Photo courtesy of WinterWonderGrass/Elliot Lawrence.

Steamboat Magazine is interviewing the bands and artists who make up this year’s 12th annual WinterWonderGrass festival in Steamboat Springs, Friday, Feb. 28 - Sunday, March 2. First up, the Kitchen Dwellers return for another year. Steamboat Magazine spoke to Max Davies, the band’s acoustic guitarist.

Steamboat Magazine: You’ve done so many WinterWonderGrasses at this point, right? 

Max Davies: Yeah. I think we’ve done Steamboat like seven times. We did a couple in Tahoe, we did one out east…yeah, we’ve done it.

SM: Do you have a favorite WinterWonderGrass memory?

MD: Oh man. 

SM: I mean, that’s appropriate to be printed.

MD: Well…let me think here. We always get to ski, so that’s always really great. The memory that stands out the most in my head though is two years ago – or maybe it was last year? It snowed the whole entire weekend and it was amazing. It was the most magical weekend. But our tour manager and I were driving our van and trailer out and we had chains on but it had snowed so much and it was so icy. I was trying to get back to the Grand to pick everybody up but at that roundabout right there, even with the chains, I kept sliding down the hill. I kept cranking the wheel and sliding and it wasn’t working and I kept trying and finally the chains broke. We tried to go get chains in town but they didn’t have the right size. So basically our tour manager and I were wheeling the van down the hill with chains that were way too big that I had to keep adjusting. It took us about six hours to get out of town. Looking back, that’s a great memory. It was kind of gnarly, but yeah.

SM: What’s your best tip for a new band at WinterWonderGrass?

MD: That’s a great question. To dress super warm. Wear your onesie all day long. Bring all the chains. Pack extra sleeping bags. Our friends, Shadowgrass, played there last year and they had like, never seen snow. They got an airbnb outside of town and the heat went off in the airbnb, and they legitimately thought they were going to die. They were like, about to start breaking the furniture to burn it. So yeah, be prepared, bring warm clothes and things that you might need to dig out your car.

SM: Is there anyone you’re looking forward to seeing at WWG?

MD: Definitely Sam Bush. And our really good friend Silas Herman is going to be there. 

SM: You’re on the docket for a late night show on Saturday….how do those late nights differ from the regular experience?

MD: They’re so much fun. And this is more so the case at WinterWonderGrass than some other festivals. At WinterWonderGrass, all the musicians who played that day seem to show up for the late night. There's a really good expectation that whoever played that day will show up to the late night and will be backstage partying and jumping up on stage. And there will be some really cool collaborations. It’s really high energy. Especially, I think, because you've been outside in the cold all day and then people are so excited to be back inside that things tend to get a little crazy. 

SM: It seems like your latest album, “Seven Devils” is a pretty deep album conceptually – how do you follow that up? 

MD: We’ve kind of talked about it in a few different ways. That album was so labor intensive. We really focused so much energy on that. It has a very high production value. Something that we’ve been kicking around for the next project is to be not so production heavy but be more roots. We brought in a lot of extra musicians and extra sounds for “Seven Devils”. For the next thing, it’s like do we try to do the same thing or do something more stripped down? 

SM: What’s one thing that you guys are looking forward to at WinterWonderGrass in a few weeks?

MD: First of all, to give Scotty Stoughton a huge hug because we think the world of him. That's number one on the docket. And then, skiing. 

For more information and tickets to this year’s WinterWonderGrass, visit winterwondergrass.com.