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It’s always a welcome homecoming whenever Grammy-winning mandolinist Chris Thile returns to San Diego County. Born and raised in Oceanside, Thile broke through with eclectic stringband Nickel Creek just after the turn of the century, then branched out with solo records and an all-star ensemble called the Punch Brothers.
It’s the latter outfit that he’ll bring to UCSD’s Epstein Family Amphitheater on Oct. 9. And there’s a couple of new wrinkles this time through. The brothers have recently recruited a sister, renowned fiddler Brittany Haas from the band Crooked Still. They also have a new album out titled “The Unsung Adventures of Punch Brothers” — its tongue-in-cheek title designating the album as their first-ever all-instrumental project.
Instrumental virtuosity has always been central to the Punch Brothers’ identity. Thile is the focal point on mandolin, but Haas, banjo picker Noam Pikelny, guitarist Chris Eldridge and upright bassist Paul Kowert all are among the most talented and accomplished players in Americana music.
As such, the Punch Brothers are ideally suited to making an all-instrumental album. But why now? Bassist Kowert says that in some respects, it was as simple as this: “Thile didn’t really feel like writing lyrics” this time. “He’s the lead singer and lyricist; sometimes he sends his ideas through the (band) committee, but he’s the lyricist. But it didn’t seem like the things he was feeling were as communicable with words.”
The material on “Unsung Adventures” took shape over the past couple of years, as the group was working on a podcast called the “Energy Curfew Music Hour.” Its format was similar to the NPR show “Live From Here,” for which Thile served as host from 2016 to 2020.
“It’s a musical variety show, a lot like ‘Live from Here’ or ‘A Prairie Home Companion,’ with skits and jokes and music and musical guests,” Kowert explains. “We would convene for a week at an Airbnb in Vermont or upstate New York, and we’d get songs together over the course of many of these writing sessions.”
Another key factor in the new record’s instrumental direction was the arrival of Haas, who joined in 2023 after co-founder Gabe Witcher decided to concentrate on music for film and TV as well as arrangements for other artists. “She’s such a great voice on the fiddle, and in the absence of actual singing, she has more space to be that voice,” Kowert says of Haas, with whom he previously played in the instrumental band Hawktail. She’d also been in the house band for Thile’s NPR show.
“We all have a lot of experience playing with Britt, so it was a really natural fit,” Kowert says. “Making an instrumental record was a great way to bring her into the fold. It really empowers her.”
Haas is now the group’s youngest member, just shy of 40, alongside four forty-somethings. Kowert was previously the youngest; when he joined the band in 2008, he was just out of college, studying classical music with legendary bassist Edgar Meyer at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music. That was part of how he ended up in the Punch Brothers, as Thile had worked extensively in the studio with Meyer.
When co-founding bassist Greg Garrison left after the first Punch Brothers record, Kowert jumped at the opportunity. “I thought I was going to be in an orchestra,” he says now. “I didn’t really know another way, frankly. They called and I auditioned, and I ended up in the band.”
When asked whether he views Punch Brothers as a bluegrass band crossing over into classical, or a classical band crossing over into bluegrass, he answers with a smart sidestep.
“What it is,” Kowert says, “is diverse. It’s just the music that we make.”
Everybody brings different strengths to the table. “I’m the least-steeped in the American folk tradition of everybody in the band,” Kowert says. “Thile can draw to mind any one of hundreds or thousands of tunes that he learned at the campfires at the festivals with his parents when he was a kid. But at the same time, he understudied with Edgar Meyer.”
The music on “The Unsung Adventures of Punch Brothers” builds on the band’s well-established reputation for pushing the boundaries of genres until they basically dissolve.
They take some significant liberties with three traditional tracks; “They’re pretty wild arrangements of those tunes,” Kowert says of “Solve Knut (untied),” “Song of the Water Kelpie (unsung) and “June Apple (poisoned).” The parentheticals added to the titles are wry hints at the adventurous approach the band took.
And then there’s the originals, which they’ve given intriguing names such as “Saturn: Pogo Ball of the Gods,” “Descend, O Diamondback!” (a tribute to the mountain bike of Thile’s youth), and “Found in a Frozen Fog.” That last one “was originally composed as ‘Winter,’ when we did each of the four seasons for the Energy Curfew podcast,” Kowert explains. “Once we put those songs into the collection of the entire album, those titles didn’t fit anymore. But it still has that icy sound, and that’s where the title is drawing from.”
Kowert says the band has received enthusiastic responses on tour this summer as they’ve mixed the newer instrumental material with vocal favorites from their back catalog.
“I think it’s been going well,” he says. “And it’s not just the new music. There’s also sort of a dramatic approach to the show. Come with your imagination hat on, and be willing to participate as we go on a wild adventure. I wouldn’t want to spoil it any more than that.”
Punch Brothers, Epstein Family Amphitheater, Oct. 9, 7:30 p.m., $82-$135.
