Album Notes

The Fast Food Junkies, from McPherson, Kansas, have shared an incredible chemistry since the Fall of 2004, when they first formed. In this short amount of time, they have played around 75 shows in Kansas and put out one album: "Grumpyland". Clint Snyder, Dave Crawford, and Landon Unruh have all come from heavy metal backgrounds to embrace a new movement: progressive bluegrass. Landon, the incredibly speedy banjo picker, was formerly an electric guitarist while his childhood friend, Dave, played the drums with him in a metal band called "Cyler". About 7 years ago, Landon picked up the banjo which prompted Dave to thump out his rhythms on an upright bass. As Landon and Dave jammed on the dirt roads of the Walnut Valley Festival a couple of years ago, they met Clint, another passionate musician who tied everything together with his strong vocals, guitar playing and epic songwriting. Together, they merged into a metal-based, driving bluegrass sound with hints of country, rock, folk and definetely humor.
Fast Food Junkies have 35 original songs so far, ranging from ballads of moonshine feuds and Irish immigration to comic accounts of warped loves and the McDonald's drive thru. One song inparticular, "To the Pimp", takes Landon's life-theatening accident and makes it a story of heroism and sacrifice. In July of 2005, Landon caught on fire working on an old derby car. Thankfully, his father was there to put the gasoline fire out with his own bare hands. They were both badly burned and Landon wondered if he would ever be able to play the banjo the same way as before. After weeks of excruciating pain from 3rd degree burns on his belly and 2nd degree burns on his arms and hands, he slowly picked the banjo with his bandaged fingers. Within a month, he was playing better than he ever had, and it seemed to make the spirit of the band stonger.
Some of the band's favorite past gigs are Stage 5 at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, KS, The Bottleneck and The Granada both in Lawrence, KS, and their hometown gig at Shaggy's. The band has just finished recording their second album with the bluegrass sensation Mike West. They are also collaborating with the Tulsa based bluegrass band, PoDank, for another album. The band's favorite influences are Alice In Chains, Old Crow Medicine Show, Mike West, Primus, and Hank Williams, Jr. One thing's for sure, good original music is the Fast Food Junkies' passion and you can hear it when they play.

Landon Unruh: banjo, lead vocals
Clinton Snyder: guitar, lead vocals
Dave Crawford: upright bass, hillbilly vocals