Kaepora was born out of the ashes of your average (which is to say “awful”) high school rock band. Rather than acquire useful, lucrative skills, founding guitarists, Ian “Ugluk” Ferguson and James “Jimbo” Harkins, spent their college years sharing first-gen smartphone recordings of riffs back and forth between Richmond, VA and Harrisonburg, VA. Many such recordings have since evolved into full-fledged Kaepora tunes.
After graduating, the guitarists packed up Jimbo’s Volkswagen and hit the road for Denver, CO. They arranged a few acoustic renditions of the tunes under the moniker, “Murtaugh and Riggs,” and began rounding the open mic circuit, where they met vocalist and bassist, Bob Hicks. Bill’s musical history varied dramatically from the founders’, but he took them up on their offer for an audition and from thence the skeleton of the band was formed, with Ian filling in on drums, Jim handling the guitar duties, and Brian singing and playing bass.
Along the way, the group recruited four more musicians willing to forfeit their integrity to play Kaepora’s Low-Rent Prog Rock: Evan “Smelly” Shely singing various songs, Miles “Babs” McKee blowing various horns, Mike “Gibbons” Givens hammering various keyboards, and Nic “the Stick” Conde bashing various percussive objects, allowing Ian to double the guitar onslaught. Brandishing all the tropes of the unpopular genre and always sporting a smug, self-satisfied sort of grin, Kaepora blisters Denver audiences with their roaring mishmash of metal, country, and classic English prog. Thanks to Miles, they can even add “jazz” to that list.
