Bluegrass trailblazers Punch Brothers are no strangers to the mad dervish that is life on the road.
For ten years they have traipsed across the globe, doing their bit to continue the bluegrass resurgence that has been sweeping contemporary music, and leaving in their wake a motley army of fans as well as several name changes (Punch Brothers is fine, but The How to Grow a Band is pretty great). But resurgence is a tricky word, as guitarist Chris Eldridge considers while speaking of the shape of the New York quintet today. The community that fuels the tunage has never gone away, and this, more than anything else, is what will see the music continuing to play through the night.
“I think the community is the core of the music,” Eldridge says. “We all kind of grew up playing music at those festivals. I know for Chris [Thile] and Gabe [Witcher], Noam [Pikelny], when they were all kids, going to these festivals was something they would do with their families. They’d hang out, play music together. It was as much about community as it was about the music. Bluegrass and old-time are all like that. My girlfriend used to run an old-time session in New York once a week, and everyone would just get together and play tunes. The music was cool, and was the thing that got everybody into the room, but really everyone was there just to be with each other. I don’t think that’s mythologised or overblown at all; I think it’s a huge part of our scene, it’s so supportive, and I just love that.”
Having recently chatted with Béla Fleck (see below), I happen to have direct evidence of this. The banjo legend was ebullient in his praise of the band.
“Ha, well, it goes without saying that without Béla there is no Punch Brothers,” Eldridge says. “He was such a hero and inspiration, and continues to be for all of us. We just saw him last weekend and it was great. I feel like he’s an important friend at this point.”
As we speak, Punch Brothers are in Japan, having found themselves undertaking a personal first. Their Tokyo residency sees the band perform multiple shows at the same venue, entirely different sets twice a day for three days. It sounds amazing, but also several kinds of exhausting. Their Australian leg is not quite as busy, but still sees them perform day after day. It’s great news for local fans, but doesn’t exactly leave the guys with much room to dust off their explorer hats and find fresh inspiration.
“We haven’t really interacted with the musical culture here outside of our performances,” Eldridge admits. “I do feel like interacting with Japanese culture overall is pretty inspiring. The whole band was based in New York City for five or six years, and I feel like New York was a similarly inspiring place. There are so many things that are exciting and mind-boggling that are available to you anytime there, and that’s part of the reason that we wanted to be there – as individuals and as a band. And I think we’re getting a lot of the same thing out of Tokyo. The attention to detail that is displayed everywhere, in everything we do, and in all the amazing rabbit holes that people seem to go down creatively, it’s an amazing place.
Eldridge does assure that the group still tries to have fun. “If we’re coming to the other side of the world, we have to try and live it up at least a little bit. Get up early, see the sights. Actually, the last time we were in Australia we did [that]. We had an amazing time, certainly one of the best trips we’ve taken as a band. We had a day off in Adelaide, so we visited a friend in the Barossa Valley. We looked all around there, and that was an unforgettable day. But those days are more rare than you’d hope. Especially in the US. It feels like I’ve been everywhere at this point, but I only know a small fraction of each place that I’ve been.”
The underlying message here is that clearly Eldridge is hoping for some sympathetic fan to offer the Punch Brothers a couch to crash on for a week to see the local sights and sounds, to help craft material for their next release (for which five or six songs exist in some fledgling form, he says). The band’s excitement at returning to Australia seem like no hollow spin; their fan base here is strong, pulled from different ages, different genres. Circling back to how we began our conversation, the secret to this connection lies entirely within the music.
“It’s always been popular with a lot of different people. If you look like five years ago, all of a sudden Mumford & Sons are the biggest band in the world, and they feature a banjo. The banjo, at a certain point, had this association with hay bales and hillbillies and all that. So I think it’s fair to say because of their success, a lot more people became open to it. It opened an avenue into a larger audience. But that being said, the people who are serious about it have always been serious about it, and always will be. Bluegrass, old-time music, all the different offshoots. It’s a strong and pretty eternal tree.”
Performing at theCity Recital HallFriday August 12, Punch Brothers release,The Phosphorescent Blues,isout now through Nonesuch Records.
