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When is a bluegrass band not a bluegrass band?

When a group like Wild Blue Yonder, first runner-up in the Best Bluegrass Band category voted on by citizens of East Tennessee in Knoxville’s alternative weekly newspaper (second only to Blount County’s own RobinElla), decides to ditch the banjo, add some percussion and move away from the traditional sounds that most people associate with bluegrass.

For bluegrass aficionados, such a move might be considered blasphemy. For Wild Blue Yonder founders Phil Coward and Melissa Wade, however, such a move brings the band one step closer to realizing its full potential.

“It’s not that we don’t like it anymore; we still love it and respect it and listen to it a lot, but we’re trying to focus on our own songwriting, which has never been traditional in any sense and is even less so now,” Wade told The Daily Times this week. “We’re heading more in the Americana direction, or Americana-grass, if you want to call it that. We still do some hoedown tunes, but Phil and I have never been traditional songwriters, and as we work more of our own songs into our shows, we’re moving away from that style.”

Wild Blue Yonder evolved from the musical leanings of guitarists Wade Coward (a former assistant store manager at Target here in Maryville, now retired). The two played in a rock ’n’ roll band several years ago, but getting back to roots music put them closer to the music they love.

The band’s influences run the gamut, from Bill Monroe to Newgrass Revival, and the group got its start on the local circuit playing a more progressive, folk-oriented type of bluegrass, similar to that of Alison Krauss and the band Seldom Scene. Much of that can be credited to Wade’s lyrics, which lean toward the Steve Earle, John Prine and Guy Clark school of songwriting.

The band found local fame with “The Possum Crawls Tonight,” a send-up and ode to that four-legged siren of the ditch found more often than not crushed along the side of the road. Played to the tune of the 1950s R&B classic “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” the song caught on with both fans and the media. It found airplay on WGAP-FM, WDVX-FM and even on WIVK-FM.

But there’s so much more to the band, especially since Wild Blue Yonder last appearances in Blount County. (The band sold out The Palace Theater in both 2004 and 2005). And with the recent pairing of the group down to a four-piece (sisters Laura Knight and Cindy Wallace round out the band, both playing fiddle with Knight moving more and more over to percussion), the group is finding fans beyond just the bluegrass faithful.

“We never fit into the strict traditional bluegrass role anyway,” Wade said. “Phil and I started the band, and our roots aren’t really in bluegrass so much. Even though we love that style, we’ve edged away from it. We still do the possum song, and we still play ‘Rocky Top.’ I think the people who have always liked Wild Blue Yonder are still liking us.”

It’s been three years since Wild Blue Yonder released an album (2004’s “Above and Beyond,” something Wade hopes to rectify within the next year. Part of the reason for the delay is the continuing evolution of the band’s sound, she said.

“We’re continuing to evolve, because I get bored easily, so we’re trying to get some songs together that I feel good about,” she said. “We want to find the right mix that represents our new sound. And right now, we’re still working everything out — we met a girl a couple of weeks ago, and we’re working with her and thinking about bringing her in on bass.”

In the meantime, Coward’s retirement has allowed him to focus on playing music professionally (in addition to Wild Blue Yonder, he performs in Hops and Barley, a laid-back, Jimmy Buffett cover band), and the two are eyeing expanding Wild Blue Yonder’s tour base into North Carolina.

In the meantime, Saturday will mark the band’s first time playing Blount County since those sold-out Palace shows a couple of years ago. It also marks the only benefit the band expects to play this year, she said.

“We get lots of calls for benefits, and we don’t play them much because the more we do, the more we get asked to do,” she said. “But when Gunner’s (WIVK deejay) wife called and asked us to help out with Critter Fest, it spoke so strongly and personally to me. I basically told the rest of the band, ‘I’m going to do it; will ya’ll come with me?’

“This is the one benefit we’re going to do this year, and we’re really happy to help out such a great cause.”