Bluegrass Breakout: Don’t Miss Mountain Grass Unit

Mountain Grass Unit is the hottest band in bluegrass right now.

The Birmingham, Alabama-born four-piece broke out in a big way last year, running and gunning with a fifty-plus-show summer tour that resulted in 22 sell-outs and lighting up the festival circuit, including appearances at Colorado’s Telluride Bluegrass Festival and WinterWonderGrass.

Westword first discovered Mountain Grass Unit at Telluride, where the band’s refreshing jamgrass caught the attention of Rolling Stone, too. Since then, the young acoustic quartet was named the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Momentum Artist of the Year, receiving the award in Chattanooga, Tennessee, last year. The group also played the official after party held at local venue the Signal.

“We knew about it, but we seriously didn’t expect to win it. We were very new to the IBMA thing,” vocalist-mandolinist Drury Anderson says of the nomination. “We were going there without a clue about what was going to happen, then they called our name, and we were like, ‘Seriously?’ We got a kick out of that. It was a really good time.”

But he and his bandmates — Luke Black (guitar and vocals), Josiah Nelson (fiddle and vocals) and Sam Wilson (bass and vocals) — are taking it all in stride and enjoying every minute.  

“What’s crazy about all that is the fact that that was about six months ago. To us, that’s nuts. It seems pretty quick,” Anderson adds. “Everything has been super-fast paced since then. We’ve been trying to give it as much as we can recently.”

Most recently, Mountain Grass Unit relocated to Nashville and signed with Music City label Dualtone Records. There are plans to record a sophomore album there, a follow-up to 2024 EP Runnin’ From Trouble, at Sputnik Sound this year, too.

“We always talked about moving to Nashville. That was our overall goal,” Black says. “Me and Drury when we were younger would take trips there and check out the town. We always loved it, loved the scene.”

But before settling into the new surroundings too long, the crew’s back on the road, this time only 22 dates. The Denver gig happened Saturday, January 24, at Mission Ballroom supporting Kitchen Dwellers with Nashville singer-songwriter Lindsay Lou.

“We love those guys. Been getting to hang with them a bunch over the years and it’s been really fun watching them really establish themselves,” Kitchen Dwellers bassist Joe Funk says. “They’re so good.”

Mountain Grass Unit is cruising from Illinois to Iowa on an off day when Westword checks in. The run just started, so the boys are feeling fresh, but already noticing how full rooms are feeling.  

“We played Peoria, Illinois. We didn’t expect that many people to show up and it was pretty packed in there, and we’d never been to Peoria before,” Anderson shares. “Those sorts of things are really fun for us. It’s pretty cool to see all these people showing up.”

“Now it’s like the venues are quieter,” Black adds. “People seem like they’re listening and detailed in on us a little bit more, which is kind of frightening but also really cool at the same time because they’re really taking in everything. You can really feel the energy a lot more clearly through the crowd.”

But Mountain Grass Unit isn’t content or resting on its laurels thus far.

“We are always trying to make the show better, logistics and how we run the show, all of the aspects, just making it better,” says Nelson, who is originally from Fort Collins.

It helps to keep it all in perspective, and maybe most importantly, just have fun doing it.

“Even when things are serious, we remain unserious and always make jokes. Shit happens on the road and problems arise, but as long as you keep a positive attitude and stay goofy, then things turn out pretty well,” Wilson says.

“As we grow, one thing we’ve been trying to focus on is not trying to get too wrapped up in all the stress and expectation of everything,” he continues. “It’s like, ‘No, let’s stay goofy and be ourselves and do what we think is fun,’ and hopefully people who come to our shows will have fun being around it.”

Hey, the goofygrass approached has worked so far.

“We’re just so new to all this stuff, there’s a lot of lessons that we still got to learn. We’re just trying to do our best and hopefully we’ll sustain,” Anderson concludes. “We’re not masters of our craft by any means yet, but we’re having a good time, at least.”