MEMBER PROFILES

 

Danielle Gorre, Lead Vocals

Danielle Gorre, a.k.a. Dani G., MissBehave, a native of the City of Angels, originally aspired to be a dancer, but eventually after screaming and finally singing her way through garage bands as a teen, decided to study Music, and graduated from the Los Angeles City College Music Dept. Majored in jazz and classical voice during the 80's. Tried fronting a couple of amateur rock bands in the 90's. Started to get into the blues by the late 90's. Fell in love with all types of music since then. Danielle joined the band in August 2006.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Bartnikowski, Drums

John’s background in music stemmed from growing up with a musically talented father. He started playing drums at age 11. By age 13, he purchased his first real set of drums and joined his first rock band, latter gigging with a variety of musicians through high school. At 24, John joined a Rolling Stones cover band. Two years later, the drums were locked away, not to be played again for 13 years. In the meantime, John took up guitar to help fill the musical void. Then, some guys wanted to get together to play for a function at work. This is where it all started. John met Jeff at this get-together practice, to learn five songs for "employee day" at work. Says John, “I had so much fun, I knew it was inevitable that one day we would be together to form a band...and so Deep Pocket was born.”  

 

Ross Hooper, Guitar and Vocals

A former migrant worker, Ross settled in LA in 1999 and joined Deep Pocket in October of 2000. He has been singing and playing since the age of 9. Ross grew up in southern Arizona and Seattle and attended college at the University of Arizona (GO CATS!!!). After so many years of school and work as an IT management consultant, it’s good to get out of the garage and onto the stage. Now an IT Director for a Culver City company, Ross is psyched to have found such a great group of musicians (on the first try, no less) and to be able to show off the guitar collection. Not to mention having an excuse to add to his collection of musical toys. Ross is also the band's webmaster.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Steve Nelson, Lead Guitar

 

At an early age Steve Nelson ran away from home in Los Angeles to the Midwest. While this failed to start a trend among his core demographic (broke, troubled youth between 15 and 18 years) who continued to run away in the traditional direction of East to West, it did allow him to see such Blues greats as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Otis Spann, Magic Sam, etc., in the best of all blues venues (small dives that serve drinks to sixteen year olds). So inspired, Steve started playing drums with a variety of bands in Ann Arbor MI, including the John Otto Blues Band. After repeatedly running into the difficulty of getting out of town fast in a Volkswagen with a '70's era drum kit, Steve switched to guitar. Since then he has never looked back. Over the past few decades Steve has played in bands up and down the California coast from Arcata to San Diego, including many years with King Biscuit Blues band and stints with DC Blues, The Deacons, Soulsuite, Free Lunch and the Hurricanes. Steve has been with Deep Pocket since March 2005.

 

Steve Shandobil, Bass

 

After being held hostage in a surf band, Steve was able to escape and find safety playing upright bass in his high school jazz band. Looking to start playing at parties and events, Steve played R&B and Blues from groups across the pond (John Mayal, Original Fleetwood Mack, Jeff Beck with Rod Stewart, Long John Baldry, etc…) At the age of sixteen, he had already played most of the clubs on the Sunset Strip, including the Hollywood Palladium.

 

Next came twenty years away from music until a friend from his earliest band in high school requested Steve play on several gigs. Steve has performed with remedial garage bands up to quality musicians that played in groups like Chicago and the Doobie Brothers.