With the release of their eighth album, "Through The Window Of A Train," Blue Highway's Tim Stafford reflects back to their 1995 Rebel debut and says it's been a long but rewarding journey for the Tennessee-based bluegrass quintet.

"We feel like (the new disc is) one of our best records...The group's matured, we're 14 years older than we were when we did 'It's A Long, Long Road', and our themes are a little more mature now than they were back then...our songs have grown up a little bit with us, as we have."

Remarkably, the personnel has remained virtually constant throughout nearly a decade and a half: Stafford (guitar), Wayne Taylor (bass), Shawn Lane (mandolin), Rob Ickes (Dobro) and Jason Burleson (banjo).

Though Burleson left for a brief time in the late 1990s, replaced by Tom Adams, he returned in 2000. When pressed for the secret to the longevity and stability that escapes so many other bands, Stafford points to a variety of factors, but hints that more than anything, it's the unique blend of their individual personalities combined with the willingness to let the band be what it is and let the music take them where it will.

"I wish I could say," Stafford relates from his home in Kingsport, in the far eastern reaches of Tennessee. "I think it's just a combination of not working too much and maybe, you know, just taking it seriously, but not as seriously as some groups...it's always been laid back with us."

Each of the five has an interesting story leading up to the band's 1994 formation, and though they've functioned as a loose democracy all along, it was Stafford who originally pulled the group together.

As the 1990s began, he was in his early thirties and found himself in what was, as was evident even back then, a dream gig holding down the guitar slot in Alison Krauss' band, Union Station as she gathered momentum toward the stardom that soon awaited her. With a young family to raise, though, Stafford was looking to spend more time at home.

"I left Alison and wanted to spend some time off the road in '92. Then...early in '93, I went out to Los Angeles with Alison and (Union Station) for the Grammys. They wanted me to come, and so I did. They tried to get me to rejoin the group. I thought seriously about it because I'd had a little trouble getting a decent job, to be honest. I was going to go back to graduate school, and (they) wouldn't accept me without taking a bunch of classes...so I never went back to finish the (history) degree, and I thought about going back with (Alison), but I never did do it."

The idea of getting together a more or less "part-time" band began to form in his mind.

"I had a 2-year-old when (Blue Highway) started. He's 16 now, and I didn't want to play as much as I did with Alison. That's the reason I left her group... I thought well, maybe I could put together a part-time group just to keep my bluegrass habit up - 'cause you know, once you get that thing in your blood, it's kinda hard to get it out - and I thought well, there's great musicians in this area."

Referring to Taylor, Stafford says, "I had done an article on the group he was in, and I thought, man, if that guy ever leaves that group, he'd be the guy I'd want to get to start a group with. Sure enough, he did, and in January of '94, I saw him at SPBGMA, and he said, 'I'm not playing with anybody,' and I said, 'Well, let's start us a group.' "

"And that's when it all started. We started casting around to see who was available, and Shawn Lane called me out of the blue. He hadn't heard about this band, but he wanted to know what I was doing because he was gonna quit (Ricky) Skaggs' group so he could go back to school. He was wanting to settle down in South Carolina where his future wife was from. He was already dating her."

"And then I called Rob Ickes, and he just happened to be moving to Nashville, and I had met him when I was in Alison's band. The last piece was the banjo player, and we...auditioned Jason twice, actually, and we auditioned four or five other banjo players that we thought were gonna play with us, and eventually we came back to Jason...He's a valuable guy to have in a group because he's versatile, he can play mandolin and guitar as well as he can banjo. We had our first show New Year's Eve of '94."

"Now, we've got three guys in the band that have kids that are eight years or younger, so there's still a priority to not play as much. We're not going to be out on the road 300 days a year. So, our emphasis has been on playing less and just picking better gigs and hopefully making more money with the fewer shows. We've been able to pull that off the last few years. We had our best year last year."

"Through The Window Of A Train" exemplifies all the elements that have made Blue Highway one of the most successful bands on the circuit.

All five are virtuoso instrumentalists (Ickes makes just about everybody's list of the top resophonic players in the world), the arrangements and vocals are superior, and Stafford, Taylor and Lane form a powerful trio of writers that provide most of the material - though Stafford agrees that they don't collaborate as much as they used to.

"The thing, I think, that happens is that...when (we) get in off the road, we just don't see each other again until we play. It's not that we're not good friends and don't want to hang out. It's just that we value our time at home, our family time, our 'down' time, and so we just don't see each other that much to get together to write."

"A Week From Today," co-written by Stafford with his regular partner Bobby Starnes, stands out as the sort of intelligent, moving ballad the band's fans have come to love. The story of a lifer about to be released from prison, it features a psychological twist that movie fans of recent times will immediately recognize, though Stafford says it's purely coincidental.

"I wish I could say it came from 'The Shawshank Redemption' because it does sound exactly like the story of the librarian (portrayed in the film by James Whitmore), but I didn't see that movie until after this was written."

"The song actually came from a preacher who was visiting our house...I've gotten a lot of (song) lines from him. He's a good friend of ours. He's moved away now, but he used to come by our house quite a bit, and he was talking to us and he said, 'I've got to leave, I've got to go over to the prison to talk to a fella, to minister to a fella, and it's an unusual case because he's in there for life, but he's gettin' out, and he doesn't want to leave. He says if they let me out I'm gonna go knock over a liquor store or something so I can get back in because this is home to me.'"

"I immediately wrote that down, and it wasn't a line like 'a week from today' that he said, it was the concept of a fellow like that. Bobby Starnes, he likes to take an idea that I have and see how he can move it in different directions. He's a big fan of people like John Prine and Guy Clark, and he was the guy that came up with the line...'four walls and a roof inside your head'. He's very good at that, and that's one reason I like to write with Bobby."

Though pleased with all the songs on the album, he's particularly high on "Sycamore Hollow," written by Lane with Gerald Ellenburg.

"I think Gerald had the melody, and the way Shawn tells the story, that melody just kind of suggested, when he hummed it to Shawn, it just sounded like 'Sycamore Hollow' to him, so that's where they got the name. It's fictional, but it just turned into a Civil War thing the more they got into it...I think it's probably my favorite cut on the record. I really like that song."

Though Stafford founded the band, they've always had a "leaderless" approach to putting their stage and studio work together, relying heavily on the mutual trust and belief in each other's talents and taste to know what works and what doesn't. Though it's a knack they've had from the start, Stafford agrees that 14 years together helps hone things to a fine edge.

"Shawn put it best when he said, 'If you listen to the song close enough, it'll tell you where it wants to go.' A lot of that, I think, informs those things, and we've been doing this so long now, we're kind of all on the same page when it comes to arrangements and kickoffs and things like that. We don't really talk about it much. Somebody might say, 'It would be cool if we did this,' and then if we try it one time we don't ever have to say whether it's cool or not, 'cause if it isn't, it's pretty obvious."

He laughs and continues, "We'll go on, and the person who suggested it knows it first. There's some continuity, but we usually try to vary it up. Not enough to where you wouldn't recognize the song - we're not as free-form as some artists, but we do like to have a little bit of fun with it and see what we can do with it that might make it better. Especially when we first start doing them, you know."

It has indeed been a long, long road for Blue Highway, but Stafford thinks there are many miles yet to go.

"I could be totally wrong, but I don't see anyone wanting to call it quits just yet. I was just thinking about the Nashville Bluegrass Band, they've been together (more than 20) years. We're like stem cells compared to those guys, (they've) just held it together."

He mentions the many projects outside the band that each of them have going on (such as his own soon-to-be published biography of Tony Rice), but emphasizes that there's a lot more to come from Blue Highway. "Like I say, we had our best year last year, financially, and I think at this point in our lives, you know, we had two guys in the band turn 40 last year, and a couple of us are approaching the other, higher-up number - Wayne's already there - but I don't really see at this point there would be much sense in doing other things because we're already doing them anyway."