Chattanooga Times Free Press music reporter Casey Phillips spoke with Railroad Earth acoustic bassist Johnny Grubb about the band’s origins, playing the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and keeping things from flying apart on stage.

CP: How did the band find each other?

JG: Actually, I’m kind of the new guy around. I was the only one who auditioned to get the gig. The other guys grew up in northern New Jersey, and they’ve known each other for, gosh, decades. It got to the point where they weren’t committed to anything. They’d all been checking each other out for 20 years or so, and they finally got to the point where they weren’t committed to anything else, so they started jamming, and it was magical. Somebody came along and said, “Hey, you guys should be playing some shows,” so they sent out a couple of tapes and, bam, they got the Telluride Festival.

CP: How did the members of the band react to playing the Telluride Bluegrass Festival as one of their first gigs?

JG: To be honest, I’m not sure how they felt. When I joined, they said “Telluride” — they were going to be playing it that year —I had an inkling that, “Oh, that’s one of those big bluegrass festivals,” but I don’t think they realized how big a career-building gig that was or they would have been nervous because Telluride is one of the crown jewels of the bluegrass circuit. To be invited, and paid, straight out of the gate when you’ve hardly played any gigs is pretty cool.

CP: Was there any history of bluegrass musicianship in the band?

JG: Ironically, no (laughs). I suppose you could call Andy (Goessling) a bluegrass player. He’s an multiinstrumentalist, and he’s a pretty accomplished flat picker, so I guess you could say he came from a bluegrass background. John started playing the mandolin, but I’m not sure how much of a bluegrass background he came from since he went to a classical musical school in Pennsylvania to play the piano. They would be our resident bluegrassers, but the rest of the guys are basically rock’n’roll, myself included.

CP: When Has the band been back to Telluride since you joined in 2003?

JG: When “The Good Life” came out in 2004 was the last time we were there. That was quite a treat. I don’t think I’ve been treated so well by any other festivals. Good lord. They put us up in the nicest five-star hotel. I guess they ran out of options for where to put us because they put us up in the nicest place I’ve ever stayed in my life.

CP: With all the wild solos going on, how do you keep things together on stage? Does it ever all apart on stage?

JG: (laughs) Very occasionally, but fortunately, only very occasionally, and even then, Carey doesn’t stop playing, so we usually pull it out. I wish I could give you a quantified answer, to tell you the truth. The secret I’ve found over the years is to think about it as little as possible. Maybe we’ve gotten to the point where we can trust each other. Usually, when we start thinking, I can see it in my bandmate’s eyes when we start thinking about a tune we have’t played in a while, and that’s when stuff gets derailed a bit.

CP: Has anyone ever gone off on a solo that went just a little too far?

JG: Oh yeah, all the time. That’s when it gets really fun, actually. When someone goes so far out that everyone realizes, “OK, this is going somewhere new, so let’s see what we can do with it,” that’s a lot of fun.

CP: How long did it take to get to that comfort level? Is that something that you’ve had to really work up to, or has it always been there to some degree?

JG: There’s definitely always been a degree of natural chemistry there, but honestly, in the last two years, I feel like we’ve really hit our stride with pulling together and being able to trust each other. Now, we’ve not got too many people trying to give too many ideas to other people. Everybody’s just letting everybody else do what they want to do. It’s a lot more fun that way. When you’ve got six incredibly talented guys in a room, everybody’s going to have ideas for everybody else’s part, but that gets cloying and fake after awhile when you’re trying to satisfy too many people at the same time. We’ve gotten to the point where you just pare it down and worry about your part and who it fits in with everyone else’s and don’t worry about the banjo line, you’ll get used to it. It sounds a lot better that way 99 times out of 100.

CP: How did the guys who formed the band manage to find artists with that degree of flexibility and approach to music? Were the original members looking for other people with that kind of mentality?

JG: No, and I think that’s probably why it worked out. With every band experience I’ve had, the harder you try, the less likely it is to come off. It’s like with first dates. I’m not sure what everyone was doing for a living at that point, but nobody was committed to anything else. They started off just doing bluegrass jams at Andy’s house. They had a blast with it, and at some point Todd (Scheaffer) came in and brought his songs. I don’t know where Carey (Harmon) came from, but he brought this super high tenor that he can sing that third and fourth-part harmony. I hate to use the word “cosmic,” but it sure seems cosmic when that kind of thing happens.