Around that time they decided that they wanted to add a keyboard player to the group, to expand their sound beyond string instruments, and invited Kyle Hollingsworth to join them.

Less than a year later, SCI released a compilation of ten songs, including "Land's End", on their self-titled live album A String Cheese Incident, which chronicles a single concert from the Fox Theatre in Boulder, Colorado and adds pianist Hollingsworth to the ensemble (he was not in the band during the recording of Born on the Wrong Planet).

'Round the Wheel, released in 1998, refined the band's sound and displayed a marked increase in both musical and lyrical maturity, and added Paul McCandless as a guest player on soprano and tenor saxophone and Tony Furtado on banjo, but did not earn them quite the level of fame that they would achieve in the next millennium.

The band did not completely abandon its bluegrass roots, however, sneaking in the short three-minute track "Up the Canyon" at the end of the disc, which has become one of many live favorites along with "Rollover", "Close Your Eyes", and others.

The suit followed an unsuccessful petitioning by SCI, R.E.M., Pearl Jam and other bands calling for the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Ticketmaster's high service fees and anti-competitive practices.

In June 2005, the band released their fifth studio album, titled One Step Closer, containing thirteen original tracks with guest songwriting collaborations, including Jim Lauderdale.

One Step Closer was a return to the more roots-based music of earlier String Cheese Incident fare, while still retaining some of the pop sensibility of previous studio albums.

[citation needed] Through Madison House Inc., the company that manages and books SCI, the band organized 'Big Summer Classic', a 2005 traveling festival tour across the United States.

Seven-person ensemble New Monsoon opened the festival's shows, which included acts such as Umphrey's McGee, Yonder Mountain String Band, Michael Franti & Spearhead, and Keller Williams.

They recommenced in the summer of the same year to play several co-headlining shows with Bob Weir's RatDog including a sold-out two-night run at Red Rocks in Morrison, Colorado and a set at the 10,000 Lakes Music Festival in Minnesota with well-known acoustic artist Keller Williams.

The band concluded their reign among the jamband leadership circuit and rode out into the sunset with a series of shows at their favorite places (New York, San Francisco, Oregon), as well as a revival of the Big Summer Classic festival at Camp Zoe, culminating with a last blowout at Red Rocks Amphitheatre during August 9–12.

[18] Later that summer, String Cheese was featured as a headliner for three out of four nights (July 1–3) of the opening year for the Electric Forest Festival,[19] an event which the band hosted in Rothbury, Michigan.

[23][24] In June 2015, the String Cheese Incident invited Skrillex, a well-known American electronic music artist, to jam with them at the Electric Forest festival.

An organization called Peak Experience Productions was hired to add various eye psychedelia, and audience participatory activities, to larger "Incidents" such as New Year's Eve and Halloween (dubbed "Hulaween" due to the band's early connection to the modern hooping movement).

Christening the series On the Road, the shows are released on the SCI Fidelity label for fans who do not have the time or means to engage in active tape trading.

Michael Travis founded the acoustic trio, Zuvuya, with Jamie Janover and Xander Greene in 2001 and started the trance music band Zilla during 2003.

[29] In 2022, Michael Travis and Aaron Johnston (Brazilian Girls, David Byrne's American Utopia) founded the improvisational duo Snakes & Stars.