Gearbox
Rock-a-billy rockers roaring back after hiatus
[Posted: December 31, 1969, 5:00 pm]
Words by Tom Price
Little Johnny Tharp has done a lot of growing up. The Main Street Tattoo owner and frontman for popular rockabilly/punk band Gearbox says that for the first time in a long time, the band is serious about making music.
“We started in 2001, played two shows and then went on hiatus until 2007,” says Tharp with a laugh. “We all went in different directions after that.”
Tharp, who moved to the Valley in 2000, leaving behind the punk music scene in Orange County, never lost the desire for a musical outlet.
And after a few lineup changes, he says the band is now back and at its best with Josh Bristow joining him on bass and Jesse Valencia on drums.
It’s been a long trip for the 41-year-old professional tattoo artist. And it shows in the music.
“Our music is about a lot of the crap that life throws at us,” says Tharp.
Bristow has fit in nicely with the band and says although they are relatively unfamiliar with each other as bandmates, they all come from the same frame of mind.
“The tattoo shop is a rallying point for all of us,” says Bristow, who has both arms covered in colorful ink.
They are influenced by everything from Johnny Cash to NOFX and Reverend Horton Heat and Dick Dale.
“We play stuff that we all would like to hear if we weren’t in the band. It makes it amazingly easy to find inspiration in stuff when you are all coming from the same place,” says Tharp.
Their sound skews far from the norm in Merced, and they like it that way.
“This is a unique sound for Merced,” says Tharp, of the genre that is noted for wailing guitar riffs and foot-stomping drum beats. “We bring out the dancers, we want them to get up and get moving.”
The band is getting ready to do their first professional recording and are looking to become a more prominent figure in the local music scene.
“We want to be a part of what’s going on,” says Tharp.
This time, they aren’t going anywhere.
Gearbox will be playing The D Magazine’s all-ages music show on July 9 at Red Sky Comics.
