Not even 10 seconds go by before the guys from Yonder Mountain String Band find a way to brag on Colorado.

“I’m here with Dave and Ben,” Adam Aijala says upon answering the phone. “We’re in Syracuse for a show tonight.”

This is when a reporter might let out a filler response like, “Oh, that’s cool.”

“Well, not really,” Aijala says. “Colorado is cooler.”

None of them — Aijala, Ben Kaufmann or Dave Johnston — are Colorado natives, but all three have lots of love for the place that changed their lives.

They each moved to Boulder in the 1990s, each following whispers about the area’s budding acoustic music scene. They found just that — an encouraging community to forge the path for “jamgrass” music — and they found each other.

Bassist Ben Kaufmann moved across the country in search of the “polar opposite” of New York City, where he was attending film school.

“I identified with the people in Colorado,” Kaufmann said. “There was something very liberal and open and curious about the people here. The feeling I had was that you could come and show up and maybe good things would happen to you.”

He was onto something.

Fast forward a couple of decades, after yearly appearances at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and sold-out performances at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Yonder Mountain String Band is a fiercely beloved jamgrass group known for blissful concerts and for pioneering its style of improvisational and feel-good string music.

And Yonder Mountain is one of Colorado’s biggest bands, as evidenced by the late October announcement that it will be inducted into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame.

“Looking at the scene now, it’s hard to imagine a time when it was unheard of for bands armed only with acoustic instruments to play sold-out shows at iconic rock clubs and esteemed festivals,” the Hall of Fame announcement said. “Yonder Mountain String Band cultivated a rock-and-roll-inspired bluegrass that would prove to be both inspirational and durable.”

After mentioning how the band inspired the likes of Billy Strings, Greensky Bluegrass and The Infamous Stringdusters, the entry stated, “Yonder Mountain is still as Colorado as it gets.”

It’s an honor, said Kaufmann, specially to be inducted in the same class as like-minded bands such as The String Cheese Incident, Leftover Salmon and Hot Rize.

“Going in with those other bands, that’s the lineage of Colorado bluegrass to Colorado jamgrass. That is the chronology,” he said. “I don’t believe we’d exist without all those bands.”

They doubt, too, they’d be at this level without help from Colorado’s venues, fans and promoters.

“The whole reason we got enough courage to tour and leave Colorado for shows was because everyone here pumped us up,” Aijala said. “We got this feeling like, ‘Yeah, this is going to work.’”

When speaking of favorite venues in Colorado, there’s one place they’re not talking about: Colorado Springs.

In their 23 years together, the band has never played a show here.

“It just never occurred to us to play Colorado Springs,” Johnston said. “Colorado Springs has always felt like it was its own world and then there’s Boulder and Denver and Fort Collins.”

Yonder Mountain will break their silence here with a concert Friday at the Pikes Peak Center. It’s perhaps one small example of the band’s next chapter, what Kaufmann calls their “third life in terms of bluegrass cat lives.”

Yonder Mountain’s climb hasn’t been completely smooth.

Jeff Austin, one of the band’s four founders, left the group in 2014 and died in 2019.

One of their biggest challenges, which is also a big point of pride, has been constantly working, as the band’s business model was built around touring.

“The million dollar question for Yonder has been, ‘What is it gonna take to get a year off?’” Kaufmann said. “The answer, I guess, was that it takes a pandemic.”

They used time off to record a new album, which is due out in a couple of months. They also reflected on how to shake up their live shows and better incorporate newer members Allie Kral and Nick Piccininni.

Kaufmann said he’s excited about the band’s changes, what he calls their “third life.” But longtime fans might have other thoughts.

“The Yonder Mountain fan base is very attached to their vision or version of the band,” Kaufmann said. “So is this something they’re going to notice? Absolutely.”

If their past shows here are any indication, fans will keep showing up.

“In Colorado, it’s a very complex and wonderful relationship,” he said. “The fan base in Colorado, we love them like they are our family.”

Yonder Mountain made it to the top because of that family. And because of each other. The only thing Kaufmann might brag more about than Colorado is his best friends.

“This band would not have survived with that mutual respect and friendship,” Kaufmann said. “I love these guys with all of my heart.”