Scott Lehman: mopeds and trombones

Scott Lehman (left) played GoFest in 2022 with his band, The Tumbleweed Jumpers. Photo by Tyson Miller

About once a month, Scott Lehman plays in a ska band called Dad Jokes. Out of all the things he does, it’s not what he’s known for, but he makes sure to bring it up.

“That’s always really fun,” he says, grabbing at his beard. “We used to play a lot more … we're all into many other things and a lot of us are becoming actual dads, it’s become much less.”

Scott sits behind the bar in his shed, coat on to fight the January gloom. It’s 10 p.m. now, and raining relentlessly, the drops pounding against the tin roof.

It’s a work day for him tomorrow–teaching fifth and sixth grade music at Concord Intermediate School. He also leads an after-school music club, and teaches 18 private lessons after school throughout the week. These lessons are his way of reaching out with music to students who might not join band or orchestra.

“Everywhere I go I try to think of the people that aren't gonna get touched,” he says.

Scott’s love of music goes back to piano lessons he started at age 7. In junior high he started playing in band and jazz band, a trend that would continue through college. He took pride in the extra aspects of the concert, the showmanship, which carries through into his shows today.

“We wouldn't just play music,” he says “We would perform it.”

As a young child, performing was always a part of his world. His dad’s band, the Spurlows, at one point was playing in 500 shows a year. According to Scott, they’d roll into town, play a few matinees at an elementary school, then play one more show around town at night.

“I always loved music and I knew I wanted to be a musician,” Scott says. “I knew I was gonna play in a band.”

Scott started branching out from his ensembles in high school, playing under the name “In Lehman’s Terms,” a play on his last name. In college he went on the occasional spring break or long weekend tour with a few friends, touring the east coast or heading down south, playing a singer-songwriter style of music.

“I guess I just really wanted to perform,” he says. “For some reason I was just drawn to it.”

Scott attended Goshen College, starting out in elementary education but switching his junior year to music education. Scott credits the switch to a conversation with a professor where he saw a study that showed how adding a music program can help test scores, by as much as 60% in some cases.

“I was just like, oh, this is not just Kumbaya and some band instruments.”

Because of his late switch, Scott took “some victory laps,” and ultimately “strolled across the finish line” in 2009, five and a half years after entering college.

After spending a semester as a long term sub at Waterford Elementary, Scott headed to South Korea, to spend some time teaching in a school. After spending some time in Asia in high school, traveling and going on a semester abroad to Peru, he knew that it was something he wanted to pursue, and just coming out of college the timing was right and he loved it

“I don't think I would've come home if it wasn't for my now wife.”

A few months before Scott left for South Korea, he joined the Moped Army, a spoof on motorcycle gangs. While he was in South Korea, a young woman named Hannah joined the group as well, and when Scott came back home to Goshen for a few months the two hit it off.

“She wanted a date, but I was dating someone,” he remembers. “So she's like, I just wanna get to know who this guy is who's in my gang. And I was oblivious. I was like, I'll hang out with you, whatever.”

It was on this “date” where Scott mentioned a radio show he used to do on The Globe called “Two Hours to Kill.” As it turned out, Hannah was a big fan of the show back in the day.

She used to get in her car on Mondays on purpose to listen, even calling in a good amount to request songs. 

“I was like, wait a minute. I know you. We remembered us talking like a bunch.”

“It sounds so cheesy saying it now, but it was so awesome then.”

They kept up a correspondence during the rest of Scott’s two years in Korea, and got married in 2012. The proposal took place on an unusually warm Goshen First Fridays in January featuring Scott’s newest band, Gas Station Sushi.

“We played a show in our alley and I played the song that had gotten Hannah and I through our year apart and I proposed to her.”

That band from the alley proposal would go on to play their wedding, and would become The Tumbleweed Jumpers, Scott’s most notable and successful band. However, for Scott, The Jumpers was a bit of a detour, diving into a genre that wasn’t his forte.

“We all knew it was kind of folky. I never set out to do that. I wasn’t like, oh yeah, this is the country thing I'm doing” he says.

Ryan Miller played mandolin in The Tumbleweed Jumpers for the entirety of the band’s run; Scott happened to see some instruments on a visit to Ryan’s house, they started jamming and Scott invited Ryan to play with them. 

“[Scott’s] fun to collaborate with because he has a lot of ideas,” Ryan said. “But he also listens to other people and gets excited about other people's ideas”

“When he's on stage, it's all about relationships with the people he's playing with and the people he's playing for.”

One of the best known songs, “Tether to the Weather,” was written at Scott’s job as an elementary music teacher at Millersburg Elementary School, where, at the time, I was a fifth grader.

One of his programs was teaching group guitar lessons to the Amish kids at the school.

“I did a little bit of sleuthing, talked to a parent or two and I was like, Hey, can I teach them any instruments? They're like, well, folk instruments you can praise the Lord with are totally fine. And I was like, so the guitar? They're like, yeah. And I was like, hot diggity dang, let's go.”

As Scott worked more with the Amish community, he started to dive deeper into country music. “Tether to the Weather” is an example of a song that was influenced by what he was teaching at the time.

“I don't think it's a country song, but I sing a little bit of twang and it's folky and it's just three chords and, you know, it's nothing fancy. It's kinda like a country song.”

The Tumbleweed Jumpers played for over 10 years, expanding their reach over time and setting new goals. 

“We started like, what do you wanna do?,” Scott says. “It would be so cool if we could play [The Constant Spring] someday. And then like in nine months we were there and we were like, ‘oh, I guess we'd probably better do some other stuff.’”

He trails off, no doubt lost in countless memories of dancing on stage with his various brass instruments. I prod him, ask him about their last show.

“I remember just looking out at the crowd and being like, this is insane. The whole thing's packed. I didn't really feel worthy of all that. I just got to do this cool thing with my friends for 10 years and, I don't know, it was gratitude, like the whole time. A big smile on my face.”

Since that show, Scott has found plenty to do to keep busy. From Jigalchi, his “weird experimental post rock trombone thing,” to multiple festivals that he organizes.

One is Homebody, a series of house shows that he helps organize. The other is Float Fest, an afternoon of music spread across backyards that line the Millrace Canal. Attendees float down the Millrace over the course of several hours and catch the shows along the way.

It’s quite the undertaking, a very unusual idea and a logistical nightmare. But to Scott, it just shows how willing Goshen is to do cool things.

“I keep saying it, but I just think it's so cool that we can do this in Goshen, it's nuts to me … I say jump and the whole town is like, ‘yeah, how can we help you get up? Let's go.’”

Scott’s planning on continuing to make the festival bigger and better. Last year, he debuted a floating stage. He’s planning for 1,200 people and 10 bands this year. He takes a sip of his drink and smiles.

“I do hope that when people see my name attached to something they know it's gonna be something cool.”