Wandering well beyond the realms of most jazz piano trios, The Bad Plus turned their free-form, improvised style to the music of Johnny Cash, David Bowie and Kraftwerk and are known to incorporate thrash metal drumming with bebop grooves with sparse, tinkling lounge room melodies.
School friends Reid Anderson and David King grew up playing together in garage bands and first met pianist Ethan Iverson in 1990, but after pursuing their own musical paths finally came together as a full-time trio in New York in 2000. With the ambition to take a rock band, experimental approach to jazz, their eclectic range of influences naturally bonded and, after only three gigs together, they released a self-titled debut album, which included fusion versions of ABBA's 'Knowing Me Knowing You' and Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'.
Landing a deal with Columbia Records, they continued to pick covers from outside the norm including 'Film' by iconoclastic electronic producer Aphex Twin and 'Iron Man' by metal titans Black Sabbath, but they also started to develop their own adventurous, original material on early albums 'These Are the Vistas' and 'Give'. Despite their sprawling mass of influences from classical masters like Schubert, to rock giants like AC/DC, to bebop pioneer Charlie Parker, a subliminal understanding allowed them to develop a signature sound and wandering, improvised grooves, and 2010's 'Never Stop' was their first album not to feature a cover version. They went on to serve as artists in residence at Duke University, opened shows for The Pixies and interpreted Stravinky's orchestral compositions on 'Rite of Spring', before releasing their tenth studio album 'Inevitable Western' in 2014. Iverson left in 2017 to pursue a solo career but they returned the following year with Orrin Evans on piano and signalled a new chapter for the band with the acclaimed album 'Never Stop II' and a revitalised, hybrid sound that fused the post-bop sound of Chick Corea with Radiohead's electronic experiments and Soft Machine's progressive rock rambles.
