Punch Brothers

The How to Grow a Band

Chris Thile formed the group in 2006 to record How to Grow a Woman from the Ground; it was first called The How to Grow a Band, then in 2007 The Tensions Mountain Boys, then Punch Brothers, after a jingle in Mark Twain's short story A Literary Nightmare. Wikipedia describes bluegrass instrumentation and spontaneity in the strictures of modern classical, and American Songwriter called them a 21st-century version of the Bluegrass Boys. On March 17, 2007 they debuted the 40-minute suite "The Blind Leaving the Blind" at Carnegie Hall. Punch followed on February 26, 2008, then Antifogmatic (June 15, 2010, the first with bassist Paul Kowert, who had studied under Edgar Meyer at Curtis and replaced Greg Garrison in 2008), Who's Feeling Young Now? (February 14, 2012) and The Phosphorescent Blues (January 27, 2015), which reached 37 on the Billboard 200. The documentary How to Grow a Band premiered at the Nashville Film Festival on April 15, 2011.

All Ashore (July 20, 2018, self-produced) won the Grammy for Best Folk Album at the 61st Grammys. Hell on Church Street (January 14, 2022) is a tribute to Tony Rice, with whom Eldridge studied. Gabe Witcher's departure was announced on June 1, 2023 after that year's Telluride Bluegrass Festival, and Brittany Haas replaced him. Thile and Claire Coffee wrote The Energy Curfew Music Hour for Audible, with Punch Brothers as house band, in 2023 and 2024, and an all-instrumental album, The Unsung Adventures of Punch Brothers, was announced for July 24, 2026. Thile hosted Live From Here at The Town Hall in New York in December 2018.