Todd Sheaffer, former frontman of RCA recording act From Good Homes, no sooner released his solo debut album, ``Dream of Love: Live from the Whitney Chapel,'' when he joined the buzzing bluegrass-rock band Railroad Earth. Now he's got a beautiful problem. Things are happening so fast, he's got to put a burgeoning solo career a bit on the backburner to accommodate the immediate demand for the band, which features veterans of the Northwest Jersey music scene that spawned From Good Homes.    

They include Tim Carbone (violin, acoustic guitar) and Andy Goessling (acoustic guitar, mandolin, banjo, pennywhistle, saxophone), both of The Blue Sparks from Hell, and sought-after session player John Skehan (mandolin, guitar, piano). Rounding out the lineup is drummer-percussionist Carey Harmon and Dave Von Dollen, who plays both upright and electric bass. Their chops will drop jaws attached to the most jaded ears. The bluegrass-based results fuse old-time Appalachian music, Celtic, rock and pop.    

But without Sheaffer's strong songwriting, including the From Good Homes nugget "Head," they wouldn't exist, and, therefore, wouldn't have landed a deal with the Boulder, Colo.-based W.A.R. label before they even played their first gigs: May 3, The Stanhope House,  Stanhope, N.J. (with Emma Gibbs Band); May 4, Higher Ground, Winooski, Vt. (with Smokin' Grass); and May 5 The Wetlands Preserve, New York (again with Emma Gibbs Band). After a debut record is released in June, Railroad Earth will play the Telluride and Greyfox bluegrass festivals and the jam-band friendly All Good, Smile, High Sierra and Berkshire Mountain music festivals.    

Given the way he helped lead the tasty jams and righteous grooves of From Good Homes, it's no surprise that Sheaffer has the energy to play solo gigs April 19, Finnigan's, Harrisonburg, Va.; April 20, Summit Station, Gaithersburg, Md.; April 21, The Broad Street Grill, Falls Church, Va.; April 26; The Whiskey Bar, Hoboken, N.J., which will feature From Good Homes fiddler-mandolinist Jamie Coan; May 12, Sarah Street Grill, E. Stroudsberg, Pa. He'll either play rocking acoustic sets, all with percussionist Ed Nowicky, or he'll recapture the intimate, moody evening heard on "Dove of Light," which combines such new tunes as the tasty, touching title track, the soul-searching "Where Songs Begin," the joyous, youthful "Came Up Smilin'," the wise, weary "When the World Was Young" and the mellow, tongue-in-cheek trip "Spacey Johnny" with From Good Home favorites "Radio On," "Scudders Lane," "The Old Man and the Land," "Black Elk Speaks," "Head," "The Giving Tree" and "Raindance." MTV's popular "Real World" show has licensed the entire recording for use in upcoming episodes. One of the top three albums I've heard through the first third of the year, it makes me proud to have known and written about Sheaffer these twelve long years. His music always has made the hard times a lot easier for the thousands of fans who helped From Good Homes sell out Irving Plaza twelve times, more than any other act.    

I spoke with Sheaffer about all that he has going on -- including his own indie label, Bag O' Seeds -- and some what of he accomplished during ten years with From Good Homes, with whom he remains good friends. When you're through reading the following chat, visit www.toddsheaffer.com and www.railroadearth.com.

Man, when it rains it pours but in a good way.

    Yeah, it's like one of my newer songs, 'Everything Comes Together.' Things fall into place when they're meant to fall into place. Things come together when they're meant to come together. Everything's happening all at once with the solo record coming out and starting this new band. It's a lot at once, but it feels right so I'm running with it.

How does what you're writing with Railroad Earth compare to your new solo tunes and what you did with From Good Homes?

    For Railroad Earth, I'm consciously writing for the group. Railroad Earth is a bluegrass-based project. That's where we start from, so that has to be a focal point for me. My writing for the group is keeping that in mind and involving those players. My solo stuff has just me in mind.    

  I'm concentrating on the Railroad Earth stuff right now because we're busy. We're going to be making a record. We recorded some demos about a month and a half ago. The response was amazing. We're busy trying to complete the record.

    It is a strange balancing act I'm looking at right now. Oddly enough, I'd just begun getting nice press for my solo stuff, and I'm playing real good shows down South. The Washington Post just wrote a nice review. So I've got a little momentum going. It's like you said, when it rains it pours. I didn't anticipate the response to Railroad Earth. We literally sent the demo out, and two weeks later, we were offered a record deal. It happened awfully fast, and I didn't expect it.

That's not surprising given how long and hard From Good Homes had to work.

    The response to the demo has been fantastic. It's striking some ears who say it's refreshing and different for the bluegrass genre. From Good Homes started from scratch and were ten years down the road at this point.    

I can't compare Railroad Earth to From Good Homes. They're two different projects with very different approaches. I'm writing and singing so people might recognize my voice. I'm in both groups, that's something they have in common.

Tell me about the guys in Railroad Earth and how you got together.

    The group started informally. My first involvement was last fall when Andy Goessling was having a party at his house and invited me down. It was just an informal bluegrass get-together. We were doin' some pickin', playin' some bluegrass tunes, having some beers and hanging out. It wasn't a band that I started. I didn't round up players and says, 'Hey, I want to start a new band.' They invited me to join in the project and it sounded interesting to me. I said, 'Sure,  sounds like fun.'

    I've known Tim and Andy for years from The Blue Sparks from Hell. I used to watch them all the time at The Stanhope House. Andy's pretty amazing. He plays anything that you can blow into or anything with strings. I've really been enjoying working with him a lot. He's got a lot of great arrangement ideas and he's a great player. He plays guitar, mandolin, banjo, dobro, all kinds of things.     Carey is a friends of Tim's. I didn't really know Carey all that well. I'm just getting to know him.    

I'm not sure what to call what we're doing. We're writing with bluegrass in mind, but we're also writing with a band in mind and we do have drums. It's not a rock band. It's not a rock show we're putting together.    

 I think it's a very natural progression for me as a writer. I've always obviously had a rootsy quality in my writing. The instrumentation is just a little more acoustic on this project. We have a bass player, Dave, who plays standup. He's a friend of John, who's a North Jersey musician who plays a lot of different things -- piano, guitar -- but mandolin is the focus for us.

The solo record you have out now, 'Dream of Love: Live at the Whitney Chapel,' is very intimate and moody. You have Edno on percussion and the great John Ginty of Lou Reed's and Jewel's bands on keyboards. Tell me more about that.

    It's acoustic so the focus there is on the singing and the songs and the stories. I like the mood of the record. It's a live show that I thought captured what I'd been up to with solo shows for the past year. The record was recorded in November of 1999 as part of WNTI concert series. They're doing a lot of great stuff. It came out in September and I'm selling it through my Web site and by mail order. I put it out through this label that I started by myself and some friends in the D.C. area. It's BOS Records, which stands for Bag O' Seeds. We're going to be finalizing some deals very soon on that.    

But I like the sound of the recording. It captured the tone of my solo performances when I first started doing them. That was one of my first shows.     I might do another record with BOS at some point. I don't know when. Already things are changing so quickly with Railroad Earth. But hopefully other things will come out at some point. It's a nice way to do that.

  Your solo act is more mellow than From Good Homes. Given that the name of that band was chosen after getting popped for playing a Replacements cover in a club that you guys broke into, did you form Railroad Earth so you could rock out a bit more?

    The solo shows have evolved from where they started. It's not fair to say they're solo shows. Edno plays every time and he's been playing since after the first six months. The mood changes. Some nights it's a more rocking mood and we're havin' a helluva good time playing energetic shows. Railroad Earth wasn't formed to make a racket, to express that. What I do with my solo shows depends on my mood, how I'm feeling. Some nights I'm more quiet and moody and some nights I let loose and have fun. Railroad Earth was just a pickin' jam that evolved into a band.

Brady Rymer made a children's album. Dan Myers is playing with Guster a lot. Jamie Coan is playing with you and with a band called Angus sometimes. Your road keyboardist, Damian Calcagne, is doing great with Swampadelica. Patrick Fitzsimmons just put out a solo record ('The Changing') that they and Corey, John and Tim from Railroad Earth all played on. But you're not on it. Are you still friends with all the From Good Homes guys?

    Yeah, but obviously people wanted to do other things. People's energies were different. We were together a long time. We grew up together. Toward the end, people's energies were heading in different directions. Personally too. We'd been together a long time. From a business perspective, our deal with RCA was a big disappointment, the way that scenario panned out for us. People had a lot of things going on in their lives and hearts that they needed to explore.   

What do you think of Swampadelica? I hope that Railroad Earth is going to share a bunch of bills with them. You are playing the All Good Festival together in May.

    Damian is one of my favorite people. He's a great friend. I like those guys. I'm sure they'll get some interest. I think they've got some already.

You've opened for your heroes Bob Dylan and members of The Band, you've been on RCA Records and played with labelmates Dave Matthews Band, you sold out Irving Plaza twelve times, more than any other act. Out of all the things you've done in your career, what moment or accomplishment stays with you, makes you really proud and/or happy?

    Most of my career up to this point has been working with From Good Homes. I would say the feeling and being a part of the love that was in the air at our farewell concert (Waterloo Village, Summer of '99) between the guys in the band and between the band and the audience. It was a very beautiful feeling. And to know that the music and the band -- the playing and the friendships in the band that were created -- that's a nice feeling of accomplishment.

In ``Radio On,'' you have a line that says, 'I've been five years in NYC, but I would not call it home.' Comment on home and how you're proud to be from there because of the strong influence it's had on your music and the many great musicians there are to play with, like Edno, John Ginty and all the From Good Home, Railroad Earth and Swampadelica guys.

    It is pretty amazing. It's a great scene. There's a lot of great musicians and great people that support and nourish each other's work. Over the years, we have become a great group of friends.

What is the focal point?

    I'd say The Stanhope House has been for many years a focal point, a gathering point. Wouldn't you? When there's shows going on, that's where people go to hang out.

[site editor's note: Bob asked the following question to correct something I wrote in my book Jam Bands, where I commented, "One critic derisively dismissed From Good Homes' music as 'hick pop.'"...]   Just for the record, when I coined the phrase 'hick pop' in the demo review that inspired the title 'Hick Pop Comin' At Ya',' was I mocking the band or was it said with love?

    It was all out of love.  

[Site editor's note: duly noted. In my defense, I did see one writer use the term derisively but apparently this was someone who was simply referencing Bob's original quote and taking it out of context. All apologies, Bob...]