Erik Yates plays a lot of instruments.

In his band, the San Francisco-based Hot Buttered Rum, Yates plays the banjo, the guitar, the flute and sings.

"Growing up in the Bay Area, I was exposed to a ridiculous amount of live music," said Yates during an interview from a taxi cab en route from his home to the San Francisco International Airport. "I had a teacher in high school who was a jazz drummer and he threw a lot of music at me — Charles Mingus, John Coltrane — and also the big bands, Count Basie and Duke Ellington."

At the same time, Yates took in a lot of classical Indian and African Music."You don't realize how much live music is around in San Francisco until you stop and think about it," Yates said.

When Yates entered college, he was playing bass, flute and saxophone. But thanks to a classmate named Nat Keefe, who played guitar, Yates started getting into acoustic music.

"Nat played in a bluegrass band called the Foggy Notion Boys," said Yates. "It was fun, and I wanted to get into that."

So, Yates picked up the banjo, thinking to himself, "How hard can it be?"

"Well, it's plenty hard," he said. "And even after seven years of playing it, I feel like I'm just wrapping my head around it."

Keefe and Yates and other classmates, mandolinist Zak Matthews, fiddle player Aaron Redner and upright bassist Bryan Horne, came together and formed Hot Buttered Rum.

"We knew the music would be appreciated outside of the Bay Area," said Yates. "But getting there was a challenge."

Being an independent band, said Yates, is always a challenge.

"What they say about it being 99 percent perspiration is true," said Yates with a laugh. "We have to deal with the business side of the band.

"In fact, the only time I really feel like we're dealing with music is when we play on stage," Yates said.

The band has since amicably parted ways with Matthews and, instead of recruiting a new mandolin player, left that to Redner and asked drummer Matt Butler.

Butler is also the founder and conductor of The Everyone Orchestra.

"We tried him out a few times and then decided we wanted to have him in our lineup full time," said Yates. "The more he played with us, the more we realized we needed him."

Butler made his recording debut with Hot Buttered Rum on the new CD "Limbs Akimbo."

"We made demo recordings of about 16 or 17 songs for the CD," said Yates. "We played them for our producer, Tim Bluhm.

"Tim went through the songs and said, 'Yes, no, yes, no, maybe,' " Yates said. "We screamed and argued and came to an agreement.

"We call Tim the butcher, because we like to jam and get into our different time and key signatures. But Tim is the consummate songwriter and rock musician. He also knows country music and is master at the fine art of arranging.

"So he really helped us with how the album and our songs turned out."

This past May, Hot Buttered Rum played the Desert Rock Music Festival in Moab.

"That was a blast," said Yates. "We got hit with a storm, though."

However, the Desert Rock Music Festival wasn't the first time Hot Buttered Rum has been introduced to Utah. Back in 2006, the band recorded a song called "Busted in Utah."

"A friend of our guitarist was busted for pot in Utah," said Yates. In California, with the medicinal marijuana laws, getting caught with non-medicinal use pot is a misdemeanor. But in Utah, it's a quite bigger offense.

"Sometimes while on the road, it's easy to forget where you are," Yates said with another laugh. "That song is about what happened to him."

Mary Jane isn't the only green thing Hot Buttered Rum sings about. The band is also keen on the environment.

"It's been that way from the start," said Yates. "Growing up where we have, there were always hikes to go on and camping trips to take. And now people are realizing that the air and water and other natural resources here on Earth is limited.

"If we use them up, there's not another planet we can go to right now. So we try to raise awareness through our songs and our lifestyle."

If you go…

What: The Intermountain Acoustic Music Folk and Bluegrass Festival

Where: The Gallivan Utah Center, 239 S. Main St.

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When: Aug. 29, noon

How much: free

Web: www.xmission.com/~iama

e-mail: scott@desnews.com

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