Meet Gary Marsh | The Chop Tops founding member, lead vocalist, and standing drummer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Gary Marsh and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Gary, is there something that you feel is most responsible for your success?
We have long felt that the secret to gathering what success we have is just being ourselves and writing music that comes naturally to the band. That resonates with our audience, they don’t feel like they’re watching a bunch of phonies pose their way through a set of far-fetched songs compared to whom we are. At any rate, one thing is for sure we have never been anything but grateful for every person who liked what we did and called themselves a fan of our music!

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
As a band, we were influenced by several different genres, roots American Rockabilly, Surf, Punk, Psychobilly, Teddy Boy, and a few others as well. We all came up listening to and covering our favorites in each of these styles, this led to us customizing a blend of them all together. We coined the name, “Revved-Up Rockabilly” to have a term to describe what we were doing. Luckily our sound caught the ear of various big names we were fans of and we were offered supporting slots for them. The legends we had the honor of playing with was one of our most humbling experiences we will always be grateful for.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
There is a lot to do in our small beach hometown of Santa Cruz! Definitely would make a stop at our famous Beach Boardwalk (been in many great movies, The Sting, Lost Boys, Sudden Impact, etc.) Have to go to at least one of our break beaches, Pleasure Point, The Cove, or Hidden are all cool spots and different in their own ways. Take a hike or ride mountain bikes in the redwood forest at Niesen Marks State Park. Catch some great live entertainment at Moe’s Alley and The Catalyst. And grab some excellent local grub at too many awesome spots to list, but just a few would be The Hideout, Cassidy’s Pizza, Cole’s BBQ, Jack’s Burgers, and tons more.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I would credit the parents of our band members who brought each of us up on a great collection of music that influenced our style and sound, thanks Mom and Dad! 🙂

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Image Credits
Holly Horn, Jim Nell, Jose Segue. Sean McCourt, Mika Bell