Punch Brothers’ Chris Thile on How Pitfalls of Technology Inspired New Album
“It’s a survival experience. I find it thrilling,” says California native Chris Thile of the two-degree weather in his temporary home of Oberlin, Ohio. He and his band, the Punch Brothers are doing both an entertainment and educational residency there, performing concerts, giving lectures and conducting student workshops at Oberlin College and Conservatory.
The brutal weather is almost Thile’s new normal. He arrived in Ohio just after hosting the Valentine’s Day edition of A Prairie Home Companion, in record-cold St. Paul, Minnesota. “That was a highlight of my life,” says the 34-year-old musician of his two February stints filling in for host Garrison Keillor and performing with the Punch Brothers on the program. “I grew up listening to that show. Garrison has created this world we can inhabit for two hours on Saturday. You have to participate to get the full benefit of micro creation. The point is not to tell the story but help listeners tell stories, exist creatively. That is the genius of Garrison Keillor, of J.R.R. Tolkien, of any great piece of art.”
By that definition, the Punch Brothers’ latest album, The Phosphorescent Blues, is also a fine piece of art. The genius of Thile and bandmates Paul Kowert, Noam Pikelny, Chris Eldridge and Gabe Witcher is the artistry with which they mix bluegrass, roots, rock, pop, jazz and classical to create a unique, contemporary sound. On the T Bone Burnett-produced LP, that sound ranges from the 10-plus minute “thesis statement” of the new album, “Familiarity,” to their rendition of the traditional “Boll Weevil.” Those, and all the songs in between, easily fuel an array of personal ruminations.
There’s little doubt the five musicians are virtuosos. But the depth of their artistry comes with the price of occasionally confusing some critics and fans who scratch their heads at artists who move from roots to classical to a cover of Radiohead’s “Kid A” with nary a pause. Suffice to say, the Punch Brothers’ music won’t be found on any mashups.
Thile seems aware of the occasional disconnect, though, saying the residency at Oberlin keeps him and his band mates musically grounded. “I love music with everything I have, and when I am in a front of a classroom talking about music sometimes someone will ask me a question and it reminds me to really think about something, to really feel something. The boys and I would take it into the writing room the next day and we could evaluate and say, ‘We are not doing what we say we want to do. Why aren’t we doing that?’ And lo and behold, a different piece of music emerged.”
The group crafted the new album while holed up at writing retreats between their myriad side projects — which for Thile included recording and touring behind A Dotted Line, the first Nickel Creek album since 2007, and recording the Grammy-winning Bass & Mandolin with one of his musical heroes, Edgar Meyers.
“Of all the projects I’ve done the last few years, if you had told me that was the one that would win a Grammy,” he says, laughing. “It is always a thrill. You go to the Grammys and you say, ‘I don’t care if I win or not,’ and of course you care. But that record, just Edgar and I creating sounds we like to make . . . It’s a boutique record. For that to win the Grammy, it tickled me.”
Thile fills Rolling Stone Country in on the Punch Brothers’ new album and how marriage, impending fatherhood and smart phones led to some of its most profound lyrics.