Meet the band
Richie Gibson
Lead & backing vocals
Richie learned his craft performing in some of the North East’s most insalubrious venues in front of character-building audiences.
As the most recent addition to the band and one of our lead vocalists, Newcastle’s loss is our gain, with Richie adding a Northern twist to the Carnaby Army
Craig Rippe
Keyboards
Craig the 'Ripster' is very tall and proper posh, (yes, he's a massive pianist!)
Classically trained Craig can play several keyboard parts at the same time, his fingers become a blur sometimes.
Apart from his incredible skills on the keyboard, Craig has a seemingly endless amount of diabolical 'Dad' jokes that he feels he just has to share with the rest of us.
We laugh out of sympathy.
Gunnar Christensen
Bass
Gunnar is a former ship’s Captain (not kidding). Gunnar is representing team America. We're told they had the 60s over there too.
Gunnar keeps the ryhthm section on their toes with his awesome bass playing
Welcome to the jungle Gunnar, the ‘all American Pirate’ Arrrgh!
Pedro Quinto
Lead Guitar & Backing Vocals
Despite his awesome name, Pedro is not actually Spanish.
Obviously born with a guitar strapped over his shoulder, Pedro just 'get's it' with an incredible groove and tone Pedro fits into the band effortlessly. With a collection of awesome vintage gear, when it comes to 60's guitar tones and skills, this guy has it in droves.
Dan Buskell
Drums & Percussion
Dan is a force of nature when it comes to drums!
His extraordinary attention to detail and rock solid timing keep the rest of the band in check.
Dan plays drums and percussion in his spare time, he teaches drums and percussion, he plays drums on his steering wheel when he's driving... he eats, sleeps and dreams drums.
Want a DJ too?
Not only do the Carnaby Army perform the best songs from the 1960’s live, but we also have a very experienced DJ in our band.
Covering a host of genres from 50s to present day, Matt will host before & after the Carnaby Army play.
Matt Carter, owner and DJ of Groove Disco can incorporate a DJ set for your event. Matt has DJ’d more than 2500 gigs since 1999 and has worked for some of the most prestigious clubs and clients in the world including a 7 year residency in Rhodes, Greece and a 5 years residency in Ibiza.
Our kit (for the nerds :)
As much fun as we have on stage, as London's premier 60's cover band we don't mess around when it comes to sounding right. For front of house sound we use DB technologies line array tops and subs with a Behringer X32 live desk.
Lighting is made up of ADJ par can uplighters, hazer and ADJ moving-head spots; on larger gigs and on special request we will hire an original 60's oil projector lamp.
We have a very qualified live sound and lighting engineer to bring it all together.
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Matt (rhythm guitar) uses a Fender 59' Strat, Epiphone Casino Couple DeVille and Tokai Breezysound played through a VOX AC15 along with his Epiphone Hummingbird acoustic guitar.
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Pedro (lead guitar) delivers through his Grestch hollow body or Gibson Les Paul, or his Gibson SG...take a breath or his Danelectro 59' famously played by Jimmy Page, he uses a selection of handmade guitar pedals to create his authentic rich tones all played through his Fender Blues Junior.
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As we are unable to bring 10 vintage keyboards to every gig, Craig's 'Nord Stage 2' is more than capable. If you know anything about keyboards then you'll know this is a proper professional bit of stage kit.
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Gunnar plays a Gibson Hollow body bass, it sparkles!!
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Dan on drums plays a mahogany Premier Elite, its the same kit that legendary nutters Keith Moon and Ginger Baker used, that, and an array of percussion to add that extra special something to the mix.
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We use nothing but Shure SM58’s for vocals and SM57’s for micing up amp’s.