“I’m always trying to do things I haven’t done before,” says guitarist/banjoist Eric Lindberg, who has toured and recorded for a decade with wife Doni Zasloff as the bluegrass duo Nefesh Mountain.
“A lot of folks know us as a bluegrass/mostly acoustic band, but I really have been getting back into my personal roots – electric, jazz, rock, and blues from my formative years.”
Those broader horizons and the expanded Nefesh Mountain Band with keyboard, mandolin, bass, and drums dominate their double album, Beacons. Disc one is Americana originals and amplified playing, while disc two’s modern acoustic bluegrass features A-list guest pickers. Joining mandolin ace Sam Bush and dobroist Jerry Douglas are banjoist Rob McCoury, fiddler Stuart Duncan, and guitarist Cody Kilby.
Growing up in Brooklyn, Lindberg explored his parents’ wide-ranging record collection including the 1996 David Grisman-Jerry Garcia bluegrass collaboration Shady Grove, which he calls “a big one for me.” Discovering his dad’s Pat Metheny CD made the guitarist “one of my North Stars.” Bill Frisell and Jon Scofield later became favorites.
Studying classical guitar at 10, his first guitar was a nylon-string that was soon augmented by a Harmony 335 copy played through a tiny solid-state Marshall.
His uncle, Tim, who lived in Georgia, was a guitarist with impressive gear of his own.
“We would pick Allman Brothers tunes,” Lindberg recalls. “That’s probably why I love what I love today – that mixture of the city and the south. Those two sides of me.”
Discovering Bela Fleck and the Flecktones in high school “…reminded me of a bluegrassy version of the Metheny group, though they’re nothing alike.”
Fleck’s Bluegrass Sessions: Tales from the Acoustic Planet Vol. 2 introduced him to Bush, Douglas, Duncan, and another major guitar influence – Tony Rice.
Lindberg finally embraced five-string banjo in 2013, taking lessons from Tony Trischka. That led him to Doc Watson, Clarence White, Norman Blake, John Hartford, Flatt and Scruggs, Bill Monroe, and the Stanley Brothers, as well as modern acts like Nickel Creek. At Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts, he focused on music and continued studies with jazz-guitar great Vic Juris, which started in high school. Along with jazz, Juris encouraged his interest in bluegrass.
“Vic introduced me to certain Tony Rice records,” he said. “I was lucky I had him as a mentor.”
Beacons includes his heartfelt Rice homage “Man of Manzanita.”
Lindberg and Zasloff, who reside in the New York area, created the album there and in Nashville.
“I wrote the songs starting in January, 2024, and we did all but three in Nashville that April. We brought our band down for a few days, then Sam, Jerry, Stuart, and all my heroes came the last three days.”
Lindberg’s gear blends new and old. He acquired a 1981 ES-175 while studying with Juris – a factory second with a small knot in the wood. “Vic said it was one of the better ones he’d played.”
On the bluegrass disc, he used only a custom-made Preston Thompson acoustic with Madagascar rosewood he says is “really beautiful.” He also used his Deering five-string banjo.
For the Americana disc, he used two electrics, one being a ’52 Tele reissue he’s had for 25 years. Before meeting Zasloff, he used it on USO tours in the Middle East. “Mother” features him soloing using the neck pickup; engineer Brendan Bell used dual compression so it “…doesn’t sound super Tele.”
“Milestoned,” by contrast, is super Tele. After college, he says, “…even though I was playing a lot of jazz, I was really into Brett Mason, Johnny Hiland, Brad Paisley, and of course James Burton and Danny Gatton. I was really trying to do the Tele thing. It’s fun to step back in, and I’m playing a lot of that stuff live.”
“Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning” is his Custom Shop ’64 SG with a Murphy Lab finish, and he’s especially drawn to its thick neck shape.
After Tim passed, he visited his aunt and returned with his uncle’s ’65 SG Junior and an ’81 Strat.
“I’ll see if I want to take the ’65 on the road,” he said. “It’s a pretty wonderful-sounding old piece of wood.”
For the Americana tracks, he used a modded Fender Princeton, a ’90s Deluxe Reverb (both borrowed from a friend), and a new Magnatone.
With the Nefesh Mountain Band on tour through ’25, Lindberg and Zasloff are looking to their next record, as Lindberg reflects on the band’s voyage.
“We’ve come a long way from that first record to where Beacons is now.” – Rich Kienzle
This article originally appeared in VG’s April 2025 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
