Interview: The Infamous Stringdusters US Tour Comes to NYC's Bowery Ballroom

GRAMMY® Award-winning, IBMA Award-winning, Billboard chart-topping progressive Bluegrass band, The Infamous Stringdusters is currently on tour ahead of their landmark 20th studio album, 20/20 (Americana Vibes), arriving February 2026. The Infamous Stringdusters will be playing a show on January 22 at The Bowery Ballroom in NYC.

Read a conversation with the band about the show. 

What are you most looking forward to about your upcoming show at Bowery Ballroom?

I’m looking forward to being back in the Bowery Ballroom!  It certainly is one of my favorite venues in New York City to play, and it’s been a few years since we’ve been in that room. We’ve had a lot of great nights in there, and to me, it’s such a quintessential New York venue in vibe and spirit, and I just love the room so much.  Being born in Greenwich Village and raised on Long Island, I cut my teeth playing gigs in lower Manhattan on Bleeker Street, among other places, so it just feels so right to bring the show downtown to the Bowery. 

Can you tell us a little bit about the process of recording your new album, 20/20?

We decided for this record, we would take our time with the writing process and not make any album release plans too far in advance (which would be the typical approach), which then puts a deadline on the album-making process. So we wanted to have the time to make up the very best songs we could, and we wanted to have the space to be able to assess our material, and then keep writing to try to better the songs we had - and ultimately take the cream of the crop of what we had (which turned out to be about 50 complete ‘Dusters songs).  We started recording and were able to continue to write as the album started to take shape.  We were able to fill in the gaps of vibes or themes that we felt we were lacking.  It allowed us to be able to craft the album as a complete, coherent album, whereas in the past, we would’ve picked the best 12 or 13 out of 15 songs, recorded those, and released without looking back.   In this case, we recorded in three separate sessions with some space in between to be able to reassess and refine.

Who did you have in mind when you were putting the album together?

To speak for myself, I think I had our 20-year journey of being a band in mind, and all of the fans of our music that have been with us from the beginning, as well as fans that we’ve picked up recently, and everyone in between.  Of course, it’s 20 songs for 20 years, which was certainly something we wanted to do for our fans, but I think also for ourselves as artists to be able to mark this milestone the best way we know how - with the songs.

What response have you gotten to the singles from that album that are already out?

The response has been great!  One of the fun aspects of performing new songs live is to see, in real time, the audience‘s reaction. When you start a new song at a show for the first time, you can kind of feel the room listening in anticipation, trying to decide if they like it or not, almost like you’re the chefs in the kitchen looking through the swinging doors at a table that’s about to try your food. You see the room start to bounce and then start to dance, and you feel the positive energy come back at you, and there’s no better feeling in the world. I suppose it could always go the other way, too, and that’s always the scary part [laughs].

You're in the middle of an extensive tour of America. How do your performances typically change and evolve as the tour goes on?

Every show we do is unique, has a different set list, and there are a lot of improvisational parts of the show as well. As a tour rolls on, the band really starts to gel, the jams start to get exploratory and interesting, at least for us, but hopefully for the audience as well.  It’s when the band, crew, and everybody on tour are firing on all cylinders, and it’s arguably the height of collective creativity for a band like ours.

Aside from this tour and new album, do you have anything else coming up that you'd like to tell us about? 

We plan on hitting every single part of this country that we can to play this music, and some places we haven’t been in a while. We look forward to seeing all our friends out there and making some new ones as well, so that’s gonna be our main focus right now - Giving every show 110% and leaving it all on the stage every single night.

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Yes, a shout-out to our amazing management teams, agents, road crew, and all of the people who work so hard every day behind the scenes to keep our operation rolling. We truly couldn’t do it without them.

Photo credit: Daniel Milchev

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