Howdy Friends!
Noam, here, with some news that will surely change your life.
First things first… I’d appreciate if you-all would stop with the emails, phone calls, and faxes demanding that I formally protest the Steep Canyon Rangers’ Grammy victory for Best Bluegrass Album. I’m proud that Beat The Devil and Carry A Rail was nominated and I’m truly happy for the Steeps. After much soul-searching, I’ve decided that they shouldn’t be stripped of their honor on the technicality that THEY ARE NOT REAL RANGERS. I, clearly, have moved on; you should too.
Things are going to be quiet on the Punch Brothers front for a little while. We wrapped the Who’s Feeling Young Now? Tour a couple weeks ago, and we’re now focusing on fabricating rumors of discord through faux Twitter wars. We’re hoping that when we reconvene in a few months to start writing new music it will be perceived as a real triumph and we’ll attract widespread media attention.
I’m quite thrilled to announce a new bluegrass project featuring Bryan Sutton, Ronnie McCoury, Luke Bulla, and Barry Bales. This marks a historic collaboration between four of the most celebrated acoustic instrumentalists and singers of our time. And I’ll be there as well, playing banjo. All of these guys are front-men in their own right and we’ll be showcasing everybody’s original music as well as some classic bluegrass. We were so close to agreeing on a proper band name, but at the last minute we made a group decision to not call ourselves “Equal Billing featuring Noam Pikelny.” We’ll be hitting the road this April in the Midwest (tickets are on-sale here), and we’ll be making our festival debut on Saturday May 25 at DelFest!!
And speaking of festivals, I’m quite thrilled to be returning to Bonnaroo to be part of the unveiling of the new Bluegrass Situation Stage! Also, after many years of awkward begging, I can finally say that I’ll be playing banjo with the one and only Tim O'Brien at some of my favorite bluegrass festivals: Telluride, RockyGrass, and Grey Fox.
Hope to see some of you in April!
Best,
Noam