The Rhythm Road - Bluegrass Band The Student Loan

Mark Gerolami: I grew up hearing about this program, I mean, Louis Armstrong and the big tours overseas, Duke Ellington and his trips.

Mark Gerolami: In the music world, there's a lot of interesting stories about those tours that come down through the ranks.

So it's something that we were always aware of that the State Department did these sorts of programs.

I don't know that we ever thought that we would have an opportunity ...

Chad Kimbler: Most people don't start bluegrass bands to become diplomats, in general, you know?

Mark Gerolami: Yeah, we jumped at the opportunity to apply for it, to try to do it. We love traveling, we love playing music, we love being on tour, and this combines all of the things we are really interested in.

Liz Chibucos: I think as musicians, any time you actually get the opportunity to share your music the way we're going to be doing on this trip, plus you get to sustain yourself - that's a big deal.

Julio Appling: It's the best our life has been for a while - will be for a while.

Mark Gerolami: We could theoretically take a vacation to one of these countries, but it would be a lot harder to set up a tour. So the idea to perform with people and to meet people there, there's no way we would have been able to do it on our own.

As a bluegrass musician, it's a validation of our style of music. We're influenced by all the big musics here in America, jazz, blues, rock, bluegrass. We grew up on all of that stuff. To have that validated by Jazz at Lincoln Center, or the State Department, was a big thing.

Julio Appling: For us, it seems very much like, Oh, wow we get this chance to go there. A lot of the big part of this program, we hear, is sending the musicians who out, But yeah, the musicians who are going out are receiving so much and you can kind of sit back and personally take a lot of pride in because not a lot of people get the chance to represent something this much larger than themselves.

Julio Appling: I'm Julio Appling, I'm the double bassist for the student loan.

Mark Gerolami: Hi, I'm Mark Gerolami. I do banjo, guitar and vocals.

Liz Chibucos: I'm Liz Chibucos and I play guitar and violin, and/or fiddle. I sing as well.

Chad Kimbler: I'm Chad Kimbler and I play mandolin for the Student Loan.