The Band Perry’s career arc is one of the most dissected in all of country music. After breaking out in 2010 with their debut album and its crossover juggernaut single “If I Die Young,” the sibling trio of Kimberly Perry, Reid Perry, and Neil Perry faced the headwinds of bro-country with their follow-up, 2013’s Pioneer. Still, they continued to make their mark with songs like “Better Dig Two” and “Done,” earning a reputation as a high-energy live act and torchbearers for a mostly traditional brand of country.
Then they went pop, dabbled in electronica, and left their longtime label home of Republic Nashville, under the Big Machine Label Group umbrella. In the minds of many fans, the Band Perry all but vanished.
“I have at least a half bottle of wine just about every night. It is my guilty pleasure. And when I’m brave enough, I love to Google ‘the Band Perry,’” singer Kimberly Perry tells Rolling Stone’s Nashville Now podcast. “And the top question is ‘Why did the Band Perry disappear?’ Which I think is kind of cool.”
While the group didn’t actually disappear, the members did take time to explore new sounds. Projects with Rick Rubin and with the Texas producer Beau Bedford followed, and some were shelved. Ultimately, the group went on hiatus and Kimberly launched a solo project, got remarried, and had a baby. In 2023, she told Rolling Stone contributor Marissa R. Moss that she often wondered if the Band Perry left the Music Row system or were kicked out.
Today, she says it’s a “cross of the two.”
“I think we were all after the same thing, and the same vision for a band, we just thought there were different ways of getting there,” Kimberly says of the group’s approach versus Big Machine’s. “They’re a very powerful force of people and I think we felt very not supported in that season,” Kimberly says. “But I also feel like we needed our college years to step away and follow the creative muse.”
When Hurricane Helene decimated their section of East Tennessee in 2025, a version of the Band Perry reunited to play a benefit concert in Greeneville, Tennessee: Kimberly and her brother Reid, along with Kimberly’s husband, Texas musician Johnny Costello.
This new lineup of the group returned to Big Machine, signing with the group’s Nashville Harbor label last July, and prepared to make new music. Then Reid quit to work in artist management. Now, Kimberly and Costello are carrying on as the Band Perry, with the new single “Psychological.” “We’ve always been a family band,” she says of the wife-and-husband lineup, and calls this “a season of rebuilding and redemption.”
Kimberly talks about rebuilding the group, their upcoming new music, and where her brothers are today on this week’s Nashville Now. Watch the whole episode above.
Download and subscribe to Rolling Stone’s weekly country-music podcast, Nashville Now, hosted by senior music editor Joseph Hudak, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts). New episodes drop every Wednesday and feature interviews with artists and personalities like Lainey Wilson, Hardy, Charley Crockett, Kings of Leon, Breland, Bryan Andrews, Gavin Adcock, Amanda Shires, Shooter Jennings, Margo Price, Ink, Halestorm, Dusty Slay, Lukas Nelson, Ashley Monroe, Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor, songwriter Laura Veltz, Clever, and journalists Marissa R. Moss and Josh Crutchmer.
