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I came up with the idea for this almost exactly three years ago. The idea sprung from the divorce I was going through, and I had to rearrange all my priorities... the music of the piece is basically a chronicling of that realization of how important music is to me. I actually feel its creation is the second highest calling of my life behind making sure I'm a decent family member and good friend. -Chris Thile |
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Like a trust exercise that goes on for 40 minutes with the added challenge of making the right sounds come out of your instruments while tumbling?
Punch Brothers
"It so is! We're only just now live getting to the point where we got in the very controlled environment of the studio. Now, it's starting to happen live," says Thile. "We play 'The Blind Leaving The Blind' in concert but not always straight through, though sometimes it's all the way through. We're always trying to read the audience and figure out how receptive they'll be to it. And the other four songs [on Punch] are no walk in the park."
True enough. The album begins with the dissonant buzz of "Punch Bowl," raising one's hackles with joyously dissonant notes and an ugly lyrical bent. In every way it announces this in no hay chewin' bluegrass or folk-pop record.
"'Punch Bowl' is as abrasive a hello as you could ever get. I like that it's kinda like waking up really groggy and splashing yourself with ice water. Well hell, it is about drunken infidelity," chuckles Thile with knowing weariness. Thile has openly discussed how Punch began its life in the wake of a difficult divorce several years ago. "It was funny how it all came down. The piece was written over the course of a year and a half, and it came out two and a half years after the events in question. And I had a record come out in between with three songs written during the same period. So, on the face of it, it may seem like I just can't get over it but the reality is all the lyrics were basically sketched or completed within six months of the divorce. And about halfway through the recording of the demo of this piece we realized we wanted to do a record more like How To Grow A Woman first rather than something this ambitious. In a way, the idea revisits things but it was really only the initial sketching that was painful. I absolutely love to work, so after that it was no more painful than practicing with calluses and practicing when you first start playing an instrument. Once you have the calluses it's just a joy but there's that initial stage where the strings are digging pretty far into your fingers."
The Twain Meet
Punch Brothers
"We were rehearsing in Colorado, getting ready to go into the studio and searching for a new band name. We had gone through a few names, the best of which was The How To Grow A Band, chosen to tour behind the Woman From The Ground record. But, this was turning into a full-time project and a serious band in our lives and we wanted a new name that reflected that. We went through a million names. We had the name The Tensions Mountain Boys for a while but we had people telling us that name could limit the reach of our music. At first we didn't agree but it became apparent it was a really difficult name. Every time we said it in a bar or loud place we'd have to repeat ourselves, explain it and it's a really long name and the pun of it would likely get old after a while," explains Pikelny. "There's the song 'Punch Bowl' on the new record and at one point, in frustration, I said, 'Why don't we just call ourselves Punch Bowl?' Then Chris said, 'Punch, Brothers, Punch!' He thought we were gonna pick up on it but he explained it was a short story by Mark Twain. We went and looked online and thought it was such a good story with many parallels from our lives. So, we decided to call ourselves the Punch Brothers. That was that, and we felt there was no better American artist to ally ourselves with."
Fittingly, one of Twain's core artistic ideas was that one could break all the rules they want so long as they'd learned every in and out of the fundamentals in their craft. Go ahead, abandon tradition but do so consciously and with a sense of purpose. This ideal of the learned maverick is part and parcel of the Punch Brothers, each of whom is a brilliant instrumentalist and singer but never in the straightjacket way most high level musicians tend to be.
Noam Pikelny
"In the past few years, Chris Thile, as a writer, has made a lot of strides. It's really interesting to watch a guy who essentially has no technical limit become an incredibly mature musician and writer. I think a lot of that is context," observes Pikelny. "In the past he might intersperse some of these ideas we're working with into say a solo on a fiddle tune, which was really impressive, but I think he realized he needed some sort of forum to really investigate these concepts and execute them the right way."
Thile and the others face a mountain of audience expectations, where people come in wanting something akin to Nickel Creek or Leftover Salmon, another dose of the familiar elixir. But, as any good Buddhist will tell you, all suffering stems from desire, and desires spring from expectations. Set them aside and much is possible; cling to them and you'll most surely be frustrated. For a group equally inspired by Bach and The Beatles, as energized by Ralph Stanley as they are by Radiohead, the old formats are bound to feel constrictive after a while. In honestly addressing their core principles, they serve music in the archetypal sense, throwing off convention like a scab and letting fresh air kiss new, pink skin.
"Like minds and a similarity of approach are enabling a sort of swirling of this beautiful mess of influences [laughs]. I'm 27-years-old and there's so much to listen to that it would be so silly to cut anything out of the equation. It's not that I'm trying to blend this with this for the first time. That's a horrible goal to be the first guy to combine say punk, bluegrass and classical. I feel there's a lot of things out there like that. That's not really new because there's really nothing new under the sun. That's an important thing to realize when you have so much at your fingertips. With the Internet you can go download the Mahler #9 [Symphony] and then the new Of Montreal EP - two click on iTunes," says Thile. "What I'm trying to figure out is what's the same about all this good music, what makes it good. You have these areas where certain things excel in each. In folk and pop music you have people with a shocking ability to express themselves personally, and in classical music you have people wielding harmony and rhythm with such precision and force. But, it's all the same stuff! When a folk song really succeeds musically it succeeds for the same reasons that a Mozart symphony succeeds musically. And when a classical libretto is successful it's often touching for the same reasons as a Dylan lyric is touching. It's all the same stuff, and the higher your sampling rate the more true your product will be."
Continue reading for more on Punch Brothers...
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