Stephen Burwell with Authentic Unlimited at the 2025 Earl Scruggs Music Fest – photo © Bryce LaFoon
We’ll have a great deal of coverage this week from the Earl Scruggs Music Festival in North Carolina, held over the Labor Day weekend. Here is the first, Ellie Smith’s interview with Authentic Unlimited. Photos by Bryce LaFoon.
Authentic Unlimited is fresh off a new single, the announcement of their move to the brand-new Edisonic label, and their opening set at this year’s Earl Scruggs Music Festival. They opened the Flint Hill stage, giving festival attendees an unforgettable show, and an incredible introduction to the rest of the amazing talent that graced the stages this weekend.
Jerry Cole and Eli Johnston sat down after their show to answer a few questions about the band’s experience at Scruggsfest, and give insight into some of the new directions they’re headed in.
Cost of Living was the first topic of discussion, and the guys shared a bit more about how they decided that this was the song to use for Colton Baker’s debut release with the band.
Jerry “We wanted to get this single out here so that everybody could hear Colton, and see what he sounds like with the band. It was a no-brainer, getting it [Cost of Living] out there so everyone could hear him. Colton does a real good job on the recording, and when we do it live, he does a real good job on it.”
Eli “He just fits right in like a glove. Just perfect.”
Then, Eli told the story of how they came across the song…
Eli “Let me tell you about Cost of Living. We were sitting in a cabin, the three of us, Jerry, Colton, and me, our first week together as a trio, trying to work on our harmony, working on our instrumentation, and what not. We had been there for three or four hours, probably, and we were looking for songs. Well, Colton looked at Jerry, and he said, ‘Hey Jerry, you got anything? Anything that’s kind of country?’ Jerry gets his phone out, and he sits back in this recliner and starts scrolling [through lyrics] on his phone. Colton and I are looking at each other while he’s scrolling his phone, and all the sudden Jerry just falls asleep holding his phone. Colton goes, ‘Jerry! Jerry! Show us that song!’ Jerry goes, ‘Oh.. yeah! When does the cost of living outweigh the price of dying all alone?’ We’re like, ‘Golly, that was heavy! Let’s do that one!'”
Jerry “I was dead asleep, too. It kind of scared me when they woke me up.”
The conversation then drifted to their new label and their reasons for the change.
Eli “So Edisonic… We were originally with Billy Blue; we’ve been with Billy Blue since back in the Doyle days. But we decided we wanted to separate ourselves, in a good way, so Edisonic was a move on both of our parts, ours and Billy Blue’s.”
Jerry “Traditionally, Billy Blue is straight down the line bluegrass, and as you know, we’re going to make our music, and record the things we like to record whether it be gospel, bluegrass, contemporary-bluegrass, or bluegrass-country. We’re going to record good music, regardless of the specific genre lines it might fall into. When we explained to Eddie what we were wanting to do, he expressed that this was something he’d be interested in backing. He is passionate about good music, and that’s a pretty broad spectrum. That’s along the lines of what we’re wanting to do, broaden our horizons. However, the important thing is that people know that we’re still bluegrass, even if we may be reaching just a ways outside the straightforward bluegrass camp in the future. We’re tickled to be starting a new thing with them, and helping build that label with the kind of music we do.”
Authentic Unlimited is leaning into the Unlimited side of their name with Edisonic Records, not leaving bluegrass, but not confining themselves to one section of it either. Jerry provided more reassurance on that by bringing up the nature of their next project.
Jerry “The next album we release is going to be straight-down-the-pike, in-your-face, energetic bluegrass.”
AU fans will be left with no doubt that Authentic Unlimited is as bluegrass as it gets after the release of this future album full of barn-burning bluegrass that will be impossible to forget.
The interview wound down with Eli and Jerry giving their thoughts on the festival and the turnout for their set.
Eli “I think Earl Scruggs Music Fest is going to be alright. We had a good crowd, a good daytime crowd. We played at 3:00, and there were a bunch of people out there. Seems to me like they’re doing it right, they put on a good festival here.”
Jerry “Scruggsfest is an awesome festival, and the hospitality has been off the chain.”
The 2025 Earl Scruggs Music Festival got off to a fabulous start with the killer opening set from Authentic Unlimited, and the perfect band to kick off the Bluegrass Today Interview Series.
