Big Richard

Bluegrass band Big Richard makes music for the 21st century’s twisted cultural unease. 

Cellist Joy Adams and mandolin and guitar player Bonnie Sims both studied music and toured and played extensively before (and outside of) joining Big Richard, as did the other members of the band: Adams has three degrees in cello, toured with Darol Anger and Nathaniel Rateliff, and has recorded for television and film (including the Queen’s Gambit); Sims, who grew up playing music with her family, has a degree in commercial music, with a vocal specialization in yodeling, toured and recorded extensively with her husband, Taylor Sims (including a platinum-certified record); fiddler Eve Panning, who also grew up playing with her family, studied violin performance and music education, taught orchestra, and played in bluegrass bands, including touring widely with classical group Barrage; and bassist Hazel Royer started out playing music with her dad Eric Royer in the Boston, MA folk and rock music scene, and studied at the Berklee College of Music. 

“A lot of the time in our sets, we like to follow a heavy-hitting song with an instrumental that meets that energy,” Panning says of tacking “Old Daingerfield” onto the end of “It’s Gonna Fall.” “It feels good to reflect on something for a moment, or keep going with it, and keep that energy somewhere.” 

“We're in the most musically locked spot we've been in thus far, since I've been in the band, and this album feels like a really good reflection of that,” says Royer, who joined in 2023. 

“Our live performances are so raw and so gritty, and I think that our sound never really flourished in that digital landscape.” Adams says. “[Recording live to tape] we were all in the same room together, very close together, with a lot of mic bleed, etc. And the energy was insane. It felt so good to record this way. Even on the first day, we were like ‘wow, this sounds like our band.’ And to do something that's very real and gritty and has little mistakes in it just feels alive and human.”