Tag: “Jumbo”

Punch Brothers’ Chris Thile: Escapism and Clarity

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Chris Thile is walking briskly into the venue while chatting agreeably about Punch Brothers’ new album, All Ashore. He’s used to multi-tasking, of course. In addition to kicking off an extensive tour with that eclectic band, he hosts the public radio show Live From Here, and he’s also a husband and father with a lot on his mind – particularly when it comes to the state of the world.

This interview is the fifth and final installment in a series saluting the Bluegrass Situation’s Artist of the Month: Punch Brothers.

I want to ask about “All Ashore” being the first song on here. Do you feel like it sets the tone for this album?

I do! It sort of introduces, through a fog, a lot of the content that we are mulling over the course of the record. It feels a little bit like a curtain is rising. I like starting with the nebulous imagery. It felt right.

I looked up the phrase “man of war” and found out that it’s an armed ship, which is an interesting image to start that song.

Yeah, I saw that character as moving forcefully through her environment, with conviction, with authority, with purpose … brushing aside the distraction, getting straight to business. I don’t know remember why “man of war” got stuck in my head, but just that ship, if you’ve seen a picture of one, you can tell it means business. So I felt like it was a good way to introduce people to that character.

Maybe I’m thinking too much into this song, but I like that long intro to the song because it reflects a tense relationship. It’s like, “Is someone gonna say something here?” Was that intentional?

[Laughs] Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah it’s a prelude to the record. The record was designed as a whole, as a piece of music, almost like a nine-movement piece of music. And while we hadn’t originally intended for “All Ashore” to be the first movement of it, you have to go with your material as a composer – or in our case a five-headed composer. Eventually “All Ashore” just could not be denied as the opening gesture, in large part due to that kind of prelude. It felt like a beginning. It felt like a nice way to say hello. …

I think of a sunless dawn, I think it’s overcast, I think there’s fog. But one thing I love about music is it means those things to me, and those are the pictures I get in my head, but you might get something entirely different. Is it almost two minutes before any singing anything happens? I think it might be.

It’s pretty close.

Yeah. So I love the idea that people would be in their own heads, forming their own image, and then those first lines of the lyric basically start a dance with whatever people have started to see – whatever sort of concept people are starting to get. And then basically a ship moves on the horizon, in the form of the character of Mama. You start wondering who’s telling the story, who’s the guy that comes into the song in the second verse, and what they’re all up to.

I found on this record that your stories kind of reveal themselves over time. I felt like there are narratives in these songs and it’s a pretty complete statement. Do you look at it as a concept album?

Sure, but I also think an album that is void of concept should be regarded with high suspicion. I think any album worth listening to is a concept record. You know, I understand what people mean by “concept record,” almost like a piece of musical theater, without acting or whatever. While I don’t feel like there is a linear narrative, there is absolutely a narrative that is meant to be heard from start to finish, in sequence. We wrote it that way.

We also pointedly wanted to make sure that it still made sense in vignettes, which is how most people listen to things these days. They put their phones on shuffle or whatever. Just because that’s not the way I like to listen to music doesn’t mean that’s not the correct way to do it. So we wanted to make sure that the songs could stand on their own, but I think when experienced together, they might add up to a little bit more than when they’re listened to in short bursts.

How do the instrumentals kind of factor in this? If I’ve learned anything from your Ryman show, I need to find the recipe for the Jungle Bird and Three Dots & A Dash. Tiki drinks, right?

Yeah, Tiki culture has been one of my muses for a couple of years now but this is the first record where it’s really come to the fore. There are two different rum references in the lyrics, one in “All Ashore,” one in “Jumbo.” And of course “Three Dots & A Dash” and “Jungle Bird” are a great old-school Tiki cocktails. I feel that basically the relation is two-fold. One is that Tiki culture represents one of America’s most shameless escapist gestures. It doesn’t pretend to solve anything; it just spirits you away, no pun intended.

But what I find, ironically, is that it’s in the midst of one of those escapist gestures that I find myself able to start thinking clearly about some of the things that are troubling me. And I think my bandmates would agree. A lot of people start getting to the meat and potatoes of a topic, in communion with their fellow man, right around when the second round hits the table.

You’ve made that initial escape to the point that you can actually see your life, and our lives as a society, with a little bit of perspective. You can get a little distance from it and might actually start being able to see it for what it is, and start asking yourself the harder questions. Not that you are expecting answers, but to even just ask the question, I think, and to discuss the various questions turning over in your collective minds is a worthy exercise. So all of these lyrics are the result of that kind of conversation. And so, naming those two instrumentals after Tiki drinks is symbolic of those conversations.

I like the fact that you sing in falsetto, because it can really expand where you go with your vocal, and the melody too, for that matter. Why does that falsetto voice appeal to you with the music you are making?

We’re chasing achieving the melodies we hear. If we limited the melodies that we wrote to what fits in my vocal range, my full-voice vocal range, we’d be far more limited than if we expanded to include falsetto. Something like the “Angel of Doubt” melody, for instance, we didn’t start that off going, “Yeah, you know what would be cool is if you sang about half the time in falsetto.” It’s just that’s where the melodies were headed. Also I think there’s a sensitivity and an intimacy to falsetto, to my ear. It’s almost like a request to come closer. A sort of intimacy to it that even if the melody starts taking us thither, then maybe I’ll start considering what lyrics are going to be sung in falsetto. Like if I’m going to deliver this in falsetto, then that comes in a certain character.

I find that interesting that you mentioned character. That must be refreshing to sometimes write from a perspective that isn’t necessarily yours. Is that the case?

Oh, I find it necessary to my sanity. I feel like if I were invariably seeing the world from my own perspective, it’s experientially incestuous or something. I crave seeing the world through other people’s eyes. To me, good art always lifts me out of my experience of the world and places me in someone else’s. And then I see things a little bit more clearly with each great piece of art that I encounter. That the lyric changes the perspective, even within the songs, I think that exposes a certain preference on my part, I’ll say. Or a certain hunger for multiple perspectives.

Even like “Jumbo,” for instance, even though that is satire, clearly, it’s trying to make a point. I think it’s a fairly clear indictment of the perspective from which it’s coming. Even still, part of that is an attempt to understand where that perspective is coming from.

That song went over pretty well at the Ryman. How is “Jumbo” treating you out on tour? Are people responding to it well?

[Laughs] I think so. I think it is probably difficult to get all the words, live, so it’s always amusing to see what people react to. And sometimes I think they might be reacting to something that if they were to see the lyric on paper, or what the actual statement is, maybe they might still laugh but they wouldn’t whoop and holler about it. It’s interesting how much tension is in the air right now. For us, as a society, there’s so much tension in the air you can cut it with a knife. And so a song like “Jumbo,” or “Just Look at This Mess,” and maybe “It’s All Part of the Plan” as well, it lets some of the tension out. Hopefully it can be cathartic for people who are completely mystified by the state of our country and our world right now.

Illustration: Zachary Johnson
Photo credit: Josh Goleman

Punch Brothers’ Noam Pikelny: Getting Inside the Story

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Noam Pikelny has a dry delivery only when he’s joking around. But as banjo player in Punch Brothers, his playing is crisp, inventive, and in step with his colleagues. This is especially true on All Ashore, a new release that explores the personal challenges of relationships as well as the growing political divide in America. This year he’s nominated for IBMA Banjo Player of the Year, while his two previous solo albums earned Grammy nominations. His Twitter bio sums it up: “Widely considered the world’s premier color blind banjoist. Punch Brother.”

This interview is the fourth of five installments as the Bluegrass Situation salutes the Artist of the Month: Punch Brothers.

When I was at your show at the Ryman, you were usually turned toward the band but I could never tell if you were singing. Do you sing with the guys on the songs?

I sing on a few things, but not much on this record. I actually don’t think I sing any harmony on this record.

Is that by choice or have they tried to convince you otherwise? Why is that?

Usually, like when I’m singing at all, it’s because we have like five part harmony going on. And I think it has to do with my range. I have the most limited vocal range of anybody in the band. But that was how I was born. I was born that way, it’s not my fault! … And then on the one song I sang on, on the last record, they invited everybody else in the universe to sing on it. On the song “Little Lights” that was on The Phosphorescent Blues. And so I think it essentially the policy that if Noam is allowed to sing, then everybody is allowed to sing. It’s only fair to have a one-hundred person overdub. I can’t hear myself because of all these people.

A couple of you have mentioned what’s going on in the country right now as inspiration. I think it’s on everyone’s mind, but why does it seem like a good inspiration for a song? Like “Jumbo,” for example. Why do you think it lent itself to writing a song?

Well, I think on a more macro level, I think it’s really important to be sticking to your guns. I think a lot of people are demoralized and questioning whether what they’re creating or what they’re doing for a living is valid in times when it seems like a lot of them are under assault. I know for me personally that having an opportunity to make music with musical co-patriots was very crucial. I feel like there’s such division right now in this country. I think people are thriving on families being alienated from each other. You think of the Thanksgiving dinner that becomes so troublesome. Friends are becoming alienated through all kinds of political differences and I feel like our sense of community and our sense of comradery as a whole is kind of under assault.

I think parsing through what’s going on in our lives right now, a solo project can be quite lonely. I think we find strength in working with each other and we have the ability to hone our thoughts with each other around, as far as what’s important to us and what we want to say. For “Jumbo” in particular, why does this make for good music? Or why is this musical inspiration? I ultimately thought that these people are like the protagonists that are Jumbo and his cohorts, they spend most of their time celebrating themselves. And we just wanted to get in on the action and celebrate them as well. So it’s really a celebration, more than anything.

It’s a fun melody if you just listen at the surface level. How’s it going over live? It seems like one that people would be responding to?

I think people are responding to a lot of it. [Playing live] is a huge component of the musical journey of this music. Making a record is obviously the most concrete and typical manifestations of the music. But the journey really is just beginning once that’s finished and we start playing it live, getting audience feedback, and shaping the song for the live experience. We’re flattered that people are enjoying it and starting to know the words.

Gabe that told me that you have a good story from being on Letterman. Do you have a minute to tell that story?

Oh, I’m not sure exactly what he’s referring to. I mean we got to go on Letterman about eight to nine years ago and play with Steve Martin. He announced that he was doing this yearly banjo award – it seems like a long time ago, it was nine years ago now. So, it was one of the more surreal experiences of a lifetime, getting to be up there with Steve Martin and Dave Letterman.

You were the first one to get that award. I remember when that started. Since then, a lot of your peers have been recognized. This sounds like a weird question, but is there like a banjo community or like an instant friendship when you meet another banjo player?

Um, there’s a secret banjo cult that meets in a cave in Horse Mouth, Kentucky, on the third Saturday of every month. And everyone’s totally cloaked and in these robes that are covered in banjo tablature… No, there’s no secret society – or if there is, I haven’t been invited yet which probably makes sense. But I think there’s an instant kinship with anybody else who’s pursuing music as their life’s work. And I think any instrumentalist, you always want to pow-wow and talk about their techniques and who they studied with, so I think there’s an extension in that way.

I wanted to ask you about songwriting collaboration. The way I understand is that everybody wrote the music together and then crafted the stories on top of the music. Is that pretty accurate? What was the process like?

We write the music instrumentally first, as a band, and that’s often with the five of us in the room. Oftentimes, Thile will be kind of singing, just gibberish, or a few words he has stuck in his head that associates with that music. Sometimes, those couple words will become the kernel of the song, and we’ll shape it around that. He often goes off and starts writing lyrics and brings it back for collective input, and we’ll help edit and shape the lyrics.

Sometimes we’ll have late-night discussions over cocktails or a drink, talking about what’s going on in our lives, whether it’s our familial environment or what’s going on in the world right now, and he’ll go off and try to capture that collective thought into a lyric. So it’s always different, but interestingly in Punch Brothers, the lyrics almost always come last. We write placeholder lyrics first, then that’s the final but obviously very crucial element.

Are you a good lyricist? Do you enjoy contributing in that way?

I don’t consider myself a true lyricist. I really do enjoy the process of working with the lyricist. And I feel it’s an effective kind of partnership to them to have Thile leading the charge in that way, but then having this kind of counsel for feedback that can be brutally honest.

You just got married this year right?

Correct. A few months ago.

So this album has a song like “All Ashore,” which is about a relationship falling apart, but then you’re a newlywed. In order to get into a character, do you have to set your personal life out of mind when you perform a song like that? How do you separate the two?

Well, no, I think “All Ashore” isn’t about the collapse. It’s more about the challenges. It’s the struggle and the ups and downs, the ebb and flow, to quote the song itself. But you know, when we get up and play a song like “Molly and Tenbrooks,” which is a racehorse song, I don’t feel like I have to identify personally with the jockeys or the horses … but I think it’s really important to get inside the story of the song and as you perform it, you can really deliver the intent of it.

And so there might be a difference of whoever is the lead singer. You’d have to ask Chris how it’s different, whether it’s sung from the first person, or a narrator, or an actor. All of those roles probably come into play on different material and especially on covers that we do. … I think you can emphasis the story even if you don’t see yourself in that story. That’s the case in music and in real life. I think being an instrumentalist, I’m trying to support the singer by helping him deliver the intent of the song. I make the story more vivid through the way that I play it.

Illustration: Zachary Johnson