How did it all start?
Passion, Pain and Promise, From a Whisper to a Scream.
Originally an acoustic spinoff of alt-western pioneers Ice House Road, ToBe Fare breaks most of the rules and ignores the rest. Rising from the ashes of burned out hulks of music genres and bands past and present, ToBe Fare tosses them all into a musical Vita-Mix and pours out an aural smoothie that is never too smooth. Folk? Check, Blues? Check. Hard Rock? Check. Dance Pop? (What!?) Check. Post-punk, Grunge, Emo, Nu Metal? Check. Americana? For sure. Even maybe, possibly a little jazz.
Just don’t call them “Classic”
ToBe Fare is the songwriting, vocals, and guitar mayhem of Gary Hawthorne; the ardent drumming, and vocals of Adam JR Stoffel; the stylized bass lines, vocals and groovy suits of Bryan Mac MacKenzie; and introducing the Mysterious guitarist-turned-bassist-resurrected-as-a-guitarist Frosty Juan Sarmiento whose main job is adding frenzy to the mayhem on guitar and vocals.
But, how did they get here? It’s a long story. A REALLY long story.
Basically, IHR lured Gary out of retirement, then went on “permanent hiatus” which didn’t sit well with Gary, so he decided to go out solo, which never happened because JR came to the first show with drum in hand and they created the acoustic duo “BiG!” on the spot. When they went to record the duo's “acoustic album” became a rocking electric pseudo-blues compilation, with the addition of Mac on bass.
After a few name changes, demo recordings, and the addition of Frosty; ToBe Fare coalesced to bulldoze everything that had come before into a bandbox, then immediately smashing it. They now wander the countryside with Yeti cups filled with aural smoothies to musically hydrate the masses.
Their latest record: plan b on Ranch Hand Records, is available now Produced by Kevin McNoldy.