the story

    Cottonmouth melted together in 1989 while attending Lewis and Clark College in Godfrey, Illinois. The original line up consisted of 5 members, Darren Gruen guitar, Ted Nitz bass, Eric Roberts guitar, Aaron Roberts drums and Johnny Bash vocals. Ted and Bash had a radio show called The Mosh on 89.9fm at the college. Cottonmouth released a 5 song demo cassette entitled "Official Demo" which obviously received tons of airplay at the local station. 200 copies disappeared along with the original bass player leaving 4 members to record the next release "Going to Pot" which was released in 1991.

   Cottonmouth was hooked on writing original material and strived to create a new unique sound. "Going to Pot" featured 11 songs on cassette but was mostly known for its outrageous cover, an original photo idea that We were able to pull off in an unknown cemetery north of Medora, IL. We did obtain connections through college radio and were able to ship cassettes to several radio stations around the globe where it received airplay. We were honored when a professional German football(soccer) team used the song "Charge of the Light Brigade" as their introduction. Cottonmouth toured the Mid Western United States briefly in support of our new release until drummer Aaron Roberts decided to leave the group. In

    1993 local recording artist Butch McMaster III became the new drummer and the new plan was to build a studio as opposed to renting time in one in order to perfect the art of recording and save costs long term. The first studio was analog and featured a Fostex R8 as the recording device. Family time had become very important to us and the we began to enjoy our time together without having to worry about recording deadlines and fat cat record producers squeezing the fun and life out of creating music by turning it into work. The everyday grind of working for the man and trying to raise a family is what inspired us.  In 1997 Cottonmouth produced a 4 song demo entitled "Pipe Dreams" printed up 500 copies one at a time and gave them away at that years OZfest. Cottonmouth received St. Louis radio airplay when their song "Space on Earth" was played on 105.7fm the Point's local show.

   The digital era was next for Cottonmouth as they invested in a stand alone digital unit designed by Mackie... the D8B. Work began on the new CD while waiting on the 24 track hard disk recorder Mackie was designing at the time to become available for purchase.  We worked on our new writing style with improvisational experiments spun off original rhythm and counter rhythm ideas developed in the early years. Bass player and original guitarist Eric Roberts was abducted by the Greys, an alien life form, and was replaced in 1998 by long time fan  Alex Honke(yes that's his real name). Cottonmouth continued to enjoy life not just as a band but as a family. On Oct. 14th 2001 Cottonmouth played their final show with drummer/brother Butch McMaster III as he would die tragically on Oct. 23rd in an auto accident in which he was the passenger. We knew that Butch wouldn't want us to quit and because of our true love of music Cottonmouth played on.  We threw together a quick compilations of songs the band had recorded while waiting for the HDR 24/96 to arrive that featured an improvisational style. The band would push record and just jam for hours capturing every magic moment. The plan was to eventually do this live. In 2002 Stash Vol. 1 was released at the Butch McMaster benefit.

  Several drummers auditioned and a few sat in for a show now and again until the band decided on the newest member of our family,Travis Puhse. Cottonmouth features a huge selection of cover music to go along with their original material and has been known to put on shows lasting up to 10hrs. Cottonmmouth is a favorite among biker gatherings and hemp festivals. Cottonmouth is currently working with Mock records a division of CapontheHill records and VIACONY on their newest release featuring 13 songs and a pop up book cover. The Greys have been able to obtain some of the audio on this upcoming release and have began distributing bootleg copies that have mysteriously been showing up at shows.