“Rubberneck” is a group of passionate and talented instrumentalists from diverse musical genres, brought together to play an unusual form of urban bluegrass/pop instrumental music. The brainchild of  Jan-Paul Campeau and Andy Hermant, this project builds on the awareness created, and the success of “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”, Jerry Douglas and Bela Fleck, presenting a new very accessible form of bluegrass influenced pop instrumental music tailored for both traditional and urban bluegrass/country/pop music lovers.

Rubberneck’s debut album “Smoke This!” draws on the considerable talents of Laurence Stevenson (fiddle), Randy Torno (mandolin), Eric Robertson (piano), Claude DesJardins (drums), Andrew Collins (mandolin), Chris Coole (claw-hammer 5-string banjo), Jeff Cardey (mandolin), Tamara Krievens (flamenco hand claps, castonettes), Chris Bartos (fiddle), Derek Atherton (electric guitar) and Heather Hermant (vocal). Multi-instrumentalists Jan-Paul Campeau (acoustic and electric guitars, B3 organ) and Andy Hermant (5-string banjo, dobro, pedal steel, bass) are the instigators!

The album was produced between October 2007 and May 2008 and involved the use of digital technology including letting some of the guest performers record in their own studios and send the tracks (via the internet) to ‘the home base studio’ for editing and mixing. Amazingly, this unsupervised approach yielded fresh performances that intuitively feel as if they were in the same room as the rest of the band when they were recorded.

The eclectic material and production approach crosses traditional boundaries, but stays in ‘bluegrass character’. The album contains mostly original compositions (by Jan-Paul Campeau, Randy Torno and Andy Hermant) plus some covers of some favourites (of the producer): A Minor Breakdown (Bob Yellin of the Greenbriar Boys), Cousin Mary (Brian and Ed Pilling of Fludd – Andy played 5-string banjo on the original recording), He Was A Friend of Mine (recorded by Dion James and the Greenbriar Boys) and William Tell (just for the hell of it!).

We hope you enjoy it – we had a lot of fun making it!