Swamp Jeuce

Gallipolis- When asked to define their music, David Mullins, and Rob Cundiff of Swamp Jeuce simply shook their heads. "What kind of music is it? thats really the question," said David Mullins, lead guitarist and vocalist. "It's hard to nail down, It's on the southern rock side but heavier, we appeal to a wide range of people, Everyone from southern rock lovers to metalheads can listen to us, and we write original songs." "I call it guitar-driven rock," said Dustin, the drummer. "We're original," said bassist cundiff. "You cant really compare it to anything else because there are so many influences." The bands influences include Lynyrd skynrd, ZZ Top, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, and the Black Label Society. They recently finished recording their first album, "The Peachfork Session," and the band meets about once a week to practice and write songs together. Brothers dave and Dustin are from Gallipolis, and Cundiff is from Rutland. "Me and Dusty have played together all of our lives," said dave, "We all knew each other from different bands. The three of us played together once and it stuck, Now we have been playing together for about eight years." Several weeks ago, swamp Jeuce submitted a CD and performed at the Monkey Bar in Huntington, They were selected as one of ten bands to battle at the Monkey Bar for a spot at X-fest. The contest was based on a crowd vote and judges scores. Swamp Jeuce was declared the winner and awarded a chance to play at X-Fest. "We figured we'd lose by votes because the other bands had their followings, but we brought ours and won," Dave said. "The judges said we got perfect scores," added Dustin. X-Fest is an annual concert sponsored by radio station, 106.3 WAMX. The event will take place on Sept. 16 at the Harris Riverfront Park in Huntington. Staind, Three Days Grace, Byzantine, Swamp Jeuce, and many other bands will perform. 106.3 WAMX has showed their support by playing songs from "The Peachfork Session" on the radio. - Daily Tribune

RUTLAND- How does Swamp Jeuce, a working-class rock band based partially in Rutland, make it to the annual X-Fest concert in Huntington W.Va.? Their families, fans and their hard work which is playing music when and wherever they can. Swamp Jeuce was chosen for X-Fest after being narrowed down via CD's, live performances and fan participation. What is X-Fest you ask? X-Fest is an annual concert sponsored by Huntington's WAMX X106.3 radio station featuring national hard rock and metal bands as well as the best music the local scene has to offer which this year will include Swamp Jeuce. In fact Swamp Jeuce is the first band from Meigs county to participate in the concert in the 10 years since X-fest started. Band members David (guitar/lead vocals) and Dustin Mullins (Drums) are from nearby Morgan Township in Gallia county where they attended Kyger Creek High School while memeber Robbie Cundiff (bassist) who attended Meigs High School lives in Rutland.
Even though the band has ties in both counties, Swamp Jeuce is known as "Meigs County Boys," though they are all grown up now and feel their music has grown up as well and is on the verge of breaking out into the next level of success. Part of Swamp Jeuce's defenition of success is the fans liking the music which allows them to continue doing what they love which is playing live. "This is too good not to do something with it, we're not doing it halfway," David said about the bands struggle to push towards even more success with the support of family and friends. "We like doing it, no matter if we're playing for three or 300 people." The trio have been together for eight years, initially meeting while in a country music band which continues to influence them though they liketo describe their music as a mixture of genres, including southern rock and heavy metal. This mixture of influences makes Swamp Jeuce feel they have something original to offer audiences that have faithfully followed the band from show to show, including the show at Huntington's MonkeyBar where the band battled for a spot on the X-Fest stage. "We couldn't have done it without the crowd," Cundiff said of the fans. Fan support is cropping up everywhere, like in front of the Rutland civic center where a large sign congratulating them is posted and Cundiff's home has a large tapestry attatched to it that receives several honks along State Route 124. Although the band hopes to tour and record on a larger scale someday for now they all have day jobs as, what else, metal fabricators. "I like metal at night better than metal in the morning," David joked. The band writes their music together and cuts from their latest CD "The Peachfork Session" can be found on their website at www.myspace.com/swampjeuce. The band says the song "How Low" is getting a good response and David, one of the main lyricists, feels "My Gold" stands out for him from a writing standpoint with lyrics that go, "It's not the same, I don't stand in line and I wont pray for rain." The band is definitely not standing in line now and rain or shine they will be taking the X-Fest stage at Harris Riverfront Park in Huntington. The band has loved rock music since they were kids with favorites like AC/DC's "Back In Black" Zakk Wylde's Pride and Glory trio and Kiss' "Destroyer." Cundiff said he knew he was into rock when he got in trouble for bringing Kiss' "Love Gun" album to school. Of course being a kid who like to listen to Kiss records is a far cry from taking the stage at X-Fest. So what will Swamp Jeuce be thinking when they do step out in front of all those people? Dustin, David and Robbie all agreed they'd be thinking of every stage in every bar they've ever played in while paying dues but more importantly the trio will be enjoying the moment. "We're going to play as long as they let us," David said of the X-Fest performance.
Swamp Jeuce will be opening up for national acts Staind, Evans blue, Black Stone Cherry and Three Days Grace. - Daily Sentinel

SWAMP JEUCE - “The Green Album”

Break out the whiskey, them Swamp boys are back! They filled “The Green Album” to the rim with eleven shots of lethal swamp rawk. What is in Swamp Jeuce, you may ask? Well, it’s a whole lotta whiskey soaked rock and roll with a touch of Alice in Chains, a lil’ bit of Black Label Society, some garage band classic rock like Grand Funk: stirred up real well and then southern fried and seasoned with a wee touch of groove and funk. All this makes for an original and intoxicating form of audio liquor that will knock ya on yer ass,. Of course, this is after a good amount of fist pumpin’ into the air to these modern rock anthems.

Like Black Stone Cherry, these guys are gonna be compared to other bands in the southern metal genre like Black Label Society. As evidence on “Unsold” this is a fair comparison. But, this cd is more than another southern metal cd. “Thousand Miles From Home” and “Too Far Gone” are influenced by the James Gang / Grand Funk melodic blues rock from glory days of garage rock. In fact the singer sounds as close to Joe Walsh on “Thousand Miles From Home” as he does Layne Staley on “Black Magic Land.”

It takes balls to name a cd after a colr (think the Beatle ‘White Album’) but this cd is definitely ‘The White Album’ of indie cds. There’s eleven tenacious rockers on here. It starts with razor sharped guitars on the opener and ends in classic blues rock style. In between, it never lets up. “There ain’t a bad song on here” is becoming a cliché that pr agents and reviewers use: but, in this case, it’s the swamp kickin’ truth! This ain’t hype: this is the real deal! These guys are poised for a National breakout this Summer. With tracks like “Eyes Too Sore” , “So Far Down”, and “Hand On a Bottle”: the Swamp boys are comin’ soon to a FM radio station near you. The hard part is pickin’ the first single! Chomp on this one before it chomps you! Chomp On!!!!
Alligator Jackson's favs: all songs are very good but AJ's favs are "Eyes Too Bloody To See", "Hand On a Bottle", "Thousand Miles From Home", and "Too Far Gone"
- Alligator Jackson