Music Spotlight: Stompbox 40

What’s the name of your band and what’s the origin of it?

We are Stompbox 40. Our drummer, Ashley Byrd came up with the idea; somehow he combined Matchbox 20 with an Anthrax Stomp 442 album. It was all his idea. Everyone laughed like crazy, but it stuck and everyone actually digs the name now! At first we were going to just call it Stompbox, but another band had that name already, so we tried to fit in with what everyone else what doing and put a number in our name! When people come up to us in Chicago and have actually heard the name Stompbox 40,

I think all of us are very proud of that fact.

How long have you been together?

Stompbox 40 has been together since 2001 and still going strong!

Who is in the band and what instruments do they play?

Dave Cobb - Vocals and Guitar/Acoustic Guitar
Eric Elder - Lead Guitar
Brett Elder - Bass Guitar and Vocals
Stacey Hurst - Vocals
Fletcher Byrd - Drums and Vocals

How did you get together?

Well, Eric and I had another band called Severed Ties that was playing stuff like Danzig, Metallica, Megadeth, Prong, and Pantera. We actually had some decent luck at first when we got into the Evansville scene about 1998. Our band got a real nice little following here in Evansville, but when we hit bigger venues such as the old Harpole’s and the old Sky’s, we figured out pretty quickly that songs like Holy Wars…the Punishment Due wasn’t going over nearly as well with the college crowd as in the smaller bars. The crowds didn’t seem near as receptive, so we decided to make a change and start playing more crowd pleasing music that you can dance and groove to. We still play some of the heavier stuff now occasionally, which is a lot more musically intense than the dance material, but we completely overhauled our old band’s set list. So, we formed Stompbox 40 with our current drummer (3 of the same members) and with a Brian Sollman.

We started playing more current music such as Limp Bizkit, Weezer, and Default. Had Brian in the band for about 2 years and ran a video show that projects the band/crowd/video clips on the screen. Dave Cobb (our current vocalist), was running all of our video and actually got up to sing a few songs with us and seemed like he had a pretty good voice. Well, things didn’t work out with Brian (although we are still very good friends with him) and Dave took over. Along the way, we added the extremely talented Stacey Hurst, to add even a bigger variety to our set list. The band is just now one big family!

What type of music do you prefer playing?

Well, that is going to depend on who you ask in the band. I think some of our all around favorites that we do are Nine Inch Nails, Rob Zombie, Guns N’ Roses, Joan Jett, and Metallica.

What band do you most sound like?

Hard to say since we are pretty much a cover band, but we are very guitar driven band. I think most people that have seen us play can pretty much see that we aren’t up there playing songs in the wrong key or the wrong way or something, lol. The leads in the songs are the same leads that is on the CD’s from the bands we are covering for the most part.

Where is the best place to play in town and why?

We love playing everywhere, but we are probably most comfortable in Fast Eddy’s. We have really built a huge following of people that comes out to party with us at Fast Eddy’s.

What is your favorite song to play live? Why?

Mine is Nine Inch Nails’ Closer. The whole entire song is just awesome. The lyrics, the groove, and the build up at the end of the song. We usually have a lot of fun playing that song.

Whose your favorite local band?

Interesting question! Probably Mayor Frank or BSR, because those bands are doing different types of music than us, plus they are pretty talented musicians on top of it. We have been friends with those guys for years.

What are your musical aspirations?

Our band just wants to keep doing this as long as we can. We are pretty much like one big family. We have our moments where someone gets burnt, but for the most part, we all love playing music with each other. Everyone in the band is just really, really good friends, so that just makes it better. We just want to keep playing and entertaining people for as long as we can keep doing this.

Where can we see you play around town?

Well, you can see us play at Fast Eddy’s, the Timeout in the Executive Inn, an occasional O’Brian’s show, and we are even at Club Royale. We play out of Evansville quite a bit trying to avoid the burn out factor, but you can always probably catch us in town at least once a month; if not twice.