Geoff Maestas - Guitar, Vocals
Josh Skoro - Bass Guitar (live shows)
Brian Fickle - Percussion (live shows)
The Various Lazy story
Like many bands, Various Lazy came from the humble beginnings of cover songs, dive bars and college students. But unlike most bands, the story of Various Lazy took a rather unconventional path to musical maturity that resulted in a lengthy stint in the Idaho State Correctional System that continues to this day.
Various Lazy was formed as a cover band in 1996 in Moscow, Idaho, featuring lead singer and guitarist, Geoff Maestas. As often happens with college bands, the Various Lazy members graduated and went their separate ways and Geoff moved to Boise, where he began writing his own songs and arrangements as a band of one in his free time. Inspired by a decade of following the Grateful Dead, the String Cheese Incident, Phish, and other jam acts, Geoff gravitated towards inventive song arrangements and fantastical storytelling while blending jazz, bluegrass, rock, and blues. It was Maestas’ engineering left brain that inspired him to approach his music much like he approached his day job as a chemical engineer, deconstructing music down to its bare elements and putting those elements back together in new ways. As his songwriting gained momentum, he recruited drummer Brian Fickle and bassist Josh Skoro to the band in 2005 and as a three-piece they began playing clubs and bars around Boise.
Just when the band had developed a following, Geoff was arrested for selling marijuana and suddenly the future of the group was bleak. As Geoff rapidly watched his free life and budding musical career cut short by the terrifying prospect of years in prison, he decided to do the only thing he could to keep any sanity: record an album. In the eight months that followed his arrest, Geoff brought together several talented session musicians and was able to make the album with the help of a large contingent of loyal and generous friends who offered both their moral and financial support in the form of recording time, web site development and hosting, sound system development, and much more. The result was Lame Sick or Lazy, a breathtakingly eclectic brew of tumbling, overspeeding roots rock (“Pocketful of Swayze”); Pink Floyd-esque prog melodrama (“Pillow Song”); jubilant Celtic swing (“Burnin’ Alive”); and avant-jazz experimentation (“Sandwich”).
On August 20th, 2007, just hours after recording the last track on the album, Geoff was sentenced to 10 years in prison with the possibility of parole after three years.
Since then Geoff has moved through a couple of Idaho prisons and he currently resides at a community work center facility in Boise. During most of 2008, The Tonic Room recording studio in Boise worked on mixing and mastering his album which was finally released in January of 2009 after many months of phone calls and visits between the recording studio and Geoff at the prison. Geoff, his bandmates, and his loyal tribe hopes that his lack of any prior criminal record, long history of gainful employment as a chemical engineer and general good behavior will enable him to secure parole sometime in late 2010. Cross your fingers. In the meantime, embark on a musical voyage with Various Lazy!
Listen to the new album!