"Rut took piano lessons in grade school, but they didn't stick. He asked his parents for a guitar because he wanted to be Ace Frehley of KISS. When his guitar teacher told him the members of KISS "weren't real musicians," he stopped playing-until high school. "I found a friend who knew all the classic rock riffs. That's when I started hearing songs in my head," he said."
"When I was a kid, my neighbor in Bakersfield played pedal steel," Rut said. "I'd hear him practicing all the time, and it stuck in my head. Later on, we lived up the canyon from Merle Haggard's place. That made a cool connection in my head when listening to his albums."
""That was about 30 years ago," he said. "I decided I was going to focus on songwriting. I drove up to the Sierra foothills, rented a cabin, tore the radio out of my '67 Fairlane Wagon and put the TV in the garage. I cashed in my 401k to buy instruments and recording gear that I did not know how to play or use. Two years later, I had my first album recorded. I never looked back."
Joe Rut blends folk, electronic, experimental and country influences in his music, shaped by childhood exposure to pedal steel and proximity to Merle Haggard. Early piano lessons gave way to guitar ambitions inspired by KISS and classic rock riffs. About 30 years ago he quit an office job to focus on songwriting, isolating in a Sierra foothills cabin and investing his 401k in instruments and recording gear, producing his first album after two years. He released experimental work as Lumper/Splitter, led the country-noir band Loretta Lynch, and recorded folk albums including San Pedro and Sunflower before debuting Joe Rut & the Sunshine Shovelers.
Read at East Bay Express | Oakland, Berkeley & Alameda
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