A former member of the Grammy-winning bluegrass group Nickel Creek will bring his band to State College this week, when Punch Brothers plays at 8 p.m. Friday at the State Theatre.

"They're kind of a progressive bluegrass or 'new grass,' " State Theatre Marketing Director Kristy Cyone said. "They're with a mandolinist by the name of Chris Thile who was formerly a member of Nickel Creek."

Cyone said the positive response to previous folk and bluegrass groups booked at the Theatre, including the Del McCoury Band, has allowed the Theatre to continue booking such diverse acts as Punch Brothers.

Punch Brothers was formed by Thile after the dissolution of Nickel Creek in 2007. Guitarist Chris "Critter" Eldridge said Thile's original post-Nickel Creek intention was to write and record a solo album.

"When we first came together, our mandolin player kind of called all of us," Eldridge said. "We weren't originally going to make a band, it was going to be his solo record."

Thile assembled a crack team of talented musicians to serve as his backing band for the project, which included Eldridge, Gabe Witcher (violin), Greg Garrison (bass) and Noam Pikelny (banjo). Paul Kowert recently replaced Garrison as the band's bassist. The first record released by the group was How to Grow a Woman From the Ground, with the band taking the name Chris Thile and the How to Grow a Band.

"We got together to start working on this project and we all really liked what was happening," Eldridge said. "It became clear to us that this shouldn't be just a one-record thing."

From there, Thile's vision for his new musical project was an ambitious long-form composition incorporating elements of classical and folk music. The result of the collaboration was "The Blind Leaving the Blind," a four-part, 40-minute musical suite. The composition was featured on the group's 2008 debut record, Punch.

Once the decision was made the group would stick together to write and perform, the members decided their new band needed a name.

"Naming a band is harder than you'd think," Eldridge said.

The band originally took the name The Tensions Mountain Boys before settling on Punch Brothers, taken from the Mark Twain short story "Punch, Brothers, Punch!"

"The idea is this guy has gotten this rhyme stuck in his head," Eldridge said. "The tune gets stuck in his head and kind of ruins his life until he passes it on. That's a perfect concept for a band name."

The band performed the suite in its entirety at Carnegie Hall in March 2007 as The Tensions Mountain Boys.

"It was a thrill of a lifetime to play at Carnegie Hall," Eldridge said.

Nickel Creek was a Grammy-winning "progressive bluegrass" group that was influential, along with movie O Brother, Where Art Thou?, in the resurgence of bluegrass in the early 2000s. Eldridge said Punch Brothers' closest similarity with bluegrass music is its instrumentation, despite its comparisons to bluegrass and its members' musical pedigrees.

"To think of Punch Brothers as a bluegrass band would be misleading," Eldridge said. "We try to use these bluegrass instruments as vehicles to play different music."

Eldridge said people who attend Friday's concert can expect to hear "The Blind Leaving the Blind" as well as a selection of other music.

"Most of us grew up playing bluegrass," Eldridge said. "But we just love music in all its various forms."