The Sunbear Bluesband is a band based in Landshut, Germany (interestingly, the license plate code for Landshut is "LA" - so it is a "Bluesband from LA").
The band plays rockin' Blues or bluesy Rock in the style of Cream, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Stevie Ray Vaughan or Gary Moore (with a heavy dose of riff-based rock). The setlist includes covers of well-known and not so well-known classics as well as the band's own compositions.
The band consists of
- Gerhard Veit (vocals, harp)
- Stefan Leonhardt (guitar)
- Thomas Schneidawind (bass)
- Gerhard Gruber (drums)
In 1994 Gerhard Veit, Thomas Schneidawind and guitarist Dave Winkler started playing together under the name "Sunbear Bluesband".
In November 1995 drummer Gerhard Gruber joined them and in the following years the band played several successful gigs in the southern parts of Germany and in Austria.
The first CD ("Sunbear Bluesband - Volume 1") was recorded in December 1997.
At the end of the year 2000 guitarist Dave Winkler left the band and it took nearly a year until a replacement could be found.
Guitarist Stefan Leonhardt joined the band in October 2001 and since then, there haven't been any changes in the line-up.
In 2004 the current CD was recorded at an open-air live gig - "Sunbear Bluesband live".
Since all of us have full-time jobs and families, we don't play that often. We still do between 5 and 10 gigs every year and of course, we love it.
We usually play in and around our hometown (Landshut, southern part of Germany), but there have also been gigs in Austria and Italy.
I think it starts with the old blues guys: Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Guy, BB King and so on ...
Then there are the British Bluesmen like John Mayall, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, Eric Clapton with Cream, Ten Years After etc ...
And of course, more modern players like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Gary Moore.
Especially our guitar player is also quite into bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Allman Brothers, Gov't Mule, Free ... and of course, it shows in our music.
Guitar: Framus Renegade (modified), Fret King Country Squire Yardbird
Guitar Amp: Fender Hot Rod Deluxe
Effects: Baldringer Dual Drive
Bass: 2 Wal basses (one of them fretless)
Bass Amp: SWR SM-400 and 2x Tech-Soundsystems-cabs mit 12Speaker
"Effects": EBS MultiComp and EBS MikroBass-2
Drums: Troyan Drums und Paiste 2002 Cymbals
