The Planet Riders

Riders were a duo consisting of Joe and Mark for several years. They played with Shawn Mullins, Caroline Aiken, Clay Cook(John Mayer), Christian Bush(Sugarland) and others doing the acoustic singer/songwriter thing. They even played the main stage at the Dogwood festival as a duo. They wanted to put some life into the songs and decided to add bass and drums. Joe went from the acoustic to the Gibson Les Paul and Mark plays mostly lap steel through tube amps for that incredible lead sound that you hear when they perform. Joe works with Jere Kirk who is the drummer for TPR and has been playing in local Atlanta bands for fifteen years. Joe approached Jere about playing with them and they rehearsed that week. They added Ed Armas on bass guitar after hearing about him through a mutual friend. Brian Turk was added on rhythm guitar a few months later. Brian happens to be neighbors with Jere and so it was perfect. He loves the music and is a solid player who adds the final piece to the Planet Rider puzzle.

Band Members History:
MARK VAN ALLEN (LAP AND PEDAL STEEL) Not sure where to begin. Mark was a member of the multi platinum selling country band” Sugarland”, founding member and recently revived “BlueGround UnderGrass”. He recorded tracks on the “Indigo Girls” latest release, played with “Shawn Mullins”,” Government Mule”,” Warren Haynes” of the “Allman Brothers Band”,” John Berry”,” Mark Wills”,” Trace Adkins”. He was a member of original project started by” Wide Spread Panic” guitarist” Jimmy Herring”. His list of recording, touring and television credits could take up this entire bio so we will just leave it here unless there is a specific request for all the sorted details.

JOE KIRKPATRICK (LEAD VOX AND LEAD GUITAR) Founding member of RCA recording artists “Trinket” of Athens. He is a published writer with Jolson Publishing in Nashville Tennessee and has written over 500 songs. He won the international year of the child singing competition when he was 11 years old and performed with country legend “Bill Anderson”. He has television and touring experience. Joe helped produce tracks for Danny Johnson of “Steppenwolf” and will be using Danny on the Planet Rider cd recording coming up. He toured with country band “Memphis Rain” out of Charlotte North Carolina and country band “Cumberland” out of Georgia for many years and has shared the stage with Vince Gill, Steve Wariner, Restless Heart, Ronnie Milsap, Shawn Mullins, John Mayer, Follow For Now and R.E.M.

JERE KIRK (DRUMS) Founding member of Atlanta favorites “Three Miles Ahead”. Played with them and several other well known local bands for fifteen years.

ED ARMAS (BASS) Ed has played in local area Atlanta bands for the past six years honing his bass playing skills and is now working with TPR.

BRIAN TURK (RHYTHM GUITAR) Turk has been playing in local area bands for several years and has been playing guitar for 17 years.

The Planet Rider sound: What you will hear is a cross between Pop and harder blues mixed with excellent vocals. There are some funky groove oriented numbers, power ballads and edgy Pop but always with a theme that includes bass and drum work that is locked in and wonderful solo work on electric guitar that trades with lap steel making this band very unique.

Influences and sounds like: ”The Planet Riders” have been compared vocally to “Don Henly” and “Jackson Browne” but the band sounds like “The Eagles” sleeping with “Bad Company” and “The James Brown Band”.

Plans: We are currently working on our first full length cd which will include guest stars from “Steppenwolf”, “Wide Spread Panic” and the “Randall Bramblett Band” . And of course spending much time and energy booking shows to promote the band and get the grass roots movement started. ..