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It's not something I expect people to enjoy the first or second time. The kind of music I enjoy the most is the kind I don't understand the first four or five or six times through. -Chris Thile |
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"Complex music can be appreciated in so many ways. We played some performing arts series where I think people are used to seeing a string quartet or classical music where they appreciate the composition and try to dig into the form of the music. But we've also played clubs where people are standing nose-to-nose and it's been as enjoyable if people get into it. That's a testament to the music we're playing. I think if people come with an open mind and are signing up for a real listening experience then they're going to enjoy it, regardless of what level they're listening on," continues Pikelny. "The only times we haven't felt connected is when people showed up expecting to hear a bluegrass band or something more like Nickel Creek or where we're presenting the music as something too serious. This music can be so intense that we try to make our show a relaxed and fun event. It's really promising to me to see young people really getting into it, being attentive and really loving it. They may not be fans of classical music or jazz or traditional bluegrass but they're just appreciating it as guys playing music and trying to do something new. For us, playing a Jimmie Rodgers tune is necessary relief after playing something like 'The Blind Leaving The Blind.'"
It'll Happen
"It feels right with the five of us. Early on, we felt everyone was going after the same type of thing. We all saw eye-to-eye on how we like to play music and what our goals were and how we could realize them. It's definitely the most unified vision of any ensemble I've ever played in," says Pikelny. "It's kind of a special situation. Chris Thile has written this four-movement string quintet, where on the surface if you hear about someone writing out parts for the rest of the musicians you might wonder, 'How is that a band?' It's been an evolving, natural thing, and he really kept that in mind and wrote music that could be interpreted and changed by us, leaving room for improvisation and restatement. If anything, 'The Blind Leaving The Blind' has given us an opportunity to be even more focused as an ensemble and align ourselves and set our musical clocks to each other."
More nuances emerge in the suite over repeat spins, where you continually feel the players living in the moment captured on tape.
Punch Brothers
"At first it was kind of a daunting technical task to learn the music on 'Blind' but it became an amazing spring training experience for us to get in there and spend a couple years working on something that was essentially way over our heads, to turn it from something that at first seemed impossible into something that's the centerpiece of the record," says Pikelny. "It forced us to get to know each other musically and establish a work ethic at the get-go that's healthy. There was no shortage of camaraderie in this band but it was probably a good idea for us to take ourselves to the limit as soon as possible."
Most musicians don't hear or approach music in neat genre classifications. Attempts to box and order something as unwieldy as music always falls short of any real truth. Music that hits you, music you love, goes way beyond words. That central indefinability can be uncomfortable for some, especially those that treat music as a lifestyle accessory, but that doesn't erase the bedrock truth of music's unnamable essence.
"That confuses people so much these days! The people we're looking for are those who hear the continuity between things," says Thile. "I'm perfectly comfortable to lose people who need things to fit more readily into the boxes. And there's wonderful music being made in those boxes! But, the amazing music that's being made by those people is being made totally honestly. They're not changing themselves to fit into those boxes. With the Punch Brothers, we'd have to change ourselves fundamentally to fit into any of those things."
"To those people unknowingly asking for the impossible – be it Nickel Creek fans or the bluegrass community – I'd hope they'd think about it differently if they'd realize we just can't do that," continues Thile. "I wish anyone for whom this is too much the best. I want them to continue to have a great time listening to music but I get so frustrated that people aren't dedicating their time to music – discovering it and increasing their understanding of it – in the way they do with movies, for instance. People are fairly able, as a general rule, to enjoy some of the best movies ever made coming out today and really get something from them. Whereas, the best music being made right now, the music made with the most care, is just gonna seem like some gobbledygook to many," observes Thile. "We were just talking about this in the van. How do you succeed professionally when you're not willing to cater to the scenester, who really, more than the music, is concerned about the sorts of people attending the concert with them? We're in such an awkward time. I'm not sure if society is in adolescence or what."
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