Rocket Park

Rocket Park is a band that sticks out like a sore thumb in any crowd. While other bands carefully strive for genre purity and aesthetic homogeneity, Rocket Park revels in all its messy contradictions. Bassist Dave Harris whips up the crowd with his rock star/party animal leanings while lead vocalist/keyboardist Brian Andrew Marek brings a delicate, unashamedly artsy sensibility to the proceedings. Drummer Eric Moore generates enough charisma and visual pizzazz to make him seem like a frontman while guitarist Steve Minnis lurks in the shadows, coaxing sounds both beautiful and frightening from his Les Paul. The music itself defies description - a bit of classic rock, a bit of prog, a hint of psychedelia, a spirited whiff of punk, and a whole lotta rock ‘n’ roll - but no matter what the pedigree of its individual elements, the music remains very accessible, very addictive, and very fun. As a result, Rocket Park has found itself opening for a truly eclectic variety of headliners: Saigon Kick, the Marshall Tucker Band, Jimmy Buffett, the Fixx, Alex Chilton and the Strokes!

Rocket Park was originally formed in 1998 by Brian Andrew Marek and Eric Moore as a studio project, but an enthusiastic reaction to their first tentative shows (with original guitarist "Manik" Myk Thompson and bass player John Sebben) encouraged them to pursue the separate but equal worlds of recording and live performance side by side. New dimensions in confidence, tightness and energy were brought to the band when Sebben was replaced by former Free Dirt bassist Dave Harris in 1999 and, more recently, when Steve Minnis took over guitar duties from Thompson.

To date, Rocket Park has released two self-produced full-length albums (1999’s and 2000’s ) and appeared on three St. Louis-based compilations (, and ), earning rave reviews from the critics, a growing curiosity from the general public and even nominations for the prestigious Slammies music awards. The band’s music has been heard on numerous stations (both commercial and otherwise) across the St. Louis radio dial, and a surprise hit of the 2000 Christmas season was "Rudolph the Redneck Reindeer", Rocket Park’s warped melding of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s "Freebird" (found on the aforementioned compilation)! Rocket Park continues to win local fans through its masterfully crafted studio concoctions and energetic live performances, but recent times have seen the band "taking the show on the road", with the result that St. Louisans are no longer alone in knowing and enjoying the first class, multi-faceted, over-the-top rock ‘n’ roll that comes from Rocket Park.

Our influences are all over the map, from British Invasion pop to trippy psychedelia, from pretentious prog rock to crude proto-metal, from '80's indie legends to grunge, with a resultant sound that is Rocket Park alone!

Much of our equipment is vintage. We are not opposed to digital gear for some applications (in fact, virtually everything we've released was recorded on ADAT's), but the main thrust of our sound comes from vintage Slingerland drums, good ol' pawn shop guitars and real Hammond organs.