Trash van Fever - Punkgrass Pioneers!
The Players
Armando Alvarez - Drums, Vocals, Percussion
JB Baughman - Bass
Matt Osment- Fiddle, Accordion
Brian Rappold - Mandolin, Banjo, Guitar
Aaron Turney - Guitar, Vocals
The Story
Hailing from Pittsboro, NC, a bastion of freak-flag-flying art nuts, lovers, littered souls, and barflys, Trash van Fever began their journey way out west, with Aaron Turney forming the first lineup in Seattle. Fed up with the June Gloom, the Seattle Freeze, and people who boast about living on raw oats, Aaron hit the road back to his home at heart, the great state of NC. First phone call in town was to Armando Alvarez, Aaron's long time bud and band mate. Armando, who has Hollywood good looks, and a deceptively careful demanor, is a true gift: a dreamy drummer who sings like a bird...the key to the Fever's harmony A-game. Turney and Alvarez are both founding members of NC punkgrass juggernaut, Tan and Sober Gentleman.
Wanting to pull from that celtic-ish, American, shitkicking goodness, the two enlisted Brian Rappold, a genius on many levels (science, music, comedy, philosophy) and a true heart of art, Rappold adds the banjo/mando magic that sounds custom designed for a writer like Turney: witty and trashy and wild.
Inevitably, Turney crossed paths with Pittsboro's own JB Baughman, very likely NC's baddassest upright bass thumper, and became fast friends. With their common love for old rock music, quirky stories, and edgy jokes, Turney couldn't help but think, "This dude is a fit for the Fever." After many half-drunk, almost threat-like promises that one day JB would play bass for the Fever, he eventually obliged. He hauled his shit into the practice space and blew the roof off the place. Score.
Hunting like hungry cavemen for a fiddler, the hardest group of people to convince that they really always wanted to be in a punk band, Turney dropped his beer one warm afternoon when he saw Joey Pilot playing mandolin at a bluegrass gig in Raleigh...holy God. After the show, he saw Pilot busting out some fiddle goodness with some bluegrass boys out on the porch. "Hey, would you be interested in sawing it up with a Punkgrass band," he asked. "Sure," says Pilot. And that was it.
Now the boys have been hard at work cooking up a truly unlikely collection of barn burners, mind-changers, heart-wrenchers, and feet movers. Fueled by beer, held fast only by gravity, and inspired by every flag that flies in the American consciousness, Trash van Fever, it turns out, are now just five friends whose creative approach could only be described as controlled chaos. Give 'em a listen!
Our sound
Trash van Fever is the sonic folk music your parents warned you about. Credited by some with coining the term, "PunkGrass," and creating a genre that roots-music lovers, punks, cowpokes, and rockers can all agree on. With a huge range of influences, Trash van Fever pulls together a hard-charging, harmony-filled extravaganza of melody and attitude. With songs about our time together here on Earth, some of them hard, some of them harder, some of them beauties, and oh yeah...songs about good dogs.
REACH OUT:
919-324-5240