A Brief History of Gantzer and Groover

For the last 15 years, Gantzer and Groover have been entertaining audiences of all ages around Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC. Performing music from all styles including Rock, Country, Folk, and "The Islands", they have a style that will blend in with almost any occasion and gathering.

Chris Gantzer and Russ Groover met in the Spring of 1989 when Russ's band, The WERMs, played a "battle of the bands," of which Chris was one of the judges. Shortly there after, Chris and his band, Laughing Sam's Dice, invited the WERMs to open for them on several occasions. In January of 1990, both bands split up into many different directions leaving Chris and Russ with nothing to do. By February of 1990, "The Gantzer Groover Show" was born and regularly played the Open Mic Night at O'Brien's Pit Barbecue in Springfield, VA.

Russ: "Our intent was to keep playing in the area in order to keep our connections fresh for when we each got another band together. We had no idea that the acoustic gig would hold together so long."

By the Summer of 1990, The Gantzer and Groover Show had found itself with a house gig at TT Reynolds in Fairfax City. After about a year, the show moved to Wednesday nights, and the house show continued for six years.

Chris: "This is where a lot of our growth happened. We met more people at TT Reynolds, both fans and fellow musicians, many we still keep in touch with."

During this time, the Gantzer and Groover repertoire had grown immensely and diversely. TT Reynold's was a haven to try different things allowing Gantzer and Groover to hone in on what their strengths are. There were also many special guests over the years who would be invited to join on stage for anything from a song to a set. This list includes (but isn't limited to): Jenny Nixon, Tammy Bagnato, Jimmy Luykx, Nells Lofko, "Super Dave" Sneddon, Sarah Swanner, Gene Crawford, Wayne Hunt, Sean Darraugh, and Walter Baine.

In 1992, Gantzer and Groover had their first release called "Reaching for the Sun." This was recorded at Cue Recording Studios by Jim Ebert. (A few months later, Jim's engineering work on Shai's debut album gave them a platinum album and shot Jim and his career to Los Angeles. Go Jim!) "Reaching for the Sun" was not quite as successful as Shai's work having sold considerably less than a million copies (okay, it was considerably less than a thousand- but more than a hundred!). Soon you can hear samples of the songs on "Reaching for the Sun" on our "Music" page and the whole recording is available for purchase.

In 1993, Jenny Nixon joined the duo to form Gantzer-Nixon-Groover (or "GNG" for short). Jenny added percussion and a third harmony vocal as well as the opportunity to play some of the popular female songs from artists like Sheryl Crow, Lisa Loeb, Melissa Ethridge, etc. In addition to the acoustic trio, the band also offered an "electric" set with Russ on guitar, Chris on bass, and Jenny on drums. Still called GNG, the electric trio leaned a bit stronger to the "island" sounds playing artists like Bob Marley, The Neville Brothers, Jimmy Buffet, and many others. The versatility of this group made them quite popular and found themselves playing many clubs around the area every month.

In the fall of 1995, Jenny opted to leave the band in search of other adventures and GNG was reduced once again to GnG, the duo. Gantzer and Groover continued playing venues for the next several years still leaning toward the "island" style of music, which continued to make them unique.

In 1998, GnG hooked up with a promoter who was very interested in their sound urged them to form a band, focus on Jimmy Buffet's music (of which GnG already played a ton of), and he would help to get the bigger paying, higher notoriety gigs. So, GnG did just that and formed the band "The Peanut Butter Conspiracy", named after one of Jimmy Buffet's songs. The band consisted of Scott Swanner on drums, Jeff Foltz on percussion, Mark Edmondson on keyboards, Sarah Swanner on background vocals, Chris on acoustic guitar and Russ on electric guitar. In November of 1998, the band played their first show at Main Street, USA in Annandale, VA opening for Fingers Taylor (harmonica player for Jimmy Buffet's band, The Coral Reefers). Fingers was so impressed by the band that he jumped up and played the last three songs with them: "Son of a Sailor", "Pirate Looks at Forty", and "Why Don't We Get Drunk and Screw". {Although we do not have any pictures of this event, our sound guy that evening was on the ball and recorded the last three songs for us, which will soon be on our "Music" page for those interested.}

That would be the first and last show for "The Peanut Butter Conspiracy" as different interests and life got in the way of a band that large.

In 1999, GnG added Jeff Foltz (percussion, vocals) to the acoustic act and renamed the group "Even Keel". The trio played many shows over the spring and summer of that year in Colonial Beach, Virginia and around the Washington, DC area.

In 2000, Chris and Russ called it "quits" as the volume of playing had dwindled and the show felt old. They figured they had a good 10 year run and it was time to move on. However, "quitting" wasn't as simple (or as final) as it sounded. Over the next 4 years, they would get together and play for a couple private parties and an occasional club as favors to friends and acquaintances…and each other. Finally in the spring of 2004, discussions ensued about reviving Gantzer and Groover. By the fall of that year, they were in the studio recording their demo and were back on the streets. Since their return, the duo has played several private functions and club dates and is looking to play for you!