Rich Bickers (lead vocals & rhythm guitar), Mike Ward (lead guitar & lead vocals), Fabio Guttierez (bass), Jason Skeen (drums & backing vocals), Brian Dodds (keyboards & organ), John Cain (trombone), Dan Fabiano (saxaphone & backing vocals)
Influences
(in no particular order) Stevie Wonder, Average White Band, Medeski Martin & Wood, Maceo Parker, the Police, Cake, Dr. John, the Funky Meters, KC & the Sunshine Band, the Beatles, Sublime, Squeeze, King Crimson, Phish, Parliament Funkadelic, James Brown, Soulive, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Beastie Boys, Tower of Power, Herbie Hancock, Frank Zappa, Elvis Costello, Deep Purple, Jimmy Smith, Weather Report, Chuck Brown
With Junk Nugget you get a brotherhood of creative musicians kicking out their brand of energetic and danceable, yet complex and well thought out, original funk/rock with jazzy influences and forays into more artsy compositions. There's also the occasional great cover song that fits into, or can be twisted to fit into, the Junk style to keep the people hopping. The band is buoyed by growing, loyal audiences who love to groove to its large repertoire of original songs and tasty covers. Get to know us, and hopefully you'll get some laughs without having to seek counseling as a result. The band has played the annual 4th of July Smoke-In Concert on the Mall in Washington DC and now enjoys a regular home at a number of nightclubs in the Washington, D.C. area.
Junk Nugget's main sound is a grinding/funk rock that gets the party going, but it also branches out into soulful blues, reggae and just plain rock n roll. The band can do all original shows at clubs that encourage that, and just as easily shift gears to accomodate some covers by bands such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Medeski Martin & Wood, Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, the Beastie Boys, and many others good for dancing and partying.
The band has a repertoire of about 40 original songs that it rotates into the shows. After going to clubs and seeing a lack of quality in a lot of the area's cover bands and thinking "geez, we can do that a lot better," in the last year Junk Nugget has expanded in that direction and now blends the originals with its own ripping versions of some of the best dance/party tunes, opening the band to a wider number of clubs and bars and a whole new audience that goes home humming its original tunes. But it's still all about the originals, as will be evident in the first full album, scheduled to be released in early 2004.
The band has a fat (and phat) sound created by a rhythm section that includes bass, drums, organ, and two guitars, as well as a horn section consisting of trombone and alto saxaphone. Other musicians well versed in the live circuit occasionally join the band on stage or in the studio.
