Jake Hunsinger & the Rock Bottom Band

Jake Hunsinger (lead singer and writer), Andrew Donnelly (lead guitar), Zack Wedge (drums), and Jamie Doyle (bass), make a focused effort to understand music history to create something entirely new. Hunsinger says, “I use unique chord patterns, melodies, and song structures based around generations of American songwriting while focusing on saying something inherently young and Gen Z/Millenial.” His singing is an attempt to deconstruct and understand how country music has been sung, tracing a line from Vernon Dalhart and Jimmie Rodgers, to Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell, to George Jones and Garth Brooks. Wedge is a jazz drummer who behaves much the same way as Hunsinger about his craft, trying to understand the cultures and history of the art of drumming as well as the people who played it. 

Their inspiration also extends beyond musical history to a geographical and cultural blend of genres. Rollicking musical arrangements, dynamic jazz and Latin-inspired grooves, and tight hillbilly vocal harmonies support Hunsinger's high lonesome crooning to blend the traditional with the experimental. Doyle's inventive bass lines bridge the gap between Hunsinger’s country writing and Wedge’s blend of Latin, jazz, and New Orleans rhythms, while Donnelly’s ear for harmony expands the songs into a range of lushness to high and lonesome backdrops. 

Their influences are more philosophical than musical. Hunsinger says, “Springsteen and Dylan have made me want to write big epic songs with complicated information and stories crammed into my music, while Billy Joe Shaver and Father John Misty speak earnestly and simply and with a lot of humor about very serious things. George Jones’s absolute commitment to every word he sings has made me want to be a better singer. Tyler Childers’s influence is really the most obvious sonically because of his progressive and interesting approach to traditional country music.”

The songs place the human condition front and center, having an honest look inward while in good company. This is best translated at their shows where they create an inviting atmosphere where folks become vulnerable and lean in, laugh, dance, and cry, all within a single evening.  Jake Hunsinger & The Rock Bottom Band have spent the last two years putting all these nuances and moods front and center in their debut full-length album, Wrapped Around The Axle due out on Hobo Castle Records on September 23.