American Bluegrass quintet Punch Brothers will be making a return visit to Australia including an appearance at the Adelaide Guitar Festival.
Punch Brothers thrilled audiences in 2012 and are back to show off their latest, Grammy-nominated album, ‘The Phosphorescent Blues’. Their album is inspired by the benefits and detriments of how smartphones have changed the way people communicate. “It’s not the most original subject in the world,” guitarist Chris Eldridge explains.
“We were just talking about it because we’re living in it; it’s part of our lives right now and I’ve heard other people talking about it. It was just a thing and we figured, ‘we’re thinking about it, why not actually write some songs about it’.”
Punch Brothers wrote and recorded ‘The Phosphorescent Blues’ differently to their previous albums, taking their time to get it right. “We deliberately wanted to get out of that cycle of just getting the music done and recording it instantly. We wanted to write music and let it sit for a while; see how it aged over time with us when we come back as a band after a few months off and if we still actually like these things,” Chris says.
Punch Brothers will play the Adelaide Guitar Festival for the second time after their last performance in 2012. “The Festival was wonderful; we had a great set and a great, great time. The last time, we had a day off in Adelaide and we had a friend who is a wine maker in the Barossa Valley. So he took us out for one of the greatest on-tour days I think the band has ever had. We drank lots of wine and ate lots of food and we were very much merry men.”
For this tour, Punch Brothers will be performing with just one microphone for the entire group. “One thing that we’re doing differently this time is that the entire band is playing around a single microphone.
“We did a lot of touring over the last three or four years using pick-ups and [amplifiers], which you need to get loud. But increasingly we realised that wasn’t our favourite way to play music. We’re acoustic musicians and we always grew up playing these instruments acoustically.
“So we’re kind of getting back to that with the whole band just playing around a single microphone and it’s just a joy, a total joy, to play music that way.”
Chris says that although they’re doing a number of shows in Australia, they’ll all vary a little bit depending on the atmosphere of the event and venue. “We’ll probably suss it out when we get there. We definitely like to mix things up a bit; it keeps us interested to not play the same thing every night.”
Punch Brothers will also be playing tracks from their new EP, ‘The Wireless’, as well as plenty of selections from their back catalogue. “We are truly, truly, really excited to come back. Our last trip to Australia was – I think I can safely say – the band's favourite trip we’ve ever taken in the history of the band. We had such a good time there in 2012 and we’re really looking forward to coming back.”
Punch Brother Tour Dates
Mon 8 Aug - Perth Convention & Exhibition CentreTue 9 Aug - QPAC (Brisbane, EKKA Holiday Eve)
Thu 11 Aug - Adelaide Guitar Festival @ Adelaide Town Hall
Fri 12 Aug - City Recital Hall (Sydney)
Sat 13 Aug - Melbourne Recital Centre
