Guitarist Bill Nershi and bassist Keith Moseley offer a state of the union on their band’s COVID-19-era activities.

STAYING POSITIVE

KEITH MOSELEY: We finished 2019 with these hometown Thanksgiving shows at the Mission Ballroom in Denver. We didn’t do New Year’s, which is traditionally a big show for us—just to change things up and do Thanksgiving instead. It was also right around the time that the Mission Ballroom was just getting going.

We’d already planned to be off from those shows until the summer of 2020; we were hoping to take a six-month break after our big 25th anniversary tour. And then, by the time March rolled around, we started getting all the lockdown and virus news. It was a shocker.

I was also a few weeks away from a family Spring Break trip to Mexico that we canceled due to virus fears. But, before that, I had actually been seeing a lot of music. The last show that my wife and I went out to see was Keller Williams up in Nederland; we went out with some friends, and Keller called me up to sit-in on a few tunes, which was fun. Prior to that, we saw The Wood Brothers just after the first of the year, and I got to go out with my wife and dance to the JGB on New Year’s in Summit County.

Once the shutdown happened, we holed up for a few months. Knowing that String Cheese’s tour was going to be canceled and that there wasn’t going to be a lot of music happening, March, April and May were depressing. When it finally rolled around to June, I did play some outdoor gigs, which were a lot of fun. The first thing I did was Andy Thorn’s Tiny Deck Concert with Andy, Ross James and Mark Levy. And it was just overwhelmingly satisfying to get out and play live music after so many months off. Throughout the summer, I had half a dozen outdoor, socially distanced, small-crowd shows—a couple of backyard parties and private things. Just the reminder that, even without the String Cheese thing, I’m still able to connect with friends and musicians was hugely rewarding. I also did a lot of bike riding this summer and a lot of walking the dogs. I did a lot of work around the house and some painting— general cleaning and upkeep that hadn’t been done. I’ve been trying to stay busy and stay positive.

BILL NERSHI: The whole 25^th-anniversary run was a real high for everybody in the band. We played a lot of new music during the tour and felt energized. We took a break and planned to get back into it, but then the pandemic hit, and we haven’t played a gig since. I try to keep hopeful about what’s gonna happen, but it’s tough right now. I’m not the most tech-savvy person; I can figure it out, but now all the music opportunities are online. My wife Jilian and I did do a string of eight shows in Colorado that ran the gamut from a rooftop restaurant to three microbreweries and a show that was auctioned off by Conscious Alliance at the Boulder Theater. We also went out to the Mishawaka Amphitheater and did a socially distanced show, with people spread out. We hadn’t played to a live audience in so long that I felt this super buzz—seeing people and interacting like that.

The audiences, aside from the private show, were anywhere from 70-150 people. Since people aren’t really traveling for shows during the pandemic, there’s this local scene. So we were mostly playing to the people that lived in the neighborhoods where our shows were—these local customers. I don’t mind playing small shows—I used to play après-ski and happy-hour shows around Telluride with whichever buddy of mine was in town for the season. I like really being able to look at people and talk to them on more of a personal basis, although I don’t encourage conversation during the songs. [Laughs.]

THE AGE OF ZOOM

KM: We’ve dipped our toes into that remote, Zoomstyle recording. In April, we recorded “Pretty Good” as a nod to John Prine after his passing. It was all completely lo-fi—we played into our iPhones—but it came out pretty well, considering. Unfortunately, the band has not been together—we are just spread apart at this point. Kyle [Hollingsworth] and I are the only two [members of String Cheese] who still live in Colorado. [Michael] Kang and Jason [Hann] both are in California, [Michael] Travis is in Maine, and Bill [Nershi] has been spending time in Kauai. So, physically, we’re about as far apart as we can be. We’re trying to respect the safety measures; we’re not trying to push the envelope in order to get together. In the early fall, there was some talk of trying to get together and do some drive-in shows or record at an empty venue, but, as the dates were approaching, COVID was ramping back up and they started clamping down again and limiting how many people could gather in Colorado. Unfortunately, we had to pull the plug and postpone until things improve.

It’s been challenging to be apart from all the guys. Certainly, we’ve stayed in contact—we have band meetings every other week on Zoom where we talk strategy and connect, but I miss everybody. We’ve all been checking out the Friday Night Cheese webcasts. It’s been interesting to look back and think, “That was a nice moment” or “I would really change how I play bass on that tune.” Sometimes I’ll grab a bass and play along.

The webcasts have led to some self-reflection, and that’s been healthy. Self-review, self-critique and change have always been part of what we do—we’ll try to go back and listen to a sampling of shows during a tour.

Kyle and I have also been getting together a little bit and doing some songwriting, which has been great. We’re trying to get some new tunes on deck for when the band is back together. We may even try to do some remote recording with some of these tunes. But the challenge is that we typically write as a band. Bill, Kyle, myself or someone else will bring in a song that is mostly complete, but then we’ll play it for the band and someone will say, “That’s awesome, but what if we did this before we went to the second chorus?”

BN: On our Zoom calls, we used to talk about who was going to host Friday Night Cheese but, eventually, we decided that Jason does the best job with his tripped-out character. So he’s the host all the time now.

What I’m feeling right now is that I need to live and have some more experiences, and then I’ll write about them. Everybody in the band writes individually and, when we get ready to record, we’ll bring whatever we are working on to the band. Some songs come in complete; other times, for instance, Kyle might bring in a keyboard progression or a chorus and we’ll work on new parts together or splinter off. Kyle and Keith might work on lyrics for a song or we might write all together in the studio. For the 25th anniversary, we had around 14 new songs. Since we’ve had our studio— The Lab—it’s made things way easier. Now, when we have an idea, we can make a call to our engineer and just roll with it.

THE ALOHA SPIRIT

BN: About a year ago, my wife and I sold our house in Nederland, moved to Denver, and got a place in the Hawaiian Islands. So we traded in our family mountain home for a little coconut farm. We’ve been working on the property. We have a tangelo tree that won’t quit, avocados, bananas and coconuts. We’ll get up in the morning, cut a couple of coconuts down and have some coconut water. There’s no skiing—my skis actually got stolen—but I still have my paddleboard out here and I’m ready to start learning how to surf. Kang’s gotten pretty good at surfing. And Travis is sailing out in Maine now. [Laughs.]

We have some really good friends on the island that are great players. There’s a group of like 10 of us who are really tight and spend time together. We’re learning some island songs; I like the really rootsy Hawaiian tunes that these guys know.

I bring the bluegrass. Now, they’re like, “I wanna learn how to play fiddle tunes.” And we all like to play reggae and the Dead.

We’ve been talking about doing some Venmo concerts with our island friends; I’m hoping to do some livestreaming and invite some of the locals out here to jam. If we can get everything planted and finish all the projects on the house, I’ll have the time to do that. [Laughs.]

I’m sure this is just the tip of the iceberg, but it takes time to get to know the people out here. But, there’s some good Aloha spirit out here for sure.

I’m super blessed. I’m humbled to be able to do this and I have String Cheese Incident to thank for me being able to be out here on the island.

FRESH TRACKS

KM: String Cheese recorded a song with SunSquabi a few months ago. Kang, Jason and Kyle were the only band members who played on it, but we all knew it was going on. It was like, “We’ve got the bass part covered here; don’t worry about it.” And it came out great. Listening back, it’s like, “Maybe we can add it to the repertoire.”

We are also hoping to do some remote recording—one of us can start something, play to a click track, send it around to the other guys or maybe collaborate with another artist. I’ve been purposefully trying not to write about COVID; though I do have one new tune that addresses some of the hardships a little bit. It’s been a time of honest reflection for a lot of people, and it’s been difficult for me, at times, to deal with it. You’ve got good days and you’ve got a little more challenging days. The whole lockdown, having your whole profession and livelihood put on hold—it’s a lot to deal with. And just being separated from the main way that we’ve lived our lives, touring and performing has been an adjustment. On the positive side, it does allow me to spend more time with my family and it does allow me to refocus on some things around the house. But there’s definitely been some hard times and some depression to deal with as well. And just to be honest, you want to address some of that in your music.

Our studio space is about 15 minutes away from where I live, so I’ve been going over there. It’s been a great hideout for me—a place to go and focus on music, a place to go to still feel like I’m going to work. The office hours have changed, but it’s been great to meet Kyle there and work on tunes. Our engineer has also been working on a couple of small projects, so there’s a little bit of light in studio land.  

OLD TAPES, NEW VINYL

KM: Our merch company has done a good job of revisiting some of the older releases. ‘Round the Wheel was never actually released on vinyl until now. That album was recorded locally at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. They have a music program there, including a studio where they teach engineering. Knowing that we could get affordable studio rates from the university, we would go in after hours and record with one of the house engineers. We didn’t have much of a budget for making new records back then. It was all selfproduced. We have grown so much with each release, in terms of the songwriting, the self-production and the professionalism of it all. But, for all the mistakes and the lack of polish, the early releases do have a certain amount of youthful exuberance, energy and optimism.

BN: [During the final 25th anniversary show, we nodded to] our first recording, Aged Cheese. We recorded that with Bruce Hayes. [Laughs.] He wasn’t ever in String Cheese, but he was one of the people that we’d do these pickup gigs with in Crested Butte. I would find Mike and see who could play bass; Keith would play when he could, but there was a revolving cast. And then Bruce couldn’t come to play a show with Mike, Keith and I. Travis had just gotten back to town. I didn’t know him, but the other guys did, and they said, “Travis is a really good conga player.” We got this gig at the arts center in Crested Butte, and that was the first show we played as a four-piece.

We wanted to make an album and Bruce had some recording equipment and played dobro and mandolin; he’s a great musician. We started the recording and then we broke into his place while he was out of town to finish the tape. That was right at the inception. I like the rawness of the old stuff; it’s gotten a little slicker these days. [Laughs.]