Big Johnson & The Thrusters

History Page

This band has no history. Literally. We can tell you some things, a little of this and a bit of that, but Big Johnson & The Thrusters are in fact, a band without a history. Gary Lee "Big" Johnson, Big Johnson & The Thrusters vocalist and Ned Fletcher, the band's bassist, have spent three out of the past five years in Europe. Having formed the band oversees, they returned home to the US where they have been performing constantly for the past seven years. "We came back," says Gary, "because we like the musical climate." With them they have brought a melting pot of ideas and experiences from throughout the world. "The European thing and being from America," continues Gary, "brought us together as Big Johnson & The Thrusters and because of our travels we were opened up to an enormous number of musical styles."

Gary was born in Chicago, but certainly spent little time there. He met Ned, who was born in Sweden and raised somewhere in the hinterlands of America, under somewhat mysterious circumstances. Together, in search of adventure and new faces to peer at, they met the other three members of the band, so that to Ned's hyper- thyroid Donald Sutherland and Gary's warmth were added Pate "Evil Ways" Raunch's brain-boiling good looks, Marty Miller, a particularly unsavory character, and Jim Richards' avuncular charm.

Jim Richards hails from Venezuela where he learned his drumming, and it is a little known fact that Jim's family was instrumental in the building of the Panama Canal. Pate "Evil Ways" Raunch brings that big-butt-sister elegance to great songs like "Red House", while Marty Miller just wants all his women to stop theys talkin'.

Songs, songs, songs. The band has so many top notch songs that they used to do three separate sets a night of completely different songs. Now, with the rigors of extensive touring, they know better. The band has no "B" material. Songs like "Custom Tailored Baby", "Dayrise This Morning", "Full Time Lover", "Ooby Doo", and "The Day After Christmas" put pure musicality -- great melodies, lyrics of both thought and heart -- back into their unmistakeable high energy blues.

Experience the Power!