For music aficionados, what could be more entertaining than going out on a Saturday night and grooving to grit-laden strains of a funkadelic jam band? Calhoun County has got the golden ticket in the Oxford/Anniston band Sticky Foot. This music collective, featuring Tyler Bohannon on lead vocals and guitar, Todd Pirkle on lead guitar, Trevor Stewart on bass, and Keith Griffin on drums, drives home the definition of what jamming is all about. Through their Southern rock-infused blend of soul, reggae, and rock covers, coupled with creative off-the-cuff jams, Sticky Foot is a band worth putting on your radar in the local music scene.

It’s All In The Jamming

“We’re best described as a classic rock band that jams.”

Keith Griffin, Sticky Foot’s seasoned drummer, was promptly corrected by another band member, chiming in that it was more Southern rock. Whatever the recipe, the result is a band that won’t be boxed in by cover conventions. Meaning, they’ll take a cover such as “What You Won’t Do For Love” by Bobby Caldwell or the Grateful Dead’s “Wharf Rat” and allow it to evolve through raw, extended solos that explore new territory the original classics didn’t traverse.

“We make it our own. That’s something I couldn’t really do with people my age,” Griffin shared. “They would say to me, ‘That’s not the way the song goes.’ But these guys, they’re like, ‘Oh, that’s great!’”

The band talked about the desire to be free in their music by way of changing up cover songs, playing different parts in a completely new way, or creating new solos. In fact, rarely does a solo play out the same way twice with Sticky Foot. “We just like to jam, improvise, make it up as we go,” said Bohannon. 

As to original music, Stewart relayed, “All of our originals are just jammed instrumentals, no vocals.” When I sat in on a jam session at Todd Pirkle’s home, they demonstrated a fully improvised song, viewable at the link here.

When playing out locally at venues like Sinclair Social, Coldwater Mountain Brewpub, or the Smoking Moose (where they were the house band once they started playing out regularly), Sticky Foot typically includes numerous synergistic improvised jams in their soulful freeform sets. Griffin shared, “A lot of times our instrumentals are just improv. We do this in shows, where we take a couple of chords, pick a key signature, I start the beat off, and everything is just straight-up made up as we go along.”

Bohannon added, “We usually start off shows like that. So we’ll just pick a key and go for the first song, as a good warm-up and just to feel each other out, get a hang of everything.”

“It may last 4 minutes or it may last 14–it can get up there sometimes,” Pirkle laughed.

Such was the case when they jammed to Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer,” allowing me to film during a practice session on a Sunday afternoon. Pirkle’s improvisational abilities were on full display as he laid into his psychedelic take on the lead guitar solo.

Coming Together

Sticky Foot formed seven years ago as a result of local musicians who had varied connections. Two of its members–Keith Griffin and Todd Pirkle–had ties to the local rockabilly band McPherson Struts. Todd played lead guitar with them from 2004-06, while Keith was a session player on the band’s 2009 album Gear Jammin’. Keith reminisced about Todd, “The first time I heard him play, I thought, why in the Hell isn’t he out touring somewhere? This is crazy, he’s really good!”

Keith had connected with Tyler Bohannon playing in the local band Brick City Vibe 10 years ago. The two had also jammed with bassist Trevor Stewart (of local Americana band Rattlesnake Rattlers). Keith had noticed that Todd was back in the Anniston area and had also seen a Facebook post from Tyler referring to their Brick City Vibe days. Keith called Tyler, saying, “Look, I have this great guitar player. Would you be interested in putting something together?” Tyler contacted Trevor, and the four met to jam. As Keith put it, “From the first time we jammed, it was like, holy sh…okay! Immediately we knew that this was the band!” 

Backgrounds of Sticky Foot Band Members

Sticky Foot’s sound is rooted in the diverse musical journeys of its four members, each bringing their own flavor to the band’s southern rock/classic rock jam style.

Keith Griffin, the band’s powerhouse drummer, took up the instrument in his high school jazz band before diving headfirst into the punk/funk scene. Within just two years, he was touring the eastern U.S. with a band called Spank the Dobermans. “I really just picked it up quick. It came naturally,” Griffin related. His influences read like a who’s who of rock legends–Stuart Copeland of The Police, Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham, and Rush’s Neil Peart.

Lead vocalist and guitarist Tyler Bohannon came to music a bit later, picking up the guitar at 24. But through grit and determination, he was already playing out within a year, gathering a following at local open mics, and eventually building up to one-man acoustic shows and gigs across Alabama – from Gadsden to Boaz, Centre to Trussville.

Todd Pirkle, the band’s lead guitarist, started playing at age 11, though inspiration to play came much earlier courtesy of Eddie Van Halen’s iconic riff on “Beat It.” “I heard that guitar riff and I was like, man, whatever that guitar riff is…and I thought for the longest time it was Michael Jackson, ‘cause I was like 5 years old, then I actually found out it was Eddie Van Halen.” From there, he mingled his early influence with admiration of rock legends like Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix, as well as local Birmingham musicians Tim Boykin and the late Topper Price. “I didn’t care if it was traditional country, blues, or Pantera–anything with a strong guitar,” he says.

Holding down the low end is Trevor Stewart, whose bass journey began in middle school, jamming with his dad and older musicians on Lynyrd Skynyrd tunes. Trevor’s musical path took him through high school marching band, college orchestras, and even Latin jazz ensembles. “I would raid my parents’ CD collections and try to learn every single bass line in an album,” he admits. Despite his formal training, Trevor prefers to keep things loose on stage. “I like jazz a lot but I’m not really good at it. I like to play free, don’t really want to play a prescribed part.”

What’s Next

While Sticky Foot has graced the stages of some touted local venues–Sinclair Social, The Peerless Saloon, The Smoking Moose, Coldwater Mountain Brewpub, and Atomic Johnny’s among them–they have their sights set beyond this area. They’d love to play the Nick or the Avondale Brewing Company in Birmingham. Another idea that interests them is getting into some of the Atlanta venues. They explained that when popular acts play the larger venues there, fans often hit smaller clubs later in the evening, seeking to hear local talent.

On the idea of touring, Griffin remarked, ”I’ve done a lot of touring in my day. These guys, not so much. It’s not fun. It’s a lot of work, and I’d rather us play somewhere local to people we know–that’s the most fun.”

With a 2K+ social media following and plenty of enthusiastic local support from fans and fellow musicians, Sticky Foot will be “sticking around” for quite a while. Check them out on Facebook, and keep your eyes peeled for their next show.