Green Mountain Boy, Bluegrass Giant
The Elixir® Strings Interview With Dan Tyminski

Let’s face it: Musicians have always had a lot of swagger, much of it self-suggested and largely undeserved. Occasionally, however, there comes along a talent whose bravado is well earned. Say, for example, that you had been hand-picked to be the guitarist in history’s greatest bluegrass ensemble. That your proverbial mantle is the place where Country Music Association, International Bluegrass Music, and Grammy Awards far too numerous to count slug it out for attention. And that yours was the vocal performance that not only single-handedly revitalized the entire bluegrass genre but catapulted it to unprecedented prominence while fueling a roots music resurgence that’s still influencing everyone from soul legend Solomon Burke to rock god Bruce Springsteen. If you had a résumé like that, you’d be entitled to a little swagger in every step. But if you’re Dan Tyminski, you’re just grateful for the chance to play with others who appreciate the music as much as you do. So it is with the man who everyone has heard but few would likely recognize. In the critically hailed ensemble Alison Krauss and Union Station, his is the guitar at the center of an extraordinary sound. As the singing voice of George Clooney on the soundtrack of the film, O Brother Where Art Thou?, his is the vocal that turned pop music in general and the Nashville establishment in particular on their heads. Yet through it all, Tyminski has maintained a refreshingly earnest humility. In spite of winning three International Bluegrass Music Awards for Male Vocalist, as well as awards for Entertainer of the Year, Song of the Year, and Album of the Year; the Country Music Association’s Single of the Year; and the 2001 Grammy for Country Collaboration of the Year, he’s a musician who seems genuinely humbled by his ascent to the top of the musical heap and is eager for just one thing: another chance to play the music he loves with people he admires. Recently we spoke to Dan from his outpost near Nashville, where he’s embarked on only his second solo recording and looking forward to a coming year of new music and further adventures.

Let’s start with a little bit of ancient history.

I was born and raised in West Rutland, Vermont. I had one brother and one sister, much older than me, by about nine and eleven years. I was the baby of the family. My parents were music fans. During my earliest years, they were into old-time country music. The bluegrass didn’t come about until a few years later, until after I was probably six or eight or ten. Something like that. But we would go to square dances, fiddle contests, festivals, bluegrass festivals. Whatever we could. My parents were big music fans, and from as far back as I can remember I have always been into music. My parents told me I was a singer and a player before I even knew what it was.

So was there a lot of music in the household during your formative years?

There was always music on. My mom used to sing a little bit. She had a guitar so she would play and sing a little bit. She never took it very seriously, but she could play a couple of chords, enough to accompany herself while she sang. And those were some of my earliest musical memories. Of Mom singing.

Who do you remember as some of your earliest musical influences? Who were the first?

My first musical influences were truly all local musicians of the area in the Northeast. I could name a lot of people, but I wouldn’t imagine most folks would be familiar with them.

Did you get out of West Rutland much? Did you go for example, up to Burlington to see shows? Or was it all local?

We spent a lot of time going to upstate New York. When I got a little older, when I was probably 12 or 13 and was starting to be really interested in it and playing more, we had a three or four hour radius that we would travel. We would go to upstate New York. There were some bluegrass festivals in Maine and in New Hampshire. There were a lot of different festivals around. My parents had probably a three- or four-hour limit on how far they would go for the music.

When did you first pick up a musical instrument?

I’ve always played something as far back as my memory goes. When my first instrument was put in my hands, I think I was six. I’d strummed a couple of chords on the guitar, of course, because Mom had a guitar. But my first instrument was a mandolin that my brother brought home from the service. He was in the Navy, and we had purchased it and sent it to him. And he came back home, and he had the mandolin. When you’re a little kid, that was a big deal. We had a brand new instrument. And I just took to it. When I first started playing the mandolin, I think I was seven or eight years old. I think if you’re going to start as a young person, I suggest still to this day that people start kids on the mandolin. Short of being a little bit difficult to tune, mandolin is a good instrument to learn on mathematically. At that age, you can play all the chords with two finger positions. You can play more quickly on the mandolin than on the other instruments. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was a perfect way to start.

Tell us about your first band.

I’ve only been in three bands my whole life. My first band was a band that I’ve had with my brother. Again, I really hold him responsible. My brother sang and played guitar a little bit. He got it from my mom, and I just wanted to play music with him. He was 11 years older than I was, and I idolized him growing up. So at the first chance, we had to play together. Our first band was Green Mountain Bluegrass. It started when I was probably 13 years old. And we ran the band from when I was 13 until I was 18, almost 19. We traveled up and down the East Coast. For the first few years, we stayed in New England, and then the last couple of years we were from Maine to Florida. We never went out to the West Coast.

I was a banjo player in this band. I really got the bug when I was twelve years old. That’s when it hit me hard and I really just became infatuated with playing music, and it was the banjo for me. It was like the ultimate challenge.

Once again, my brother came home form the service, and I was 12 at the time. I remember him driving into the driveway playing J.D. Crowe and the New South, the ‘75 album with Jerry Douglas and Tony Rice. To me it was the perfect music. I’d never heard anything with that much drive. Tony singing and Ricky Skaggs singing. The whole record blew me away. I never left the car. My brother came home from the service, and I stayed in the driveway listening to this record over and over again. The banjo was what intrigued me most about it. I kept listening to “I’m Walking,” a Chubby Checker song that they ended up cutting on this record. And the banjo… I just couldn’t stop thinking about it.

And so you picked up the banjo at that point?

I went in and immediately asked if I could have a banjo. My birthday was still a good ways off. And they said, “Well, you know, if you still want one around your birthday, we’ll consider it.” And you know, I asked every day, every day, every day, and they finally caved, and we went to the music store. They had a banjo hanging up on the wall, and they also had a book of banjos. All different types of Gibson banjos and everything you could want. There was no way I was going to order one from a book when I could take one home that day. I ended up with the cheapest-whatever-I-could-get-my-hands-on-right-then banjo. Then, of course, I didn’t have a teacher, so I learned completely wrong. I knew what it sounded like, and then I figured out how to make the sounds, (but) I discovered a few years later that I wasn’t necessarily doing it right. My finger pattern was unique to other banjo players because I never really saw anyone play.

Did you try to switch back? Or did you just stick with the “Tyminski Method?”

After I’d been paying for a couple of years, there was just no way to switch back. It’s odd. If I play air banjo, if I play on my leg, I play normally. I play with the thumb-index-middle finger in a line. When I actually hold the instrument, my fingers switch, and I play with my thumb and my middle finger and then my index finger in a line. Don’t have a good explanation of why. It’s just what felt comfortable to me.

If it works, it works.

Well, yeah. I was able to do the same things. I was able to play whatever I wanted with that style, but it was really hard to take someone else’s fingering. It’s hard to learn by watching someone else. I kind of had to listen and figure out where things went.

Tell us about the middle band in your career.

The Lonesome River was my next endeavor. We had split up our band. We decided we were not going to make a living playing bluegrass in the Northeast for obvious reasons. It wasn’t popular. It wasn’t big. It cost us so much money to travel and play that it was hard to do. So our band ultimately dissolved. I went about a year where I didn’t play in a band. I drove a Coca-Cola truck. I think that during that year my appreciation for playing music really grew!

I had a mutual friend, Kevin Church, who was friends with the Lonesome River Band. And I saw them at a bluegrass festival one day in Hillsdale, New York, I think, the Winterhawk Bluegrass Festival. I remember talking to Kevin and saying that I was driving a soda truck, but I really wanted to play music, and I was looking for a job. And he said, “Well, I know of a band that’s looking for a banjo player. That might be perfect.” And he told me about the Lonesome River Band, and I remembered the band because our band, with my brother, had opened up for the Lonesome River Band one time in upstate New York. So I was familiar with the band, liked them. He talked to me. He talked to the band. And before I knew it I had a call from Tim Austin, who ran the Lonesome River Band at the time, and he asked if I wanted to come and perhaps play some music. I was so thrilled with the thought of playing with a southern bluegrass band that I completely overlooked that I would be making about $1,200 a year. I’d rather not talk about the money of it, but the first few years, there was no work. They were having some tough times themselves at that particular point. I remember Tim saying, “Well, if you’re going to take this job, if you’re serious about it, you’ll have to move down here. I don’t think we’ll be able to make it work with you living in Vermont and us in Virginia.” And I said, “Well, I’ll move. That’s not a problem. I’ll come down there.” And he said, “Well, right now there’s not really enough work to support this move. You’d have to have a job somewhere else working. It would have to be part time at first.” And I said, “You know, I’ll do whatever we have to do.” Then he said, “Okay. Let me just spell it out for you. Right now there’s no work. We have two jobs on the calendar, and two of our guys are leaving. We actually still need someone else. Is this something you really want to mess with?” I said, “Man, I’ll be right there.” I couldn’t wait to play. That’s what it came down to. I like to jokingly say he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.

You’re easy!

At that point in time, I really was. I wanted to play so badly, the thought of not having everyone we needed or not making any money was never an issue.

It almost sounds as if Tim was almost trying to talk you out of it.

He wanted to make sure that he didn’t build any false hope in me. So he did. He spelled it out for me before I went, and said here’s the deal. This is not necessarily a job that you want to move down here for, that’s going to make it for you. We play because we love it. And I said, “Well me, too. I play because I love it.” And he said, “Well, if you want to come down and try it out then have at it.”

I was very fortunate at the time to have a friend that I was real close with in Vermont. His name was Tag Leon, and he said he would move down with me. Because I was kind of on the wire when I was talking to him about it. I said, “You know I kind of want to go, but it’s going to be really tough.” And he says, “What if I was to move down with you?” Well that was all I needed right there. I said, “Deal!” So we moved to Roanoke, Virginia. Found us a little place in a creepy part of town, and I got lots of spare time to work on that mandolin playing.

And winters are a little better down there.

A little better, but it was still pretty cold. There was a point in time when we went about a year without heat. (I’ve tried) to explain to the kids what it was like to tape blankets up over the doorways or the walls so you could just stay in a small enough room so you wouldn’t freeze to death. My kids were laughing at me. They were trying to imagine us huddled around a little electric heater just trying to stay warm with socks on our hands because back in the day it was whatever it took. We kept the mandolin close. That was always between you and the heater so it never froze.

How did you get hooked up with Alison Krauss and Union Station?

I was with the Lonesome River Band. When I had first joined the Lonesome River Band, I had just moved to Roanoke. I was in this apartment. I got a call about playing with Alison and Union Station. I turned them down flat. At that point, I hadn’t heard of Alison. Didn’t know the band. Didn’t know the music. Had just taken a job with the Lonesome River band. I think I was talking with Alison Brown, who was in the band at the time. I think she made the phone call. I remember telling her that it was nice of them to think of me, but that I was really into what I was doing and no thank you. I never heard anything for another couple of years. In that next couple of years I, of course, became a huge fan of the band.

It was at that point when Tim Stafford, Adam Steffey, and Barry Bales had joined the band, and their sound kind of changed a little bit. They were starting to get a lot of attention. And I was just a huge fan, and at that point I had somewhere befriended the band, and I would go to whatever shows I could make. From time to time I would get up and sing a song with them. They would invite me up to play a couple of tunes. They were all, of course, Lonesome River Band tunes that I had done. But I would have to credit Barry. I think it was Barry Bales who called Alison and said, “This guy might be someone we want to look at.” He played her one of the recordings from the Lonesome River Band over the telephone. This is Alison’s story now. And she said, “Oh, play it again. Play it again.” That’s how she tells the story. For whatever reason, when Tim Stafford decided that he didn’t want to be in the band anymore, he was going to take time away from the music, I got the call. That was probably 15 years ago now.

I read that you had never played guitar in a band until you joined Union Station. Is that right?

I got my first guitar about three or four months after I joined the band. My mom had a guitar growing up so I was somewhat familiar. I knew how to make a G, C, and a D. It’s not like I’d never held one before, but I certainly didn’t play guitar or practice guitar. I never owned a guitar. So it’s very fair to say that I started playing guitar when I joined the band. I knew the chords and I had played a mandolin. I had calluses on my fingers, and I was familiar with a flat pick so the transition wasn’t as big as it seems.

I always thought I was going to be the banjo player in this band. That’s what I wanted to be. When I was hanging around with the band in the early days, it was always my understanding that if I were to ever get this job, it would have been to play the banjo. And I remember where I was sitting when I got the phone call [saying] Ron Block got the job. I remember thinking, “Ron Block!? You’re kidding me!” I was devastated. It was at that time that I thought well, there goes that. This will never happen. I never dreamed at that point that a guitar position was ever even a consideration. So I was blown away when Tim Stafford actually came to me first and said, “You know I’m thinking about leaving the band, and I feel like she’s going to come running to you. I just figured I would go ahead and let you know what’s going on so you can be prepared if she asks you if you want to play.”

I didn’t know what to think. I was really nervous. I remember telling my wife what was going on, and we were nervous together about it. And it wasn’t an hour later that I saw Alison. It was at Merlefest where it all went down. April 25th. I remember the day. I can’t remember the year! But I remember the date. I just looked at my wife, and I said, “Do I take a guitar job?” And she said, “Can you do it?” I said, “I can do it eventually. I have to get a guitar and practice.” I’ll never forget it. My wife had an Oscar Schmidt guitar. Like a $17 guitar. But it had strings and a neck and it was good enough to sit down and learn the stuff. So I sat in the woodshed, as they would say, for a couple of months trying really, really hard to gain confidence on the guitar.

Do you remember your first performance with Union Station as the official guitarist?

It was very scary. We actually went to England. An overseas trip was my introduction to the band. And in the first [show], I remember just staring. Especially on the guitar-guitar stuff, I would watch Ron Block. I would watch his hand, and I remember being frustrated because he would be playing a C or an easy chord, but he’d be playing in a different position, and I was going, “No, no, no! Play it down the neck. Play it down the neck!” I remember thinking, play something I know, please! I struggled. Who am I kidding? I still struggle, but I think it’s because of the level of musicianship that I’m around. I’m fortunate to get to play with people that I consider to be the best in their fields. It definitely will make you stay on your toes.

I wanted to ask about that because Union Station is quite arguably the greatest bluegrass ensemble ever. What’s it like being in the middle of that much sheer talent on stage?

It’s hard to put that into words, when everything comes together and you’re playing with people who all get it. When you finally get to play with a group of people who are actually trying to play together to create one sound vs. trying to show off what they can do in a band. It’s hard to put that into words. I truly, truly, feel blessed. I feel honored to be able to play with people who I hold in such high esteem. I really do believe that the people who make up this band are the best in their field. So there are a lot of emotions that go along with it. It’s scary. Because you want to do a good job yourself. But more than anything, it’s fun and satisfying to be able to feel like you’re a part of something bigger than just the sum of its parts.

That’s a key point. One of the things one notices about Union Station is how seamlessly the instruments and the vocals blend into a whole that, remarkably, is greater than the sum of its already appreciable individual players. You find yourself absorbed in a total sound rather than picking out any of its components. How does a band made of such individually inspiring players produce such a unified whole?

If I had to credit it to any one thing, I would say that everyone in the band has the ability to listen while they play. It sounds easier than I think it actually is to truly listen while you play. Anyone who plays an instrument realizes that as you’re learning to play, you kind of get caught up in what it takes to make the instrument perform. I think you get to a certain level where you start to get comfortable enough (and) are able to put it on auto pilot and listen to what’s going on around you.

One of the best examples that I can use is the way, let’s say, Jerry Douglas will back up a vocal. If you listen to his Dobro playing in the midst of a song, it’s obvious that he’s not thinking of licks and playing. He is responding. What comes out of his instrument is a response to what he hears. There’s no forethought like, okay what am I going to do in this next section. He holds his hands over the instrument and listens. As you listen, you’re able to answer what you hear, and I think when you have a group of people who all maintain that as the focus when they play together… It’s rare to get five people who really listen while they play. If there’s any one key to making it sound as one big cohesive unit, I think it’s that there are five people who listen to each other while they play versus five people who try to play against each other.

When you’re playing live, how much of your performance is intuitive in the moment and how much comes from stepping outside and listening with a more clinical ear to your playing?

I think that while we’re playing, while I’m on stage, it’s all in the moment. I think after you step off the stage and you reflect, then you’re able to affect what you’re going to do next time on stage. I’ve found myself looking back and going, “Gosh, why would I do that?” It’s weird. When you feel something at the time, and you go back and listen to it and you don’t really like it, the next time you’re on stage that carries with you. It kind of puts a little guard up. For whatever reason, after you listen to something and don’t like it, you don’t feel it the next time. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m able to look back and reflect and see that I’d like to do things differently, but I still am able to find myself in the moment. Once a song starts, boy, oh boy, I couldn’t tell you what I’m going to do three seconds from that point. But I know what I’m doing right then. So I think while I’m playing, it’s all in the moment. Then I think I reflect on what I’ve played afterwards, and that may affect how I get to that moment the next time.

Does the band do a lot of rehearsing?

Absolutely. We are a very self-policing band. I can’t really think of any situations where we’ve had to look to another person and say, “you know, your part could be a little better there.” Everyone in the band cares so much about making it right as a whole. We’re a band of self-policing individuals who are really concerned about, in my opinion, at least within what we do, the right things. You know, we’re not counting notes and solos, and we’re not seeing who’s louder or who’s softer. I don’t think there’s any competition here. I think that we all are trying to play with each other.

What’s your philosophical approach to rhythm guitar playing?

I don’t know if I have conscious one. I really don’t know. I have people that I look up to as rhythm guitar players. For about 12 seconds, I was considering being a part of Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver, and I remember going to Doyle Lawson’s house and trying out for the band. I actually accepted a job and then later turned it down because the timing wasn’t right; I was still with the Lonesome River Band at this point. But I remember Doyle telling me, he referenced Jimmy Martin when he said this, “There’s a style of guitar that I like in this band.” And he played me the rhythm lick, and it was basically an up-and-down. It wasn’t a boom-chang ka-chang, boom-chang ka-chang. It was more booka-chocka-chocka chocka, booka-chocka-chocka chocka. There were more upstrokes. There were as many upstrokes as there were downstrokes.

How would you describe your playing style?

I’ll have to think about this for a second. Because I rarely find myself having to describe it as a style. I would probably say aggressive and compassionate.

Some artists don’t really listen to much music outside their own projects and some listen to as much as they can. Where do you fall on that spectrum?

I am on the hyper-extreme end of not listening to anything. I can count every recording I’ve purchased on one hand. I think I got my first stereo when I was 32 or 33 years old. And that wasn’t necessarily to listen to music. It was a matter of circumstances. For twelve years I commuted back and forth from Virginia to Tennessee. It was about an eight-hour drive, and I don’t think I ever turned on any music on any one of those drives. This sounds like an exaggeration,. But I truly don’t believe I’ve ever turned on any music on any of the drives. I’ve flipped through the radio, and sometimes if I can find some talk radio or something to keep me awake while it’s late, I’ll go there. But it’s rarely if ever musical.

Is that a conscious decision? Or is that just the way things fell out?

I don’t know that it’s a conscious decision. The last record that I can really remember listening to over and over again truly was the one I mentioned: J.D. Crowe and the New South. While I played with my brother, my brother was a big music fan, and he played music all the time, so I don’t want to give the impression that I’ve never listened to any music because my life has been in music, and everyone around me that I know plays music. So I can’t help but be influenced by hearing a lot of music, but I don’t seek it out myself. I don’t think it’s a conscious thing. I never stop tapping. I never stop thinking of it. I can’t shake it out of my head, but I don’t seek outside sources. That’s sounding a little stranger than I think it is, but for whatever reason, if I’m feeling the music, I will pick up something and play or I’ll sing. I know some people who do nothing but listen. Some of my favorite musicians are music junkies. They listen to everything constantly 24/7, and I marvel at that. I think personally, I would have to be in a padded room. I think it would ultimately drive me cuckoo.

Famously, you were the singing voice of George Clooney in O, Brother, Where Art Thou. Tell us about that experience.

When that came about no one saw it coming, I don’t think. When it was first brought to our attention that they were looking for some people to make some music for this movie, we were excited because it was the Coen brothers, and we’re fans of the Coen brothers. We like their movies and they have an interesting take on things. We were all interested for that reason. So everyone wanted to be a part of it, but as the music was coming together, I don’t think anyone could have ever predicted that it would have the impact that it had. That it would reach as many people even though it was attached to a movie like that. I don’t think anyone saw that it would make such a big splash. The music in that movie, for whatever reason, and I wish I had a great explanation or understood it better so I could do it again, all the stars just lined up and let an album come together of music that was, for lack of any better word, just pure. It was just pure.

They wanted this music to represent this time period that the movie was taking place in. They made sure that the instruments were old. They made sure that the microphones we recorded on were of that era. We didn’t use headphones. And we didn’t use multiple takes in the studio. Everything was just live and organic and pure. And I think that somehow that translated through to the record, and it somehow connected with people.

What was it like working with T Bone Burnett?

I’m still trying to figure that out. I didn’t know who T Bone was before we worked with him, and I heard several people in their description of him say, “well, you know he’s this genius guy who is kind of off center, but he’s great.” My hopes were high, and I was very excited. When we went in to play, to me he seemed very loose and very relaxed. I didn’t get it. And then I think afterwards when I look back in hindsight, what he was able to do was create the perfect mood to record this music. He knew what he wanted, but a lot of people know what they want and don’t know how to get there. In this situation his genius lay in that it was more than knowing what worked for the movie. He knew how to get the people to that point. As a producer that is not an easy thing to do.

What guitars are you playing these days?

I am still partial to my first guitar. My workhorse is a ‘46 D-28 herringbone from Martin. That's my axe of choice. My whole guitar arsenal is five guitars. Three pre-war herringbones and two Bourgeois guitars. One is basically a copy of a pre-war herringbone, and then I have one slot-head, 12-fret, slightly larger body that’s just for a different voice. But for the most part, it’s pre-war herringbone. That’s me. I am partial to my ’46. But it’s kind of special. A collector wouldn’t marvel at my guitar, but players love it.

How did you get turned onto Elixir® Strings?

I was at a bluegrass festival in Telluride, Colorado. And I remember there were some Elixir® strings laying around backstage. Someone had mentioned that they were there to try out. I took two packages of the strings, and I put them in my guitar case. I had them in the outside pocket of my case where they sat for probably three or four months. I basically forgot about them. I was going in to do a session in Virginia,, and I remember opening up the guitar case and the strings that were on my guitar were horrible. I thought, okay, I need to change strings. And I looked through and I didn’t have any of my strings, but I remembered that in the side pocket were these Elixir® coated strings. I thought, well, okay. They’re bound to be better than what’s on here.

Put the strings on the guitar and sat in front of the microphone, and Tim Austin, who was engineering, looked at me. He put both thumbs up. He was like, “Sounds great!” I said, “Wow. It does sound great.” I remember sliding up and down the neck, and it took all of about 30 seconds to fall completely in love with how the strings felt on my hands. I didn’t realize at the time how long they were going to last. I was dumbfounded as each day I would pick up the guitar, and it sounded the same as it did the day before. I’d spent a lifetime learning that that wasn’t possible!

The first thing that attracted me to the strings was how they felt on my hands. When you slid, when you made a chord, they were quiet. I was in the studio environment so I was a little hypersensitive to wanting everything to be just so. That was the first thing I noticed. How quiet they were.

The tone sounded great. When I first started using them people said, “You know, I’ve seen those strings, but they’re really expensive.” And I try to explain to people, “Think about what you’re spending on strings and think about how long they last. These strings are a fraction of the price of the other strings if you like tone.” And that’s where I remain. I was thrilled when the strings went from the Polyweb® to the Nanoweb® because tonally I thought they were a little bit brighter, which I wanted. The original Polyweb® coated strings were just a little bit dark sounding. Some instruments need that. Some instruments really need the brightness. Personally, when they went to the Nanoweb® coating and the strings became a little bit brighter, man, life got good!

I went into the studio the day before yesterday, and I was playing a guitar instrumental. I played it a couple of times, and the guy who was engineering said, “Have you changed your strings recently?” And I said, “You know, I haven’t changed them in a little while, but they still sound good to me.” He says, “I’m just having to dig a little bit for the high end. If you don’t mind, go ahead and change them.” I thought, no problem. So I put a new set of strings on. I sat back in front of the microphone, and he goes, “No. It was me. They sound exactly the same.” If it weren’t for fear of breaking them, I don’t know if I’d ever change them!

As far as selling guitars, anyone who puts a set of phosphor bronze strings on a guitar and is going to hang it on the wall in his guitar shop for multiple people to play is crazy. I think people will look back and say, “Gosh, a lot more guitars sold once people picked it up and they had (Elixir®) strings on them.” I truly believe that. I pick up a lot of guitars off the walls of guitar stores, and just immediately put the guitar back on the wall because I would have had to change the strings to even get an idea of what the guitar had. Elixirs offer a freedom that other strings just won’t let you have. If you walk in and you’ve got a wall full of guitars and they all sound great when you take them down, what do you think your chances of selling a guitar are going to be? Huge!

What’s next for Dan Tyminski and what’s next for Dan Tyminski and Union Station?

Well, right now everyone is in recording mode. I know that Alison is working on a new project, a solo project. Ron Block is working on a solo project. I have started a new solo project. I haven’t talked to Jerry (Douglas) in the past week or two. But he’s always working on something. So there’s a bunch of new music getting ready to come out. We’re going to start rehearsals here in a couple of days to finish out our year. We’re going to go back on the road in November to do some more shows to end up this year, and then next year, I think is going to bring a lot of new music from all of us, both collectively and individually. Once we get some new music out, we’ll be anxious to take it as many places as we can.