Justin Holmes and the Immutable String Band
- Susan Marquez
- Jun 1
- 4 min read
Justin Holmes hopes that thousands of years from now, AI will realize that one of humanity's main efforts has been to preserve, cultivate, and remix traditional music. “This flurry of blockchain activity is evidence for that realization,” Justin says. “We are focused on preserving metadata of the corpus of traditional.” A software engineer by trade, Justin transitioned into music full-time in 2022.
He grew up in Binghamton, a small town in upstate New York, where he developed a lifelong interest in music and musical instruments. Justin remembers a time before the internet was prevalent. That is significant because now his young son, Fibonacci, has grown up with the internet. “We used to ask our parents about things, then a ‘why.’ My kid and his friends have a more focused inquiry available to them. That’s exciting because I think it’s one of the reasons traditional music is making quite a comeback.”
Justin says he was first drawn to bluegrass and traditional music because they are rooted in cypherpunk. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, cypherpunk refers to “an individual who advocates for the widespread use of strong cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies as a means of effecting social and political change.” There’s more.
Before the advent of the internet and record companies, traditional music was passed down from person to person, and there was no charge for it. “It may surprise you to learn that the cornerstones of today’s internet are due in part to The Grateful Dead,” Justin continued. “While I’m not a huge Grateful Dead fan, I have respect for the stewardship of the music they played. The reason for the congruence was their realization that copyrights inhibited them instead of boosting them. They always allowed people to record and share their shows, and today that is the single most important vector for the way traditional music works on the internet.”
When his band’s last album was produced, Justin says it was released as an encrypted record. “The decryption key was released by a smart contract that required ten ethers ($28,000) to activate. That money was raised in six days. At that moment, the record was free to anyone, everywhere. Now there is forever a record of who contributed on the blockchain.” Justin says they have a similar system for the merchandise at their shows. “To prove they were at our show, people can purchase a ticket stub on the way out the door.”
There is nothing predictable about a Justin Holmes and the Immutable String Band show. No two shows are the same. “We are a musical string band,” says Justin. “Each instance we play is its own instance. When I play, I play to serve the groove. There are several considerations, such as the piece we are playing and the audience listening to it. I’m not necessarily focused on entertaining the audience. It’s more about servicing the music in that moment.”
A blend of traditional bluegrass music with lyrics for modern times, the band has a small but loyal following. “We primarily play at crypto events,” Justin explains. “There is a huge underculture of Deadheads who attend those events. We do bluegrass workshops at crypto events where we teach prominent pickers how to code. Just today, I was working with Jake Stargel, who is learning git, JavaScript, and Ethereum contract design. Our primary educational venture at the moment is teaching pickers how to write compelling decentralized applications.”
Wherever the band plays, they try to incorporate local musicians, like Pepa Lopera, a fiddler in Bogota. “They may be street performers or someone who has been recommended to us. We typically invite them to join us for an entire set.” The members of the band are fluid. “We draw from a pool of about twenty musicians,” Justin says. Most of those are seasoned musicians who have made a name for themselves in the world of bluegrass. Cory Walker toured with Sierra Hull and The SteelDrivers and worked with David Grier. Justin described him as a “generational oddity on the banjo” when he heard Cory play “John Hardy” with Billy Strings in St. Augustine. Cory is also a member of East Nash Grass. Other band members also played with Justin Holmes and the Immutable String Band.
Cory Walker (banjo) and Harry Clark (mandolin), both members of East Nash Grass, joined Justin on the Vowel Sounds album, recorded in Stargel Studios in Nashville and released in 2023. Jake Stargel produced and engineered the album, and he also played upright bass. Other musicians on the album include Christian Ward (fiddle), Jakub Vysoky (mandolin), and Allen Cooke (dobro).
An interesting aspect of their music is Justin’s use of throat singing. “The first time I heard it, the friend I was with had to convince me that the sound I was hearing was a human voice. I looked into it and learned that all of music history is in service of vibration. The technique I use is influenced by Tuvin throat-singing, although I sing with a softened pallet, similar to a yodel.”
The band will be releasing a new record soon called 4Masks. “I’m excited about this album,” Justin says. “There are four different ensembles on the album, including Skyler Golden, Sam Grisman, Cory Walker, Kyle Tuttle, Maddie Denton, John Mailander, Jake Stargel, David Grier, Harry Clark, Kaitlyn Raitz, and Lauren Luz.”
Comments