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Left to Right: Matt Sobb, Steve Marriner, Tony D


of Stevie Ray Vaughan. That was my gateway to the Blues pioneers and legends like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon, and then back to Robert Johnson.” Inevitably, the three musicians crossed paths many times before they started jamming at Irene’s Pub about four years back. They tossed musical ideas back and forth, tapping into their shared love of the Blues, and decided to go the band route.


But to call MonkeyJunk strictly a “Blues band” is misleading. As Steve says, “We play Blues, we play Funk, we play R&B. A couple of songs have a sort of twang to them. But the Blues will always be a big part of what we do because it’s such a big part of what we played before MonkeyJunk”. With solid Blues credentials, an obvious knowledge and love for the music and an on-stage chemistry based on their friendship, MonkeyJunk was an immediate hit in Ottawa. But what was to follow caught even the band by surprise. In 2008 the band was nominated for a Maple Blues Award for the best new Canadian Blues Band. Their first album, 2009’s “Tiger in Your Tank”, received solid airplay on Blues stations across North America; and last year MonkeyJunk won five Maple Blues Awards, including Entertainer of the Year, and individual awards for Steve and Tony. As if it couldn’t get any better, in 2010 MonkeyJunk was named Best New Artist at the prestigious Blues Music Awards in Memphis. For some bands on this kind of a roll, the bags would be packed and the tickets booked for the bright lights of Toronto or perhaps L.A. But with new media tools like Facebook, Myspace and Youtube, bands like MonkeyJunk don’t have to do that any more. “In this day and age, the way the music industry works,” says Steve


Marriner, “location really isn’t everything. It’s important that we’re mobile and it’s important to be on the road, meeting the right people and all those things, but it’s not like it used to be, where you had to move to L.A. or to Toronto or Vancouver. That’s just not necessary in this day and age. I think we’re pretty happy right where we are in Ottawa.”


continued on page 43 www.bounder.ca BOUNDER MAGAZINE 15


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