Chris Thile and How to Grow a Band
Go! FEATURE
Fans of Nickel Creek may shed a few tears over the band’s imminent demise, but take heart in knowing that good things may rise from its ashes.
Even though there are still contractual obligations taking the band through the end of the year, mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile has already started on the next project.
When all is said and done, the band will be known as The Tension’s Mountain Boys, which will focus on combining chamber music and bluegrass, but first, it’s members are getting back to the bluegrass roots by performing as How to Grow a Band.
“We are gradually phasing out our other projects so this will be the main thing that all of us do,” Thile said. “But How to Grow a band is a finite endeavor.”
His relationship with Sara and Sean Watkins, the brother/sister team that is the rest of Nickel Creek remains “as good as it can be,” Thile said.
“There was no event that broke the band up,” he said. “It’s just that being in one band for 17 years is a long time, especially when you started at 8. It’s just time to move on and do something else.”
Something else began with fiddler Gabe Witchler, whom he met when he was 7 years old.
“We grew up playing together and always talked about doing something together, but didn’t know what it should be,” he said. “Then a couple of years ago, we were both suffering from broken hearts so we went out to dinner together and drank a bunch of wine and started talking.
“If I’m going to do something different, it’s going to be real different,” he said. “We’re moving away from pop music and toward acoustic music and the forms that are embodied in classical music.”
Following in the footsteps of bluegrass/classical fusion pioneers Mark O’Connnor and Edgar Meyer, The Tensions Mountain Boys will focus on “closing a divide that need not exist,” Thile said.
“There really isn’t that much space between sight reading and improvising,” he said. “We’re very oriented in our goal to push beyond that.”
The Tensions Mountain Boys will perform the world premiere of “The Blind Leaving the Blind,” a coming-of-age tale in four movements fusing elements of folk/pop songs and large-scale classical works, March 17 at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
