In 2017 Feinstein met Joe “Juice” Berglund working in his neighbor's yard and asked him to join the band on fiddle and bass. Berglund is a self-taught musician who had been travelling the country and living out of his car prior to that. A year later the band met Joanne Ledesma who would become their manager. Tommy Drinkard met Feinstein by chance when he was invited to a jam at his house. He stuck around and became the band's banjo player in 2019 after taking lessons from Feinstein. Drinkard's first gig with Water Tower was the 2019 Huck Finn Jubilee, which Feinstein also performed as MC for. By 2020 Berglund and Drinkard would replace Daggatt, Norris, and Selick as the main line up, although the others would continue to play in Water Tower occasionally. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 the trio continued the practice of busking on the street to practice and make money. They also started streaming online every day to build their fan base. One of their online livestreams was a show hosted by Feinstein and Drinkard called Producing the Internet during which they would invite their fans to participate in the songwriting process with them. They played the virtual Topanga Banjo & Fiddle Contest & Folk Festival that year and Drinkard won first place in the intermediate banjo category. It was while busking that Water Tower met another new member, Jesse Blue Eads, a young banjo player and electric bassist who had dropped out of college to pursue music. One day he got a call from a friend, letting him know that someone was in his usual busking spot in Hermosa Beach. It turned out to be the band and the four of them became fast friends. They asked Eads to join them on their next tour of the West Coast in summer 2021. One of the shows on this tour was presented by Thompson Guitars near their workshop in Sisters, Oregon. Feinstein, who plays a custom Thompson dreadnought with an extra-large sound hole inspired by bluegrass legends Clarence White and Tony Rice, is a featured musician on the Preston Thompson Guitars website. They also played at Summer's End – The Draper Rendezvous festival in Hailey, Idaho with Sarah Shook & the Disarmers and John Craigie. When they returned from touring, Feinstein and Drinkard started hosting a monthly bluegrass open mic event at Silverlake Lounge in