The String Cheese Incident, one of the bands involved in the jam movement of the mid-to-late 1990s, formed in Crested Butte, Colorado in 1993, originally playing local gigs at ski resorts in exchange for free lift tickets. The band is comprised of Michael Kang (acoustic/electric mandolin and violin), Michael Travis (drums and percussion), Bill Nershi (acoustic guitar, lap steel guitar, and electric slide guitar), Kyle Hollingsworth (piano, organ, Rhodes, and accordion), and Keith Moseley (bass guitar). During a concert on October 31, 2004, the band announced the official inclusion of a sixth member, Jason Hann, an auxiliary percussionist.

Their music is strongly influenced by bluegrass sounds, as well as forays into rock, calypso, country, funk, jazz, Latin, reggae, and occasional psychedelia. The String Cheese Incident (often abbreviated to SCI) has been described as a democratic ensemble rather than a band, since all of the members contribute their own original compositions to the group's burgeoning library and share the vocal burden on a number of cover versions as well as their own songs. If a de facto leader had to be named, such a title would probably fall upon Nershi, who is responsible for the bulk of the group's original song library.