​Greensky Bluegrass’s Michael Bont talks success and improvisation

Greensky Bluegrass’s Michael Bont talks success and improvisation

By Jamie Hutchinson

jamie@hpr1.com

The success of Greensky Bluegrass in the past few years has led to sold out shows across the country as they’ve shared their love of bluegrass and jam band music, hitting up the summer festival circuit and even headlining at Colorado’s Red Rock Amphitheater.

But while the band plays traditional bluegrass instruments and bluegrass is in the name of the band, don’t refer to them as a bluegrass band.

“I can’t really describe what our music’s like because we basically try to emulate a band with drums without a drummer,” says Michael Bont, banjoist of Greensky Bluegrass.

The band currently features five string-instrument players, but it began through the friendship of Bont and guitarist Dave Bruzza. They were soon joined by mandolinist Paul Hoffman and the trio got their start playing house shows and open mic nights in Kalamazoo, Mich.

Neither of them came from a bluegrass background, yet they bonded over a love for acoustic instruments and in Bont’s case, it was Jerry Garcia that led him to playing banjo.

“When I was really into the Grateful Dead when I was in my twenties I discovered that Jerry Garcia played a banjo and I thought that was super cool,” he says. “And I heard the ‘Shady Grove’ album from Garcia/Grisman and that turned me on to the world of bluegrass.”

Bont was a guitar player before he picked up the banjo at the age of 20. Once he started, he immersed himself in it. All he did for almost a year was work in a kitchen and play banjo, he says. “I didn’t have a girlfriend or anything. I was just super obsessed with the music and the style.”

Similar to Bont, Bruzza and Hoffman didn’t start on their current instruments either. Bruzza was a drummer and Hoffman was a guitarist. The group released one album together before upright bassist Mike Devol joined and one more album before they welcomed Dobro player Anders Beck.

Since 2007, the five-piece act has been touring extensively with up to 175 shows a year at rock clubs and large festivals, such as Austin City Limits and Bonnaroo.

While festivals have given them exposure to large audiences, it’s their unique setlists, bizarre covers and frequent improvisation that turns audience members into fans.

“We have the type of fans that once you discover our music you are a ravenous fan of our music,” Bont says. “All of a sudden these people are like your fans for life and it’s cool.”

Greensky puts a lot of work into making unique sets for each show, going as far as looking at the setlist from the last time they played a specific city to ensure they don’t play the same show twice. And it helps that they have a large catalogue to choose from.

“I probably know 500 songs that we’ve done over the course of being together for almost 16 years now, if not more,” Bont says. Last year alone, they had about 250 songs in their rotation.

While their written songs provide them with plenty of choices (they have five albums to their name), they like throwing in the odd cover songs too. Past shows have seen them perform songs by Prince, Talking Heads and George Clinton. They even devoted an entire set to Grateful Dead at one performance last year.

Their years of playing together have led to some spontaneity in their performances, which contrasts their tightly-structured records.

“I know that some nights if I play a certain lick I know that I can get two notes into it and the band knows exactly where I’m going,” Bont says. “That is the unwritten communication that comes from playing together and just listening to each other.”

The band’s success has grown greatly over the past couple years thanks to becoming a mainstay on the summer festival circuit and to the success of their last two albums, 2011’s “Handguns” and 2014’s “If Sorrows Swim.”

Years after “Handguns” was released and their success blossomed, the size of Greensky’s fan base hasn’t ceased to amaze Bont.

“We’ll show up to a city where we’ve never played before and the place will be sold out and we’ll be like, ‘Where did all these people come from?’ It’s really cool because they obviously have heard about us and they are super excited we’re in their hometown.”

IF YOU GO

Greensky Bluegrass with Shook Twins

Sunday, March 20, 7:30 p.m.

Fargo Theatre, 314 Broadway N.