A crowd-thrilling trio from the hills of Colorado, Stillhouse Junkies share the kind of strangely charmed chemistry that elevates both artist and audience alike. Since forming in 2017, the Durango-bred band have offered up a hypnotic and high-energy form of roots music anchored in the free-flowing interplay among the three lifelong musicians (Fred Kosak on guitar and mandolin, Cody Tinnin on upright bass, Alissa Wolf on fiddle). While they’ve gained major traction in the bluegrass world in recent years—including winning the IBMA Momentum Band of the Year award in 2021—Stillhouse  Junkies ultimately inhabit a genre-blurring and subtly inventive sound informed by everything from blues to classical to  Texas swing. When matched with their nuanced songcraft and soul-stirring harmonies, the result is a one-of-a-kind musical experience that immediately transports the listener into a more enchanted state of mind. 

Founded not long after Kosak moved to Durango from his native New England, Stillhouse Junkies got their start playing a weekly residency at a local distillery and quickly drew a dedicated following on the strength of their unforgettable live Show. Although all three members had established careers in other fields (including Tinnin’s stint as a chef in Austin’s fine-dining scene), they soon devoted themselves full-time to the band and delivered their debut album in 2018, then embarked on their first national tour the following year. As they earned an ever-growing number of accolades,  Stillhouse Junkies built up a repertoire of original songs by tapping into their eclectic sensibilities: Wolf’s background as a classical violinist who’s also influenced by jazz and Celtic music; Tinnin’s musical upbringing as a trombone player who later took up bass and shifted from jazz to bluegrass; Kosak’s expansive history in such diverse genres as fusion, rock,  and old-time music and eventual discovery of his singular songwriting voice. Their third full-length and first release for Dark Shadow Recording, 2022’s Small Towns perfectly encapsulates what makes their music so spellbinding, presenting a richly detailed selection of songs that often use the wildly colorful mythology of the American West to explore complex questions of the human heart.

With their fourth album due out in 2024, Stillhouse Junkies have now achieved such triumphs as touring in the UK and  Europe and taking the stage at leading festivals like MerleFest and Grey Fox. Whether they’re performing at house concerts or playing to crowds of thousands, the band balances the dizzying intricacy of their musicality with plenty of freewheeling improvisation. “We make sure to leave a lot of wide-open spaces for group improv at our shows,” says  Tinnin. “We’re not that interested in playing it safe; the goal is always to connect and play off each other as best we  can.” And at the heart of that connection is an easy camaraderie made even more powerful by the intimacy of their lineup. “There’s a cool dynamic to the trio that we’ve really embraced over the years,” Kosak points out. “We all believe  that the triangle is the strongest shape.” “One of our favorite things we hear after shows is that we have such a big, full sound for just three people,” Wolf adds. “We always just try to bring a lot of joy to everything we do and give the audience something they can’t even describe. We want to leave them wondering, ‘Wow, what was that?