In 1984, Colorado resident Drew Emmitt founded the progressive bluegrass ensemble, The Left Hand String Band. Six years later, Vince Herman's serendipitous scramble for musicians to fill in a gig with his Salmon Heads yielded a glorious amalgam: Leftover Salmon. Emmitt's mandolin prowess and songwriting gifts are two particular sources of the group's success. Leftover recently released the Nashville Sessions, which pairs the quintet with a number of legendary players from within the bluegrass community and beyond. Some of these musicians will be joining Leftover when the quintet initiates some requisite New Year's Eve revelry at Denver's Fillmore Auditorium (the doors open at 4:20 and the musical action will commence at 6). For additional tidbits, visit the group's website, leftoversalmon.com.

DB- You grew up in Tennessee?

DE- Until I was about twelve or so. Then I moved to Boulder when I was a teenager.

DB- Did you begin playing when you were down south or after you came to Colorado?

DE- I started playing when I was living down south. Then when I was out in Boulder I started going out to see bands like Hot Rize and getting into bluegrass. I started doing some bar gigs when I was a teenager in Boulder.

DB- To what extent do you think either environment impacted on your musical development?

DE- In Tennessee for one thing everybody played music. There are some places where everybody plays sports or skis. Well in Tennessee it was a given that you would play an instrument. There were always instruments around the house when I was growing up. Then we moved to Boulder, which had a really great music scene in the seventies. There were all kinds of cool places that you could go and stay up all night and jam with people, coffeehouses and things like that. There were a lot of really influential musicians floating in and out of Boulder at that time, like Firefall, Human Prairie League and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Joe Walsh too, all these people were just hanging out in Boulder. It was really booming. Then in the eighties it kind of went through a drought where there wasn't that much going on.

DB- Was mandolin the first instrument that you played?

DE- No, guitar was. I started out on guitar when I was twelve. I first picked up the mandolin when I was about 18, so it's been about 20 years now.

DB- What inspired you to make that switch?

DE- Actually my mom bought me the mandolin. She kind of thought I should be playing the mandolin. She had been telling for a while that she was going to get me one, and she finally did it. I was immediately taken with it, sat down and just played with the thing. I knew nothing about it but was able to get some sounds out of it. I just really got into it.

DB- What made your mom think that you'd have a connection with the mandolin?

DE- That's a really good question (laughs) I don't know. I used to listen to a lot of Led Zeppelin and Jimmy Page played the mandolin. So that was always kind of intriguing to me.

DB- I notice that on the Leftover web site, your pantheon of musical heroes includes Lowell George, Steve Morse and Duane Allman. I'm not sure if many people would immediately associate those players with your style and sound.

DE- I love Lowell, his singing especially but also his slide playing and his songwriting. Steve Morse, I got into the Dregs early on and I was completely blown away by him, and kind of discouraged at the same time. As far as the Allmans, I go way back with them, and as far as slide playing, Duane was the best ever. Until Derek Trucks came along (laughs)

DB- Let me ask you, the Nashville Sessions, how did that come about?

DE- I kind of all began because over the past few years we've been playing all these festivals, meeting and playing with a lot of our heroes. I think the idea came up, why don't we make a record with all these folks? The record company was real excited about this, so our manager contacted Randy Scruggs, and he flew out to see a show. He said, "Sure, I'd love to produce a record," and it just took off from there. We had a big wish list of people we wanted to play on the record and just started calling them.

DB- Judging by the number of stellar players on the disc, you were successful in that regard. Was it difficult in terms of scheduling?

DE- Well it's amazing how it all came together. We did it in two and a half weeks, and to get all those people in there was quite a feat. It all just worked out really well, and Randy was just a great person to work with. It really was a dream come true, I still can hardly believe it really happened.

DB- You wrote a song with Randy Scruggs ("It's Your World"). How did that come about?

DE- Randy flew into Boulder and came up to my house. He actually started the song on the airplane, and then we ended up sitting in my living room with two acoustic guitars finishing it up.

DB- Quite a few celebrated musicians joined you for the Nashville Sessions. I'm curious was there anyone or any time that you found yourself in awe of a given situation?

DE- I'd have to say Waylon Jennings in terms of his pure star power. When he walked into the studio, with his big black cowboy hat and sunglasses, I was like, "Wow, this is Waylon Jennings." He was really amazing to work with and he had a ton of crazy stories. We had already tracked the song and then he and Vince actually sang live. Just being in the control room watching Vince and Waylon Jennings sitting across from each other signing was pretty surreal.

DB- How did you select the songs to perform with Waylon and each of the guest musicians?

DE- In Waylon's case it was what he wanted to do. With Lucinda, she sent us a tape with four or five tunes on it, and then we chose "Lines Around Your Eyes." Taj came in and we didn't know what we were going to do, but we were sitting around playing acoustic and he started "Lovin' In My Baby's Eyes" which is what we decided to do. John Bell came in with "Nobody's Fault But Mine" which is a song we had already been doing so that worked out really well. Pretty much we left it up to the guests, whatever they wanted to play.

DB- Are there any songs that for whatever reason didn't make it onto the final release?

DE- There's one track we did with Col. Bruce Hampton called "Six Is Now Thirteen." It's basically just a rant with a bunch of us playing strange stuff behind it and doing weird vocalizing. Bela played on it, along with Jeff Coffin. We had a bunch of people come in and add weird tracks on it. It was really, really strange. More strange than even a lot of our friends could deal with so we ended up not putting it on there.

DB- Do you think that it will see the light of day any time soon?

DE- We're thinking about releasing it on the Internet at some point.

DB- In terms of other people, I noticed that John Cowan is another of those musicians on your heroes list. That must have been quite an experience working with him.

DE- He's my all time singing hero for sure, big time. I listened to Sam and John in New Grass Revival for years, my favorite band by far. So that definitely was a big thrill.

DB- And you're going to play with a bunch of those guys on New Years Eve?

DE- Yes. Sam, John, Peter Rowan and Tony Furtado.

DB- How is that going to work? Will they be performing with their own groups prior to your sets?

DE- They're not bringing bands with them, so we're pretty much going to be the house band. We're going to work out tunes with each of them and then by the end we'll have everybody up for what should be a big jam. We're really looking forward to that, for sure.

DB- Let's move on and talk about your songwriting. What instrument do you use for composition?

DE Mostly the guitar but sometimes the mandolin. A song like "Breakin' Thru" was written on the mandolin.

DB- How does that impact on your songwriting?

DE- It just gives me a different sound to work with and each instrument lends to particular kinds of progressions and feels.

DB- Is it inevitable that any song you write on the mandolin will have a bluegrass feel to it?

DE- Not necessarily. I wrote "On The Other Side" on the mandolin and that turned out to be kind of a rocking tune. I wrote that one in the front seat of my car in the mountains one day, on this little backpacking mandolin. But it is funny how that turned out to be such a rocker because it did start out to be more of a mellow mandolin-driven tune.

DB- In terms of the mandolin, I'm curious, what sort of reception do you receive from people in the traditional bluegrass community?

DE- There a lot of people in the traditional community who are into what we're doing because we are playing bluegrass and we're reaching a lot of kids with it. But there's always going to be people who will say "They're using drums, and electric instruments, they're not pure." There will always be people who don't want it to change at all. But bluegrass by nature, historically, has been a renegade kind of music. It's always pushed the boundaries. When Bill Monroe first started he was seen as a rebel and someone who was doing something new. A lot of people look at it that way- bluegrass needs to keep changing and growing and more people need to be discovering it.

DB- Did you take a similar irreverent, eclectic approach back with the Left Hand String Band?

DE- Well, instrumentally it was traditional. We didn't have drums or anything electric but we didn't always stick to that kind of format. In many ways it was like what we're doing now. It was bluegrass but more kind of rocking, something people could dance to. Come to think of it though, we got a hard time from a number of people even back then (laughs).