The String Cheese Incident’s Keith Moseley Talks Red Rocks, SCI’s 30th Anniversary, New Album ‘Lend Me A Hand’ & More

2023 has been a year of celebration and reflection for The String Cheese Incident. Spring saw the band recording their first album in six years, Lend Me A Hand, and their first following the death of longtime crew member, Jesse Aratow, who died unexpectedly on October 21, 2021. Lend Me A Hand arrives this Friday, September 8.

SCI also clocked their 50th concert at home state venue, Colorado’s iconic Red Rocks, with a memorable run that saw the band performing with Creedence Clearwater Revival legend John Fogerty, a two-show Taylor Swift gag and more.

Looking ahead, the jamgrass pioneers will celebrate 30 years as a band on New Year’s Eve with a three-night stand at Oakland’s Fox Theatre — their first West Coast NYE Incidents since 2006. The 30th anniversary festivities are expected to stretch throughout 2024, as bassist Keith Moseley told JamBase.

“Our actual birthday is December 31st,” he noted. “That’ll [be when we] hit the 30 year mark of the very first gig. So we’re gonna carry the 30 year celebration on into next year for sure. And continue to celebrate being 30, I think all year next year.”

The String Cheese Incident is a quintessential Colorado band. Its original four members — Moseley, guitarist Bill Nershi, mandolinist/fiddler Michael Kang and drummer/percussionist Michael Travis — were united in not only their love of music but also of skiing. Formed around the Colorado ski town of Crested Butte in 1993, the four members combined their passion for music and skiing by playing events at ski slopes and often receiving compensation in lift passes.

Ski towns are very close-knit communities and naturally united by skiing as well. The band was able to parlay this aspect into a close-knit community of their own, which they sought to grow by relocating to Boulder on Colorado’s Front Range. Boulder is a town with several advantages for musicians including a steady stream of young people matriculating through the University of Colorado, renowned venues like the Fox Theatre — a home away from home for Cheese in their early days in Boulder — and a generally progressive, bohemian culture.

Additional pieces of the puzzle in SCI’s success were the additions of keyboardist Kyle Hollingsworth in 1996 and percussionist Jason Hann in 2004. As a trained jazz musician, Kyle upped the band’s musicality and became a consistent songwriter for the group while Jason brought in a variety of different sounds and genres for the band to explore.

Just before Hollingsworth joined the band in ‘96, SCI recorded their debut studio album, Born On The Wrong Planet. The record contains Cheese classics like “Texas,” “Black Clouds” and “Jellyfish,” among others, and arrived on the pioneering independent band’s own SCI Fidelity Records.

SCI followed with a self-titled live record in 1997, recorded at the Fox Theatre in Boulder, marking Kyle’s first record with the group. A second studio album, ‘Round The Wheel, arrived in 1998. In 1999, The String Cheese Incident continued their rise with their debut performance at Red Rocks on June 15, 1999, on a multi-band bill.

A few months later on August 14, 1999, Cheese returned to Red Rocks where they performed on a higher profile, more jam oriented multi-band bill with fellow first generation jam scene bands moe., Gov’t Mule and Galactic along with jam progenitor Phil Lesh as part of the 1999 Summer Sessions Tour. Members of Cheese joined the Grateful Dead bassist as “Friends” in his Phil Lesh & Friends project.

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Playing Red Rocks is often pointed to as a sign that says a band or artist has “made it” as well as something that many groups, including a burgeoning SCI, aspire to.

“I remember before we ever played Red Rocks, the band was passing through Morrison in the van from wherever to wherever,” Moseley recalled. “And the park is open most of the time during the day if there’s no shows. We stopped in. We pulled into the park and hiked up the steps and went onto the stage and stood there and visualized playing there. That was something we did before we ever played [at Red Rocks]. We’re like, ‘yeah, one day we want to do this, let’s make this happen.’”

Make it happen they did. SCI recently marked their 50th show on that hallowed stage. Moseley related his experience performing at Red Rocks for the 50th time during SCI’s latest three-night run at the venue in July.

“It’s a really surreal thing to be standing up there and, and thinking this is the 50th time that we’ve taken the stage at Red Rocks and played this iconic venue to a giant crowd. The excitement never goes away. I always feel butterflies every time we play there. It’s never lost on me.

“We walk out there and look up at the crowd and it’s like ‘this is one of the best venues anyone would ever play. And here we are for the 50th time.’ And you look out there and I feel like I recognize half the crowd. You start in the daytime and the way that Red Rocks is situated, people are just up at close and looking down on you. To look up there and see so many familiar faces is amazing. And the sense of community we’ve helped to cultivate is really amazing.

“That’s one of the things that I’m most proud of and thankful for is this community of people. I can’t tell you how many people tell me, ‘oh, I met my partner at your gigs. I met my spouse, I met my business partner, my best friend.’ It’s just an incredible group of people that come to see our shows now.

It’s a real vibe of acceptance and celebration and the crowd’s there for each other and looking out for each other. And so now we’re kind of like this soundtrack. We curate these events that bring these amazing people together. And for that I just couldn’t be more pleased. It’s an amazing fan base, we’re super fortunate to have ’em along.”

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“Playing with John Fogerty was super cool for me,” Moseley added of the John Fogerty Incident during their Red Rocks run this year. “Those were some of the first songs I ever learned to play on guitar. You know, ‘Have You Ever Seen The Rain,’ ‘Lodi,’ ‘Bad Moon Rising.’ Creedence was definitely some of the early albums I had and learned to play. So that was an amazing experience. But yeah, Red Rocks 50 times — it’s kind of a mindblower.”

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Along with the 50 Red Rocks plays, Cheese is celebrating another milestone at the end of the year.

“It’s not something I think any of us could have envisioned early on that here we’d be here 30 years later, all the same guys, having played thousands of shows and traveled all over and made a life out of it,” Moseley shared. “But man, what a blessing. It’s been an incredible ride. And here we are 30 years in and I think we’re playing as good as we ever have and writing some of our best songs.”

Eleven of the songs Moseley speaks of appear on SCI’s new album, Lend Me A Hand. The band recorded the LP in spring 2023 over a span of two weeks at their Sound Lab studio near Boulder with renowned producer and musician Brad Cook. Recording Lend Me A Hand saw Cheese putting an emphasis on their songcraft, something Cook ran with.

“Brad said right off the bat, ‘everybody knows you guys can jam and play cool solos and are a great live show,’” Moseley recalled. “‘But I want to make it like the listener is sitting in the living room with you and you’re playing the tunes for them.’

“[One of the] first things he did was he went thrift store shopping and brought in a bunch of lamps and turned off all the overhead lights and tried to vibe the place out. [He] brought in a few colored moving lights and he was all about creating a vibe from the start.”

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Along with being more singer-songwriter oriented, another part of the album’s vibe is that of a journey. Beginning with Moseley’s roots rock leaning “Lend Me A Hand,” the record continues with Billy Nershi’s grassy introspective “Eventually” and Kyle Hollingsworth’s “One More Time” — the latter a co-write with Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam in tribute to the band’s late crew member Jesse Aratow. Moseley spoke about how important Jesse’s role was in the band as a tour manager and also a friend.

“Jesse, he was such an inspiration,” Moseley stated. “He was the guy that could kind of get everything done and still make everyone feel good about it. He was the guy that… everyone loved him, even if he was coming down hard on you and making compromises or making changes — you’d still feel good about the process. He had a real great trade of making everyone feel good. Just really miss him, his positive vibe and leadership and confidence. It was just really great to be around and he’s sorely missed.”

“One More Time” certainly echoes the sentiments that Moseley shared. After “One More Time,” Lend Me A Hand takes on a more atmospheric, almost dreamlike vibe and continues to cycle through genres like Keith’s reggae ode to Bob Marley, “Ain’t I Been Good To You” the electro-tinged spoken-word folk of “Love And Friends” and the dub-inflected “Take Me Love.” “Way Back When” is a return to bluegrass while album closer “Never Thought You Would” is an apt conclusion to the record, bringing the journey full circle.

“I’m glad you’re feeling that it is a journey,” Moseley told JamBase about Lend Me A Hand. “That’s kind of the idea. And it’s the same idea that we go for with a setlist on a nightly basis, to take the fan on a curated journey.

“With the album, it’s kind of the same idea. You’ve got peaks and valleys as far as emotional intensity or intensity of the songs. You want to kind of take ’em on an emotional ride and I’m glad you’re feeling that maybe we’re doing that. That’s the idea for sure.”

The String Cheese Incident’s 30-year ride continues with the release of Lend Me A Hand on Friday, September 8. The band also has a busy fall touring schedule including headlining shows, a stint on Willie Nelson’s Outlaw Country Festival and an appearance at Farm Aid along with a fall tour closing run at Stubb’s in Austin, Texas. The String Cheese Incident will begin their 30th anniversary celebrations with a New Year’s Eve run at Oakland’s Fox Theatre. Check out SCI’s full tour routing below:

Source: JamBase.com