MonkeyJunk is a Canadian rock and roll/swamp/blues band, based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The band has won two Juno Awards for Blues Album of the Year.
The band won in 2012 for their album To Behold and in 2018 for their latest release Time to Roll.
The band was formed in Ottawa, Canada, in 2008. Band members are Steve Marriner on vocals, baritone guitar, harmonica, Hammond organ; Tony D. (Tony Diteodoro) on lead guitar; and Matt Sobb on drums and percussion. Marriner had been playing a weekly solo show at Irene's Pub in Ottawa, frequently inviting guests to join him. An occasionally recurring guest was Tony D and he once asked Sobb to join too but never together. Marriner and D struck up the idea to try a three piece (two guitars, drums and no bass) and since Sobb had been playing with Tony D. for approximately eight years, and before that time with Marriner in another project, he was called to start this new project on the last Sunday of March 2008.[1] The band members are from different age cohorts, with Tony D. and Sobb being respectively twenty-two and twelve years older than Marriner (born 1984).[1]
The band formation does not include a bass player. Such a formation is found in a number of notable classic blues bands, such as Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers.[2] The band's name comes from an interview with Son House, who described the blues as being about love, stating "I'm talking about the blues. I ain't talkin' 'bout monkey junk".[3]
^Tony D. won the individual 2009 Maple Blues Award for guitarist of the year, while Steve Marriner won awards as male vocalist of the year and harmonica player of the year.
