Mandolin player Drew Emmitt on Salmon’s 20th anniversary and the importance of keeping roots music alive

Open Roads
We didn’t know what was gonna happen when we took a break [in 2004] and there was no guarantee that we were gonna get back together as a band. We just needed some space from each other and to get off the road. But the way it’s come back together has been really great – it’s almost like there was a plan for us. We’re just doing a few shows and some festivals and are having fun playing music again and not having to do the whole deal – the whole road trip and getting on the bus and all that. It’s really fresh. We can do our side projects, which I guess are not really side projects anymore, but our main projects. I couldn’t be happier at this point in my life. Diversification is the way to keep things from getting boring.

Coming Full Circle
[Our 20th anniversary on New Year’s Eve] was a real significant milestone for us and we decided it would be great to do some hometown shows. We played the first venue we ever played, The Eldo Café [in Crested Butte, Colo.]. It was great taking it all the way back to the beginning and getting some crazy mountain people in a little bar. This summer, we are doing some of our other favorite venues like the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and Red Rocks and we are doing The Fillmore in December for Halloween weekend and Yonder Mountain String Band’s Harvest Music Festival in the fall. So it is just a handful of shows, but I think all of them have some significance for our 20th year, especially Telluride, Colo. That’s by far the biggest thing that we’re doing, and the most significant, ‘cause that’s where we all got together originally in the campgrounds going crazy. It’s always been a festival with an open mind. We are going to release a DVD of our [20th anniversary New Year’s show] at [Denver] The Fillmore. It definitely focuses a little bit more on music than our last one, Years in Your Ears, which is wonderful, but it’s a little more about interviews and less about music.

New Leftover Ideas
[In terms of recording], the focus is on our other bands and getting those recordings out there, but I think when the dust settles with all that, the possibility totally exists of getting everyone in the studio for a new Salmon record. It can be a little confusing at times, but it’s fun as a writer – exhilarating – to have all these different vehicles for our songs. It’s cool because each band gives a different feel to the songs.

The only member of Salmon who has never been on one of our records is [banjo player] Matt Flinner, although he’s been on my record Across the Bridge. He came in when we were looking for a banjo player [after] Mark Vann [passed away in 2002]. We had some different people play with us and it was our bassist Greg Garrison’s idea to call in Matt. We really hadn’t thought of Matt as a banjo player – he is such a prominent mandolin player. He worked out great and then we hired Noam Pikelny fulltime but he quit to play with Johnny Cowan and then, of course, The Punch Brothers. So when we called Matt again, he was down with doing a few shows. He wasn’t so much into the whole road thing, but definitely into doing it this way. It opens up more possibilities when you’re just doing a few really good shows. So we have the opportunity to get people in the band that probably wouldn’t have done it in the old days.

Strong Roots
The more we can keep roots music alive, the better. I’m all for the techno-thing, and I think it’s got a wonderful place in this whole scene, but I don’t wanna see all music turn into being played on laptops as opposed to instruments with strings on ‘em. I think that that’s our part in all of this – to keep this roots music alive. I just think that’s so important. Although I have been thinking, boy, I could combine a techno band with a bluegrass band right now. That would probably be really popular. [Laughs.]