For a side project away from his band Nickel Creek, Chris Thile knew he wanted to form a five-piece string band that featured mandolin, violin, banjo, acoustic guitar, and double bass. Thile also wanted the band to feature his friend and fiddle player Gabe Witcher, but didn’t know what kind of band he wanted it to be. At the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Colorado, Thile met banjo player Noam Pikelny and later said that “every note he played was something I wish I’d played”. At that time, Thile decided that he wanted “put [his] stamp” on the normal bluegrass band. Thile wanted to find five people to make the five-piece band he planned. He had already found fiddle, banjo, and mandolin players, so he just had to find double bass and acoustic guitar players. The bass player Thile was looking for turned out to be Greg Garrison, a friend of Noam Pikelny. Before this, Pikelny had played with Garrison in the band Leftover Salmon. The guitar player Thile needed became Chris Eldridge, famous as a member of the Infamous Stringdusters. The five people met up in Nashville on one day in 2005 and decided to “do something musical together”. A few days later, the group met again “to drop a ton of money, drink too much wine, eat steaks, and [talk] about our failed relationships”. That night, they formed a bluegrass band.