for me to get to work with him. We’ve had a few sessions now, and I’ve gotten a few songs out of it. It’s been great, and I look forward to doing more with Jim in the future. I think he’s into that, and we hope to get together sometime soon and continue writing.

When you guys are playing live and jam takes off, how does the band know when to bring it back down to earth. Is there a structure to the jam? Is it one big free for all? Is it a combination?

It’s a combination of things. A lot of our songs have sections that lend themselves to (jamming). There’ll be a middle solo section where, say, Kyle starts off with something on the piano as the jumping off point. And we know that every time we play this song at that point potentially, it could go somewhere. Often times there are certain songs and points that you know are going to go, (though) you don’t always know where they’re going to go. And bringing them back is kind of just a matter of everybody listening and trying to be on the same page together and feeling the big phrases. You settle into a groove or a jam, and we’ll start marking the phrase when we come around. Travis or I will start accenting the phrases. Hopefully everyone is feeling the same thing, and at the end of a giant whatever, 64 bars, 128 bars, some kind of big phrase that everybody feels is usually the point where you’ll want to snap back into the song. We just kind of try to catch each other’s eye and give a little nod or something and there you go back into the chorus.

Do you start with a setlist? Or do you hit the stage knowing just
the opening song?

We’ve done that a little bit, but by and large we almost always do setlists and spend a good amount putting a setlist together because we do have such a big play list of songs and cover such a wide variety of stuff. And everybody in the band sings lead on some tunes and whatnot. So we try to get together before the show and throw some things on paper and say, “How does this look?” Does the set have good flow if we do this? Is it too mellow? Is it confusing to the audience because it’s so bi-polar from one song to the next? We try to tailor those things and make sure that everybody gets to sing who wanted to. We try to plan the evening out. Plan out a little musical adventure.

So the band is pretty democratic?

Very much so. Which is great, but it’s also a slow and frustrating process sometimes, too, as you can imagine. You know, if you have one guy who says, “Okay. This is how it’s going to be tonight. We’re going to play this, this, and this. Follow my cue.” There’s no question as to how things are going to go. When you’ve got five guys, six now with Jason on percussion, that all have maybe different ideas about the way the set should go or the way the show should end, when it should end or go into the next or whatever, it’s a little more challenging. You have to ride the line between being totally ego-less and just a listener, but you also want to lead if you have good ideas. So that’s where the experience of playing together for years and years starts to come in because you can feel each other’s subtle cues and intentions and the way that the other guys in the band play. It’s just trying to be aware of that and feeding off of it and really kind of thinking as one unit rather than all those different guys on stage. That’s the challenge.

Do you ever surprise yourselves by how long you play, how long you stretch a tune, or where you take something.

Yeah. If it’s interesting in a jam, then it could go a long time and not feel like along time. When you get in trouble is when you start thinking, “You know, this seems like it’s going kind of long.” That’s usually a sign that maybe it’s not as interesting as it should be or could be, and maybe it’s time to reel it in. You just hope that everybody else is feeling the same thing you’re feeling. Or not, I guess. Maybe if I’m feeling that this isn’t going so well, maybe we should reel it in, but the other guys are thinking that we’re really hitting something here, hopefully they’re right!

Are there any shows that you’ve played that stand out as being
particularly special?

It’s hard, because we’ve played so many, to pinpoint it. But you know these last shows we just did in Oregon at our annual three-day camp-out out there, I thought the band really played well together, and I thought they were some of my favorite shows in a long time.

You’ve got a pretty heavy fall touring scheduled. At one point you’re playing in late October for five nights straight, and not just in one town. Does that kind of pace every get to be a bit much?

Well, yeah. It can be a lot sometimes. But the flip side to that is when you are on tour like that and you’re playing every night, and there’s just not a lot of chance to do much else or think about much else, sometimes, you really just get in the groove of playing and touring and playing together. It gets to that point where you just are getting on stage and struck that you’re not thinking much and are all just on auto pilot together. And that’s a great place to be because that’s when a lot of the magic happens. Everyone in the band can kind of get out of the way of themselves and not over-think things and get in the collective space together to make great music.

Does your family travel with you? Or do they stay home in Boulder?

Not much anymore. They came out and camped out at Horning’s for the long weekend. My wife Kristin was actually on the road with us for almost three years back in the early days. Selling merch and loading gear and being crew. Her and our soundman were the only crew we had. So she totally knows the guys and knows what’s going on with the band and understands the dynamics and all that, which is so valuable to me. Because it is challenging to have kids and be gone as much as we’re gone.

Do you ever miss those days, those simpler days when it was just
the guys in a van?

Yeah, sometimes. You know, there’s something romantic about it. When you look back, it was us against the world. Not much to worry about except who was going to drive after the show, and do we get meals included with the gig tomorrow. Just stuff like that. That was great, and I think that’s what a lot of bands starting off, young bands, and String Cheese in the beginning definitely have. It was us against the world, and we control our own destiny, and we’re going to get out there and work really hard and make it happen. Those days were fun. Sometimes I look back on them and romantically miss them, but I’m really thankful that we’re where we are now, at the level of touring where after the show we can get on the tour bus and go to sleep and let somebody else drive. That’s a nice thing, too. Nothing wrong with that.

Your band seems really free with its music. There are free downloads
on the website. Taping is allowed at the shows. You let fans trade
audience recordings on bitTorrent sites. What’s the thinking behind that philosophy? How did the band arrive at that decision? Why do you think
it’s the right one?

Well, I think the philosophy behind it is an extension of what the Dead had always done with the taping. The first time I heard the Grateful Dead was on someone’s cassette. Someone made a tape for me. I probably had a dozen live Dead tapes before I ever bought an album. It was a free introduction to the music. I think we feel along those same lines. Let’s make what we do accessible and easily available to people and hope that the largest number of people possible can check out the band. From there, of course, the next step is that you hope all those people that enjoy your music will go ahead and buy concert tickets and buy your studio CDs and the things that you do put out. There’s the argument that if everything you’ve got out there is free, then no one’s going to buy your albums. You know, we would love to sell some more albums than we do. We definitely make the bulk of our living off of touring and not from album sales. It would be nice to sell some more, but in the end, I think the most important thing is to get the music to the people. And making it available free is really the way to do that. Again, hopefully people, if they enjoy what you’re doing, they’re going to come out and support and come see your shows and buy your studio releases. It’s a different route to go than a lot of bands that try to get the hot single on the radio or the video on MTV. We do get a little bit of radio play, and of course enjoy that and would love to get a little more, but that’s never been our big goal - to set out to have a hit single and burn up the charts. It’s more been that we love to make music together,. We love to play live. Let’s go out and do that and just build our audience from touring.

You’ve got a lot of fans that follow you around, the cheeseheads.
What’s your take on that whole phenomenon?

It’s pretty flattering to have people that care enough about the music that you play that they’re going to go to every show on a tour. Or ten shows out of a tour or whatever,. And be there and tape the shows and write down the set list every night, and then review the show on-line, and talk about it in detail Just the fact that you’ve got fans that are fanatical enough that they’re really paying attention to what you’re doing. It’s really rewarding because number one, it kind of keeps us on our toes. You know there are people out there that are playing that close attention and really caring. You don’t want to disappoint them. And you know you can’t give them the same exact thing every night either. You want to go out there and mix things up, vary the setlist, change the jams around and try new things all the time. That feeling of spontaneity and experimentation on stage that really lends itself to the fans wanting to see multiple shows. If they’re going to see the exact same thing every night, they’d tire of it after awhile, Knowing that the band is on stage mixing it up and taking chances, and a lot of time we don’t know where it’s going to go or how it’s going to turn out, I think that’s a really appealing thing to a lot of these fans that see a lot of shows.

What gear are you using these days?

I’m playing a few different basses. My main axe has been my Modulus Genesis with passive pick-ups. I’ve been playing a Modulus Quantum, as well. I’ve got a really cool Lakeland hollow body that I played on a lot of the new record. Those are may main axes. I’ve also got a Lakeland five-string. Those are the ones that see most of the action. I’m playing through an Ampeg rig right now, an SVP 4 Pro, and a couple of 6x10 cabinets. And stringing them all with Elixirs.

How has your experience with Elixir Strings been?

They’ve been great. I’ve honestly been using Elixirs for at least five years. I love them. I love the way they last. I love the tone right out of the box. I love the fact that they’re consistent, and I’ve never come up with a bad set. And they last for me. I’m completely behind the Elixir bass strings. In fact, I’ve got Elixirs on my acoustic guitar. I’ve got them on my mandolin. I’ve got them on my electric guitar. That stuff doesn’t all see stage time with String Cheese, but I’m playing them. I’ve been really happy with the Elixir stuff.

What’s on String Cheese Incident’s “to-do” list for the next six months
to a year?

Well, we are about to do this fall tour with a week in Japan. We’re part of this Jerry Garcia benefit coming up later this month, where we’ll be playing with Bobby and Bruce Hornsby and a lot of those guys. We’ve been invited to participate in that. So that will be great fun and a big thrill to get to play with all of those guys. And then we’re off to Japan for a week. I guess it’s our fourth time over to Japan, and that’s really been a fun place to go for us. After that we come back and do the good big tour in the States. And then we’re working on some kind of New Year’s plans. Spring time is kind of an open slate right now. I’m not sure. We’ve been talking about maybe trying to have a little down time. A couple of the guys are talking about doing some traveling. And it leaves time for some side project work as well, which is cool. Some of the guys have been really getting into their side projects, and that just means that when we do get back together everyone is really refreshed and excited to do String Cheese again. That’s what we’re looking for!