The Band Perry hoping to leave Colorado fans breathless

By Quentin Young

Most music fans first got to know The Band Perry because of its 2010 hit “If I Die Young,” which contemplates “the sharp knife of a short life,” but the band seems poised to enjoy longevity.

“If I Die Young,” from the band’s self-titled debut, went platinum six times over, and that was just the beginning. Its second album, 2013’s “Pioneer,” gave the band a couple of chart-topping singles, and earlier this year, it earned its first Grammy, for best country duo/group.

Now the three Perry siblings who comprise the band are finishing up work on a third album, and the band expects to announce release details in the next couple of weeks, bassist Reid Perry said during a recent phone interview.

A more immediate event on the band’s calendar is a headlining slot at the Greeley Stampede. Reid Perry, along with frontwoman and sister Kimberly and guitar-playing younger brother Neil, are scheduled to kick off the annual Stampede’s Arena Concert Series with a set at 8 p.m. June 26 at the Island Grove Arena in Greeley. Nashville-based country duo American Young will open the show. The Arena Concert Series also presents performances by Whitesnake, Kenny Rogers, Joe Nichols and Gary Allan on later Stampede evenings.

The Perry parents seemed to have a preternatural sense of their children’s destiny.

Reid Perry said that he and brother Neil had a band — a southern rock group called Moblie Music Machine, named for then-hometown Mobile, Ala. — when they were barely teens while Kimberly, the oldest, had her own band. Reid Perry recalls nights when parents Steve and Marie tried to sleep through one band rehearsing in the basement and the other rehearsing upstairs. Not only did they tolerate their children’s musical development, they fostered it. The Perry parents at one point bought a 36-foot-long motor home and drove their kids around to perform shows in the region.

“They’re the only ones who’ve been on this journey with us from the get-go,” Reid Perry said, adding that their music back in those days didn’t necessarily warrant enthusiasm. “We look back at old videos and ask them what they saw in us.”

The Band Perry looks forward to trips to Colorado, not least because they have cousins who live in Denver, Reid Perry said. But the Perrys, who now live in Greeneville, Tenn., feel the altitude when they’re in the state.

“We’re not adapted to the thin air,” Reid Perry said. “By the time the third song comes, we’re wheezing by the side of the stage.”

Success itself has influenced The Band Perry’s music. While putting together “Pioneer,” the members were mindful that they weren’t performing in clubs anymore.

“We were playing bigger rooms and we wanted songs that would fill them,” Perry said.

The new album, whose name has yet to be released, is “full of color,” he said.

“It brings in a lot of different bright feelings,” he said, adding that the album is true to the band’s rock and country roots and ultimately was written with the live show in mind. The album is being produced by the band, along with several friends, including Norwegian writer and producer William Larsen, Reid Perry said.

The band is waiting for the official release of the new songs before they perform them live. In the meantime the Perrys will treat fans at the Stampede to the material they’ve already come to love — the old songs still have plenty of life in them.

Quentin Young: quentin@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/qpyoungnews