Article Contributed by Gratefulweb
Published on December 18, 2025
Photo: Courtesy of Big Richard
Big Richard makes bluegrass for an age defined by unease—music that doesn’t look away from cultural fracture, environmental collapse, or the quiet fury simmering beneath everyday life. On their sophomore album Pet, the Colorado-based quartet delivers a fierce, provocative rejoinder to the world as it stands right now, capturing the raw fervor of their live shows by recording the entire album live to tape.
“Big Richard is so much about our energetic delivery, and so I think it’s been really important for us as a group to figure out how to do that for a record,” says mandolin and guitar player Bonnie Sims.
Cellist Joy Adams adds, “We made the album all on tape and did it all in these single-shot performances. The collection of songs—we wanted to take our most hard-driving, heavy-hitting songs and craft a banger set list. If we had a 30-minute set, what would we put on there that says the most, and makes people feel the broadest bunch of feelings? And it was all these songs.”
That intensity is grounded in deep musical pedigree. Adams holds three degrees in cello, has toured with Darol Anger and Nathaniel Rateliff, and recorded for television and film, including The Queen’s Gambit. Sims grew up playing music with her family, earned a degree in commercial music with a vocal specialization in yodeling, and toured extensively with her husband Taylor Sims, including on a platinum-certified record. Fiddler Eve Panning studied violin performance and music education, taught orchestra, and toured widely with the classical crossover group Barrage. Bassist Hazel Royer began playing music with her father Eric Royer in the Boston folk and rock scene and studied at Berklee College of Music.
Pet, engineered by Mark Anderson and self-produced by the band, arrives February 5, 2026 via Signature Sounds. Anchored by staples from their live sets, the album includes an urgent, vociferous take on Dave Olney’s anti-capitalist anthem “Millionaire,” alongside an equally vehement rendition of “Red Fox Run,” the anti–gun violence song written by Cecelia and Andy Thorn of Leftover Salmon. At shows, the collective anger in the room is palpable—and cathartic.
The album opens at full throttle with a blistering medley of Sims’ “It’s Gonna Fall” and Bill Monroe’s “Old Daingerfield.” Sims’ lyrics confront environmental devastation head-on, drawing from the fires, floods, and fracking wells spreading across Colorado: “Our air has turned to poison and our water catches flame… there ain’t no stopping progress.” Onstage, the band wryly jabs at Monroe’s habit of claiming credit for his bandmates’ songs by joking that Sims wrote both tunes.
“A lot of the time in our sets, we like to follow a heavy-hitting song with an instrumental that meets that energy,” Panning explains. That push-and-release philosophy shapes Pet, which includes two instrumental tracks written by Panning. “K’s March,” a gentle old-time jam inspired by a roommate’s half-sung melody, offers a moment of breath after “Millionaire,” while “Circus Jerk” leans into bluegrass bravado and the band’s raunchy stage banter, giving each member space to rip.
“We’re in the most musically locked spot we’ve been in thus far,” says Royer, who joined the band in 2023. “This album feels like a really good reflection of that.”
Unapologetically outrageous, the band’s name itself is a reclamation—a wink at the macho posturing long associated with bluegrass. That provocation extends to Pet’s cover art, which depicts the band in deranged clown outfits crouched on railroad tracks in front of an oil refinery. The title track, written by Adams and delivered like a slightly unhinged circus soundtrack, is a compassionate paean to people trapped by circumstances beyond their control.
“I wrote it thinking about people who are stuck hauling around something they didn’t choose—childhood trauma, poverty, chronic illness,” Adams says. “In a deeper sense, the song reflects how many people get lost in the big turning of the world right now.” That theme resurfaces later on the album with the eerie music-box piece “Holy Holy,” which confronts religious and childhood trauma head-on.
Part of Big Richard’s emotional power comes from their uncommon instrumentation. Alongside bass, mandolin, guitar, and fiddle, Adams’ cello adds a distinct sonic depth rarely heard in bluegrass—though, as she notes, the cello actually predates the bass in early string band history.
Still, amid the intensity, Pet leaves space for tenderness. Royer’s “Alaska,” written about a teenage crush, brings a moment of yearning sweetness, while the album closes with a hushed cover of Hank Cochran’s “Make the World Go Away.” At live shows, the band often steps off the stage to perform the song clustered together in the crowd, a final act of connection after the storm.
“Our live performances are so raw and gritty, and I think our sound never really flourished in that digital landscape,” Adams reflects. “Recording live to tape—with all the bleed and little mistakes—felt alive and human. Even on the first day, we knew: this sounds like our band.”
Now, with Pet, Big Richard captures that electricity in its purest form—music that unsettles, confronts, comforts, and ultimately gathers people together.
Z2 ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTS
BIG RICHARD – PET TOUR 2026
10 Mile Music Hall
Saturday, February 21, 2026
Doors: 8:00 pm | Show: 8:30 pm
General Admission | Ages 18+
