For Minnesota Music Month, The Current polled the local music industry for April’s edition of The Scouting Report. A total of 112 people filled out this year’s Minnesota Music Month Scouting Report ballot, and 489 unique artists were chosen overall. The top 10 artists who received the most support include Yonder.

Few bands can say they played their very first show at 7th Street Entry. Even fewer can say they arrived at that first gig without a drummer and left with one after recruiting the venue’s booker to join the band. But it's a perfectly fitting origin story for a band like Yonder, who embody the vibrant, collaborative spirit of the Twin Cities music community.

Yonder are Emma Jeanne (vocals/guitar), Hattie Peach (vocals/fiddle), Daisy Forester (bass), Oliver Gerber (guitar), and Dylan Hilliker (drums). The band’s debut EP, Memento Mori, packs an emotional punch lyrically but lightens the mood musically with catchy hooks, lush vocal harmonies, and plenty of searing fiddle leads. 

Over some post-work beers at the Bulldog in Uptown, Jeanne and Peach discussed what’s next for Yonder, some key tracks off of Memento Mori, and the local music scene.

Now that Memento Mori is out, what exciting things are coming up for Yonder this year?

Hattie Peach: The first thing that comes to mind is that we're doing some festivals this spring. We'll be at Midwest Music Fest in May. We also just booked a show in Rochester opening for Charlie Parr and Kiernan on May 3.

Emma Jeanne: We’ll also be at Mile of Music in Appleton. The group chat stays busy.

Peach: We're kind of in the zone of writing again now that we put out this record. A lot of the songs on Memento Mori were pieces that Emma and I had written together and then brought to the band, and now we're starting to write more collaboratively, which is really cool. 

Jeanne: It’s been exciting. We have a handful of songs that are ready to go that we’ve only played live so far, so we're starting to build on those.

What key tracks do people need to hear off Memento Mori and why?

Peach: I think “Archives,” the very first song on the EP. That was the first collaborative song Emma and I wrote together. It encapsulates the project well and was just our brains getting going on the same thing. It's also just such a cool track to get it going. The drop of the bass and the drums and everything is such a huge sound.

Jeanne: I would say on the tail end, “Strength,” the last track on the EP, is one of my favorites. It was a song I had written by myself in a very sad vibe. Transforming that energy into this full band and hearing it with everybody bringing their parts in just made it into such a larger sound. It was the first track that I saw how much the band could amplify our sound.

Peach: Oh, and “Teeth.” It’s not radio-friendly, though. 

You all play in other bands and projects and are very involved in the local music community. How does that community fit into Yonder, and how does it inform your sound?

Jeanne: Both Dylan and I are very involved in the venue scene. Dylan works at First Avenue as one of the main bookers, and I work at Pilllar Forum. Daisy and I also both work for She Rock, which is a femme, queer youth camp, and a lot of femme-identifying people from local bands are coaches. So you get folks from all these different Minneapolis bands that are happening right now, teaching the next generation of kids how to just chill out and have a band and have fun. So that's something super important to me.

Peach: With how we're connected with different people in the community, we get to join really cool bills with folks who we haven't played with before. Everyone is making art that they love and are showing up and performing as their authentic selves, which is such a cool thing to be a part of. And so from a folk bill to a heavier bill, we can fit in different ways like that, and we get to kind of play around.

Jeanne: It is a really great community. If you're in a pinch and you need a bassist or a drummer, you have so many people you can call.

What would you like to see more of in the Minnesota music scene?

Peach: More femme bills and more femme representation on bills. It's come a really long way, but that's something we're hypersensitive to as two ladies leading a band. These efforts are going on, but they don't need to be unicorns. It should just be part of the fabric that you see and that you expect. 

Jeanne: As a femme-fronted group, a lot of times our shows will get characterized as such. Don't tokenize it. We rock just as hard, if not harder. 

Peach: Fiddle rocks just as hard!

Yonder will perform with Charlie Parr and Kiernan at the Historic Chateau Theatre in Rochester on May 3, Midwest Music Fest in Winona on May 9-10, and Mile of Music in Appleton, Wisconsin, this summer.

Related:  Minnesota Music Month Scouting Report 2025: The top 10 new local artists