The musical quintet known as the Punch Brothers are returning for a performance at Park City’s Eccles Center next Tuesday night, July 30th.
We talked to Chris Thile, a singer and mandolin player in the group, which recently appeared in Tokyo and Australia and will be in Colorado for their current tour.
He said that the Punch Brothers are a tight-knit group.
“This is a five-headed beast here and it has been for quite some time,” Thile continued. “It’s one of our favorite—we all do other things. But this project, when we get together, I think this is where everyone’s heart swells. It affects all the other projects that we have. And those projects affect it. But the personnel is set in stone like a family at this point.”
On the surface, one might call them a blue-grass band. But Thile said they are more than just that label.
“It’s banjo, fiddle, mandolin, guitar, and bass,” Thile explained. “And to look at us, it’s exactly the same as what Bill Monroe, or Flatt/Scruggs or the Stanley Brothers. But what it sounds like is another matter entirely. And I think that—y’know, Bill Monroe for instance, what he found y know just lying around among influences coupled with his own unique personality. That’s what’s important. The instruments that he chose to present those findings with are not that important. We’d rather emulate that spirit of creativity, than the actual music that he made.”
Their Tuesday concert at the Eccles starts at 7:30. For tickets or more info click here, or call the box office at 655-3114.