Photo: Dylan Langille
Bluegrass-Americana royalty, Greensky Bluegrass, will release their album, XXV, on October 31, via Big Blue Zoo Records/Thirty Tigers. Like the title’s Roman numerals imply, the studio collection coincides with the exact date of the group’s 25th anniversary, which will also be marked by a series of already announced hometown concerts, on October 31 and November 1, at Wings Event Center in Kalamazoo, Mich. As a first listen and sonic preview of the impending collection, the band shares their Billy Strings featured track, “Reverend.”
Strings is one of many guests that appear on the 13-track collection, which revisits classic pieces of the band’s archive and new music, in addition to fellow bluegrass artists and jam scene favorites, such as Bluegrass Hall of Fame recipient Sam Bush (New Grass Revival), Lindsay Lou, Nathaniel Rateliff, Jason Hann (String Cheese Incident), Jennifer Hartswick and Natalie Cressman (Trey Anastasio Band), Aoife O’Donovan (I’m with Her), Ivan Neville (Dumpstaphunk), and the band’s frequent collaborator, Holly Bowling, who lends her skills on two tracks, “Last Winter in the Copper Country” and “Windshield.”
“We’ve called on some dear friends to breathe a touch of new life into some classic Greensky songs for your listening pleasure,” Dobroist Anders Beck shares. “We’ve reinvented the sounds of some of our (dare I say) ‘hits’ because after a quarter century of Greensky Bluegrass, with plenty of new music on the horizon, we believe it’s worth celebrating what the five of us have created together… and we want you to have a damn good time listening to it.”
“Reverend” was given an initial studio treatment on Greensky Bluegrass’ 2008 output, Five Interstates. The track was later performed in concert with Strings during a hometown stand on June 9, 2024, at Frederik Meijer Gardens Amphitheater in Grand Rapids, Mich. Today’s release taps back into the existing kinship between Greensky members, Anders Beck (dobro), Michael Arlen Bont (banjo), Dave Bruzza (guitar), Mike Devol (upright bass), and Paul Hoffman (mandolin) and Strings, as visually presented in the official video, which tracks their shared experiences.
“This is quintessential Greensky to me,” says the band’s Paul Hoffman of the single. “When we were about to record ‘five interstates,’ our producer and long-time friend, Tim Carbone, told me he thought there was one more important song missing. Something I still needed to write. Shortly after, I spent a night talking songs with a Michigan musician named Seth Bernard, affectionately referred to as ‘the reverend’. He uses his music for community and activism… the next morning this song kind of fell out of me.”
Hoffman continues, “Keeping the song in its Michigan roots, we asked Billy to play and sing on this. I love the way he relates to this song and how he participates when he performs with us. His love for our band has always been generous, so why not have a quintessential Greensky fan participate on the quintessential song?”
In recognition of their activation on Halloween night during the dawn of the aughts, when Paul Hoffman, Dave Bruzza and Michael Bont performed their first concert as Greensky Bluegrass, the band will return to their original haunt, Kalamazoo, Mich., for a two-night celebration of their momentous achievement by playing at the Wings Event Center on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, 2025.
For more information, visit greenskybluegrass.com. Scroll down to watch the official music video for “Reverend.”
XXV TRACK LIST
1. Can’t Stop Now (feat. Sam Bush)
2. In Control (feat. Lindsay Lou)
3. Reverend (feat. Billy Strings)
4. Broken Highways
5. Old Barns
6. Last Winter in the Copper Country (feat. Holly Bowling)
7. Past My Prime (feat. Nathaniel Rateliff)
8. 33443
9. What You Need (feat. Jennifer Hartswick and Natalie Cressman)
10. Who is Frederico? (feat. Jason Hann)
11. Lose My Way (feat. Aoife O’Donovan and Ivan Neville)
12. Windshield (feat. Holly Bowling)
13. Drink Up and Go Home
Content shared from relix.com.