Todd Sheaffer: Lead vocals, acoustic guitars
Tim Carbone: Violin, vocals
John Skehan: Mandolin, vocals
Andy Goessling: Acoustic guitars, banjo, dobro, mandolin, flute, pennywhistle, saxophones, vocals
Carey Harmon: Drums, hand percussion, vocals
Johnny Grubb: Upright bass

Railroad Earth just completed a 2 night run at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston, MA. I was lucky enough to sit down with the members of the band before their Saturday show and spoke with them about how they formed, their influences, life on the road, Rothbury, and more. Read the transcript below or listen to the audio here:

John Skehan: 2001, maybe the end of 2000?
Tim Carbone: As far as how we all met, we’ve known each other for a long time. Most of us are from Northwestern New Jersey so we’ve been in and around the same musical circles for many years actually. We all kind of found ourselves available at the same time and we began jamming at Andy Goessling’s house, pickin’ a bunch of bluegrass tunes. Then Todd came around in the fall or the end of the summer and he had a bunch of his songs which we tried to frame in that [bluegrass] context and that’s pretty much how it happened.

Todd Scheaffer: I write a lot of them, John [Skehan] writes a lot of instrumentals, and we do some together, and that’s the way it all comes together. Some with Andy, some with other guys... you know?

Johnny Grubb: Dartboard method.
Skehan: It changes a lot, you know, we usually start with a loose pile and pick from that and see if it shapes into something, and if we don’t like the shape it’s taking, we’ll rearrange it. Tim and I actually did the Tic-Tac-Toe method the other night where I wrote down a song and then he wrote down another one but in any order of where it might be. So in other words I wrote down the first song for the first set and he wrote down the third song in the second set and it just went back and forth. And it came out pretty well.
Carbone: It was kinda fun.
Skehan: I’m not sure which one of us won.
Carbone: [chuckling] I think you won.

Skehan: It changes all the time. Whichever one’s really feeling great— and hopefully they all are. Sometimes every now and then you really hit one and it just gets going.
Carbone: Yea, you know it changes all the time, I mean right now I kind of like the fiddle tune that we were just working on [during sound check]: I like playing it, I like the way it sounds when I play it. So sometimes it’s just a sound thing and what it’s feeling like when we’re playing it.

Grubb: Almost freakishly disparate influences, I’d say.
String Cheese Radio: And what would those influences be?
Grubb: Ah, I grew up on the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, and [Andy] grew up on the Beatles, and [John] grew up on Mozart as far as I can tell.
Carbone: Yea, I mean everyone has different influences and things that informs their playing and we’re all bringing it to the same place, putting it on the table at the same time. Everyone has different influences in their instrumental playing. Andy definitely has a bluegrass influence but he can also finger pick the livin’ begeezies out of the guitar. So you know, different players influenced me and different people influence me, not necessarily even musicians but people that are singular beings like Frank Lloyd Wright or Leonardo DaVinci— it doesn’t necessarily have to be a musician that influences you in how you approach what you do.

Scheaffer: Well since you run the String Cheese Radio, [chuckling] it’s probably well worth mentioning that we’ve become very good friends [with the members of String Cheese Incident] and it’s really a lot of fun to play with them.
Grubb: Except Billy.
All: [laughing]
Grubb: God Almighty...
String Cheese Radio: And why is that?
Grubb: Fucking guy thinks he can just hop up there and jam any time he wants to.
All: [laughing]
Grubb: You know, nevermind if it’s some big high pressure festival set in front of 20,000 people there’s Billy Nershi [laughing] screwin’ around with you.
All: [laughing]
Scheaffer: Trying to buy some tequila…
All: [laughing]
Grubb: You know? Mr. Good Times...
Carbone: Actually, Johnny Grubb our bass player’s gonna be having his second child. Well he isn’t personally, his wife is, so he’s not gonna be able to go on Jam Cruise with us. But we were lucky enough to get Keith Moseley to come play with us so we’ll be playing with one of the boys— one of ‘dem guys.

Grubb: Tim could probably fill up this whole paragraph. [chuckling]
Carbone: I just finished up a record actually with Keith and Jason from String Cheese, and Jeff Miller and Phil Ferlino from New Monsoon. It’s a little project we call The Contribution. We all wrote songs together and recorded them in about fourteen days time.
Skehan: I’ve been refurbishing an old harpsichord. Sort of a solitary, tragically lonely side project.
All: [laughing]
Skehan: It’s a difficulty thing to get working.
String Cheese Radio: Will we ever see its debut in a Railroad Earth song?
Grubb: Not if the rest of us can help it. [chuckling]

Skehan: I’d say we get along pretty well.
Carbone: It’s a big enough bus you know, you can get away from or get close to whoever you want. Everyone has their own bunks. It’s sort of like a crypt [chuckling], you know everyone gets into their crypt.
Scheaffer: Sorta like a veal pen is what it’s like.
All: [laughing]
Skehan: All that moving around on stage makes us tough, stringy and hard to chew on.
All: [laughing]
Carey Harmon: That’s great.
Carbone: [Sarcastically] A veal pen...

Carey: Our manager and a promoter put it together.
String Cheese Radio: Awesome I really appreciate the 2 nights here in Boston.

Grubb: Well honestly, grassroots promotion has played a large part in the overall promotion and growth of this band. And it just kind of goes hand in glove with social networking because that’s basically just word of mouth in the internet age. I don’t know if it’s actually made it easier because everyone has an outlet now there’s so much noise you gotta cut through. But it’s really made it easier to get through to people that are looking for you for sure.

Grubb: Rothbury [without hesitation] because it fucking rocked
Skehan: I second that.
Grubb: They pulled out all the stops. Were you there?
String Cheese Radio: Yea, I was there.
Grubb: Yea, they killed it dude. I think a lot of other festivals got scared by the whole economy falling into the shitter and didn’t maybe go as balls out as they had in years past with ambiance, free flowing beverages and whatever the hell else, but Rothbury, man, they just blew it out and it really came through in the vibe. It just felt really good.
String Cheese Radio: I would agree.

Grubb: Depends on what you mean by plans.
String Cheese Radio: Umm
Grubb: Yes.
String Cheese Radio: Yes? Any details?
Grubb: As far as a time schedule I think it’s still up in the air.
String Cheese Radio: Down the road?
Carbone: Probably some time next year, I would imagine.

Carbone: We’re working on it.
Skehan: It starts coming together usually around this time of year. It’s not quite mapped out yet.

Grubb: [chuckling] You’re not gonna get anything out of us buddy.
All: [laughing]
Grubb: You keep reading Phantasy Tour and call us and tell us what you find out. Alright? You’ll probably know before we do.

Carbone: Well thanks a lot to String Cheese Incident Radio for coming down and asking us these kind questions.
String Cheese Radio: No problem, it’s my pleasure.