Hot Buttered Rum

Emerging from the Bay Area, the newgrass jam band Hot Buttered Rum fuses rock energy with bluegrass instrumentation, an approach the members themselves term "high altitude California bluegrass." Their palette draws on blues, rock, jazz, Celtic strains, and Appalachian old-time string band traditions, placing the music near the realm of bluegrass fusion. The project took shape after Zachary Matthews (mandolin, fiddle) and bassist Bryan Horne, having tested unplugged sets with their earlier band Oversoul, embraced the acoustic texture and drive that resulted. A month-long hiking trek across the Sierras in 1999 with Nat Keefe (guitar) and Erik Yates (banjo, guitar, Dobro, ukulele, flute, clarinet, sax, accordion, piano) solidified the idea; the quartet returned to the Bay Area, launched the Hot Buttered Rum String Band, and enlisted Aaron Redner (fiddle, mandolin) as its fifth member. A live document, Live at the Freight and Salvage, surfaced in 2002. In These Parts followed in 2004, tracked in Fairfax by engineer Dave Dennison. The ensemble shortened its name to Hot Buttered Rum for the 2006 album Well-Oiled Machine, produced by Mike Marshall and featuring guest contributions from Peter Rowan and Darol Anger. Tracks captured across various 2006 tour dates were compiled for Live in the Northeast, issued in 2007.