Members of Junco from left are Bobby Sheehan, Anthony Branca, Dan Stackhouse, Alex Ouellette and Jeremy Holden. Photo by Matt Congdon

To begin with, today’s act is one that I have been a fan of ever since their five-song EP, “Wake The Sleeping Giant,” came out in 2015 … it’s Dave Mathews Band-like vibe just felt so natural, energizing and satisfying that it was love at first listening.

Their subsequent two full-length CDs (“The Night the Lake Stood Still” from 2017 and “Red Run Wild” from 2020) just carried on that initial sound but also showed consistent growth and musical development.

It also should be noted that the drummer/vocalist, Alex Ouellette, is the son of one of my art students from the Pittsfield area (the father is now a Fryeburg resident teaching at the academy in that Western Maine town) and I have watched Alex play from his middle school days with my jaw resting on my chest. Combine his talents with those of Junco frontman Bobby Sheehan (lead vocals, guitar, lyricist); Jeremy Holden (lead guitar); and Dan Stackhouse (oboe, saxophone) and you have one of the most exciting local bands I have heard in a long, long time.

I reached out to Sheehan, who is a brand-new, first-time dad, to get an update on his group.

Q: How are you doing?

Sheehan: I’m doing well.

Q: Are you busy?

Sheehan: A little bit.

Q: How much is musical and how much is paternal?

Sheehan: (Laughter) That’s a good question. As far as the music goes, between the different projects, this summer has been like five nights a week, which is great. So that’s keeping me busy at night and then during the day I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to spend most days with the baby because my wife works, so it works out pretty well during the summer, it’s been a treat.

Q: Has the new addition to the family affected what you do musically?

Sheehan: Not really, no, do you mean like scheduling-wise and stuff?

Q: Well, no, more along the lines of inspirational.

Sheehan: (Chuckle) Oh, well I haven’t had as much time to write recently, as much as I’d like to, I haven’t had the time to focus on that but I do have plenty of random ideas recorded to my phone that I’m looking forward to exploring once I get a chance to breathe a little bit. But there’s a song that I definitely want to write for her and I have it musically ready, it’s just a matter of finding the time to add words to it. So I guess she has inspired a song, and one of the songs, it’s actually the last track on our newest album — is called “Around the Sun” and that was sort of inspired by her, as well. That was before she arrived but I knew she was coming.

Q: Now just a few minutes ago you put an “s” on project — does that mean you’re doing something other than Junco?

Sheehan: Yeah, so when the winter part of the pandemic hit, over in New Hampshire they were still allowing indoor music but it had to be a solo, that kind of pushed me to start playing out solo a little bit just to me in practice and stay in tune with things.

That was the first time I had ever tried anything like that and it was kind of fun. So that was the newest thing, and I’ve played with our lead guitarist, Jeremy Holden, as a duo, creatively named Sheehan & Holden (chuckle). We’ve been doing that for quite some time just as an off-shot and we’ll trade off songs, I’ll sing one and he’ll sing one and we’ll each harmonize, it’s all covers and it’s a better fit for certain venues.

And then last summer, during the pandemic, we put together a trio which is me, Jeremy and then Alex on drums, we called it the Sheehan-Holden Trio and it went so well last summer that this summer, when we started booking dates, we offered the trio, as well. We decided to put a more permanent name to it so now we’re going by The Lazy River Riders.

Q: Oh, nice … very cool. It sounds like things are going really, really well for you, especially after a bit of a draught.

Sheehan: Yeah, we just kind of decided to adapt, we didn’t have a choice (chuckle). As Junco we had a big CD-release show scheduled at Stone Mountain Arts Center back in April, which was a month after things started shutting down, so unfortunately we had to cancel that, we still decided to release that CD at the same time but it was kind of anticlimactic.

Q: Just out of curiosity, is there a new formation around now?

Sheehan: Since last we talked our bass player (Anthony Branca) left to work on more of his own stuff, and we were fortunate enough to meet this keyboard player, so we don’t have a bassist right now but he’s kind of able to fill in, kind of like what The Doors did, that low end with a keyboard bass. He’s an amazing pianist, Clifford Cameron is his name. So it’s been fun for us to revisit a lot of the songs that we’ve been playing for a while now and be able to change it up a little bit. And that’s a whole other instrument that can solo, he’s just a great player so he’ll take solos, too.

Q: So, what can folks expect from a Junco performance?

Sheehan: Well, hopefully a good experience. With this latest album we dipped our toes a little bit more into the rock genre, our music has always been kind of light for the first couple of recordings we did. It’s still obviously the Junco sound but we were able to get a little more experimental with some of the sounds, which is fun. It’s upbeat music and there’s quite a bit of improvisation that goes on in terms of solos between Jeremy on lead guitar, Cliff on keys, and Dan Stackhouse on saxophones.

Q: Is there anything, Bobby, that you’d like to pass on to the folks reading this article?

Sheehan: Well, we do mix in covers with our original material, we like to cover bands like the Grateful Dead, Allman Brothers, Tom Petty, and the like … we throw them in with our originals, as well.

Q: And it is your original material that’s on your two full-lengths and your EP that’s what hooked me to your music from the very beginning.

Sheehan: Thanks, I appreciate it.

Lucky Clark has spent more than 50 years writing about good music and the people who make it. He can be reached at luckyc@myfairpoint.net if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.

Lucky Clark has spent more than 50 years writing about good music and the people who make it. He can be reached at luckyc@myfairpoint.net if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.