Umphrey’s McGee is a tough beast to pin down. Like a lot of jambands, the group has largely flown under the radar, steadily building a dedicated following outside the mainstream with a relentless touring schedule, shifting setlists and impressive displays of musicianship.

Unlike a lot of jambands, Umphrey’s McGee aren’t exactly known for their noodly, spaced out improvisations. Sure, there’s plenty of notes to go around, but these guys tend to opt for something with a little more edge when they veer into uncharted territory. Throw in a healthy dose of prog rock and funk–perhaps with a side of electronica–and you’ve got a whole lot of words that may or may not describe what this band is going for.

Like I said: Umphrey’s McGee is a jamband. You’re going to have to see them live if you want to find out what they’re about.

Fortunately, you’ll have the chance to do just that this Thursday, when Umphrey’s McGee headlines the Joy Theater with support from up-and-coming rockers TAUK. I caught up with bassist Ryan Stasik to talk about this week’s show, his love for New Orleans, watching the Masters gold tournament, what’s next for the band and more.

Umphrey’s McGee will return New Orleans this Thursday. You guys have played here a lot over the years, do you have any particular love for this city?

Oh my god, nothing but love for this city. I’ve been going down there since, I think my first trip was to see Phish in 1995 [Editor’s Note: Phish played Jazz Fest in 1996] when I was a student at Notre Dame. A kid pulled up to the dorm room, had an extra spot and I jumped in the car with 60 bucks. I’d never been to the city before, and I experienced Jazz Festival for the first time. Umphrey’s continued to go for many years, as long as we could. You can’t really describe how amazing and awesome the music is there, during Jazz Fest especially, but just around the whole town in general.

Yeah the first time I saw you guys was Jazz Fest 2008 at the House of Blues down here. Other than Jazz Fest, do you have any good stories from your time in New Orleans.

Well it depends on what you can print. We get into a lot of fun stuff. Sometimes we end up at Harrah’s. I have not been fortunate enough to walk away a winner, but everybody else has. Everybody else tries out Bourbon Street and the French Quarter. So we get around. It’s an interesting town because it never sleeps, so it seems a little bit dangerous at times.

I hear that the Lettuce horn section–Ryan Zoidis and Eric Bloom–is going to play with Umphrey’s on Thursday. What can we expect out of that collaboration?

I think we’re gonna try to do about 6 or 7 songs with them. They’ve learned our originals. Playing with Lettuce and being around them, we had joked about it and then we had talked about it and then it finally became serious. It was like why aren’t we doing this? We sent them some of our tunes, saw what they would be interested in and now it’s happening. We’re very excited.

Was that it fortuitous because Bloom lives down here now? Did you guys feel like you needed a horn section for a New Orleans show?

We’ve been trying to do things like that in general, play with a horn section. We always do it at New Years, and we felt like we shouldn’t just do it for New Years shows. Those guys are so much fun. We got along so well and have enjoyed touring with them. It seemed like a no brainer to just have a conversation and make it happen. Now it’s happening, and it worked out that Bloom is down there so it made the travel and everything else a lot easier.

Y’all debuted a number of original tracks over the course of last year. Any plans to debut some more on this tour and maybe put some down on an album?

Yeah there’s always a plan for that. Last May we went up to Jake [Cinninger’s] studio in Michigan and wrote about seven to nine new tunes. Some of them have been debuted and been played a little. I think we’ve played them about 10 times. “Attachments” is one of those. We have some new material as well where Jake has been, he just got a brand new 7 string guitar with a low B string on it. So we’ve been writing some new stuff for that, as well with my 5 string bass with the low B. But we have not been able to find the time right now to get those compositions done with everything that’s been happening, with the guest horns and special sets and UMBowl coming up. There’s a lot of preparation going on with team Umphrey’s right now, but we’re doing our best to get the new numbers out there. And we’ll see what’s gonna happen with the record. We’ve got some stuff on the back burner but we’re not quite sure, nothing is set in stone.

You mentioned UMBowl, what do you guys have planned for that one?

Obviously I can’t give away too much, but the balloting has gone out and the fans will vote. So the fans will do most of the choosing. This next run is when we’ll check out and see what they’ve chosen, and put together the arrangements and figure out how we’re gonna make this UMBowl better than last year. It’s a serious experience. I mean, five hours of music takes a lot of preparation even though some of the sets are improv. That kinda helps us cause you can’t really prepare for that, but the other stuff that the fans have chosen is pretty exciting.

I know you were just doing the Major Rager out in Augusta over the weekend. Did you have any chance to make it out to the Masters while you were there?

I did. Me, Andy [Farag] and Joel [Cummins] made it out on Thursday. I actually followed Spieth from hole 10 to 16. He was almost 4 or 5 under after we left and went back to the gig. Augusta’s always a good time, and we ended up doing a special set there. We did an “All Night Wrong” set where we did covers with special guests. We had Michael Quinn on sax from Charleston. We had Jen Hartswick and Natalie Cressman playing horns with us and singing, and we had some James Brown backup singers and longtime band leader and guitar player come sit with us. Then Sharon Jones jumped up on stage and sat in with us during “I Feel Good”. So we had quite an interesting night. We try to do different things all the time but this was one of the few times that we did a full cover set with special guests.

I saw you guys had Earphunk and Revivalists opening for y’all. Two New Orleans acts.

We did, man! More good guys. Good guys to be on the road with and stuff. Great musicians, great tunes.

So after the New Orleans shows you guys are gonna swing through the Wanee Festival where you’ve already announced that you’re gonna be playing a few mash-ups. Do you guys feel like you’ve been pigeonholed a bit with the mash-up thing or is it still fun for y’all?

Oh no, it’s super fun for us. I don’t know, I wouldn’t say pigeon-holed. I think it was our idea that we came up with about 8 years ago. The fun part is always driving around, listening to the radio and thinking wow, this is the tune that would go really well with this one, Then you makes notes and get together, and then hopefully everyone has so many ideas. The hard part is trying to pick out which ones would be the best or translate the best for doing live. So that’s always super fun for us. And it’s been a lot of fun for our Halloween shows, especially seeing how the fans come dressed up in mash-up costumes every year. And they’re not repeating. They’re  just thinking of new ones and it’s pretty amazing. The creativity out there is superb.

The band recently debuted its documentary, Reel to Real. Are there any plans for a wider distribution with that in the future?

You know, this is one of those answers where I say I just play bass. I really don’t know. I know that we have debuted it in New York and in Chicago with great reception, but as far as right now, I think it’s just for us and the people that have been fortunate enough to see it. I assume we should do something with it in the future. We shouldn’t just hide it, right? If people wanna see it we gotta let them see it.

So Umphrey’s McGee’s first show took place in January of 1998, which means that the band is now old enough to vote. Are there any plans to endorse a candidate in this year’s election?

Not this year man, not this year. I try to avoid all politics with my music. I’ll have a nice glass of wine or a scotch and talk to you at the dinner table and stuff, but I don’t ever go on record mixing music and politics. I think that’s a good rule for me.

Fair enough. 18 years is a long time for a band. Which of your bandmates are you most sick of at this point?

Now, the funny question is who’s gonna see this interview first. I’m going to have to think that Joel will be the first one to read it, see it, and comment on it. So for that reason alone, I’ll go with Joel. But I love them all.

Umphrey’s McGee will headline the Joy Theater in New Orleans on Thursday, April 14. TAUK will open the night. Tickets for the show are on sale here.