About The Band
WASHINGTON D.C.’S BAD INFLUENCE BAND BREATHES NEW LIFE AND FRESH ENERGY INTO BLUES AND ROOTS MUSIC
Award winning four-piece group has developed a national reputation via four albums, superb ensemble sound
Staying at the apex of the mid-Atlantic region’s competitive blues and roots music scene for a career that spans three decades isn’t easy. But that’s what the Bad Influence Band has done — even while extending their reputation across the country thanks to wildly entertaining, high-energy performances, extensive airplay and three well-received albums.
Whether performing at a festival, on a stage at Kennedy Center, a showcase at the NAMM Show or on Memphis’ hallowed Beale Street, the four-piece group featuring guitarist Michael Tash, harmonica ace and singer Roger Edsall, bassist-vocalist Bob Mallardi and drummer Joe Wells are unabashed crowd pleasers thanks to their expert ensemble playing, strong melodies, addictive grooves, sly original songwriting and sheer intensity.
Even audiences unfamiliar with blues and the other styles of roots music that inform the group’s wide repertoire are smitten with the Bad Influence Band’s joyful performances.
“The most important thing is that everybody has fun — the audience and us,” explains bandleader Tash. “Whether we’re playing an original song or a classic, we’re going to put our hearts and souls into it in a way that people can hear, see and practically touch.”
The Bad Influence Band’s audiences have continued to grow in recent years. Their 2011 album Under the Influence introduced the group to a host of new listeners when it made the top five on the “Picks To Click” chart on Sirius/XM Satellite Radio’s two-million listener channel “B.B. King’s Bluesville.” And the same disc — stacked with originals and a few wisely chosen chestnuts that displayed the group’s uncanny ability to make vintage tunes sound new — was a finalist in the Blues Foundation’s 2012 International Blues Challenge competition for Best Self-Produced CD. Under the Influence was also nominated in the Best Blues Recording category for a 2012 WAMMIE (Washington Area Music Association) award.
The new recording, Got What You Need, celebrates the bands 30th anniversary with a collection of originals and classics that the band has been playing for years. The albums Under the Influence along with 2001’s WAMMIE award winning Tastes Like Chicken and the 1998 homage to their musical roots Where We Been trace this popular outfit’s evolution.
The Bad Influence Band’s ignition came in the late 1980s, when Tash was taken under wing by legendary DC-area blues guitarist Steve Jacobs, who began schooling him in the genre’s roots. In 1988, after some years in the rock ‘n’ roll trenches, Tash founded the Bad Influence Band and over the next decade their popularity around the Nation’s Capital area steamrolled. By the time Where We Been was recorded, the group was a six-piece with a reputation for great live shows and a vast repertoire of classic and modern blues.
Various personnel changes and refinements in direction and sound led to the 25+ year line-up of Tash, Edsall, Mallardi and David Thaler, which was cemented in 1993. It quickly became evident they had a strong group chemistry as songwriters, in addition to their formidable musicianship. All four together refine the sketches for tunes that individual members create. The results include rollicking rollercoaster rides like “Don’t Forget Your Night Clothes,” which pins its midnight romance charm to Edsall’s backbone harmonica riff. Tastes Like Chicken also boasts the tongue-in-cheek parable for the lovesick “The Clown,” which glides over a perfectly chiseled shuffle. Both songs feature Edsall’s smooth red-clay singing, while “Man Child” kicks off Under the Influence with a lightning strike of pure chug ‘n’ roar blues, powered by Mallardi’s whiskey and dust voice. The latter album’s also home to Tash’s tour-de-force guitar performance on the Albert King classic “As the Years Go Passing By.” His playing is an incendiary blend of stinging vibrato, fat-toned single note melodies, dramatic power-strummed chords and graceful fills and asides that punctuate the song’s soul-deep lyrics. Joe Wells joined the band in 2021 filling the drum throne vacated by David Thaler.
Of course, each band member has a distinguished reputation in his own right. Tash is one of the East Coast’s most respected blues guitarists and songwriters, and has been inducted into the Northern Virginia Blues Hall of Fame. He endorses Epiphone guitars, GHS strings, Quilter Amps, Peavey Electronics, Levy’s Leathers, Spectraflex cables and PedalSnake cable systems, and has been nominated for a WAMMIE for Best Blues Instrumentalist.
Edsall shares a similar reputation as a harmonica player and has performed with Jimmy Thackery, Kenny Neal, Kim Wilson and other greats. He endorses Hohner Harmonicas and Peavey Electronics and has been nominated for a WAMMIE for Best Blues Vocalist.
Mallardi began his career as a bass prodigy under the spell of Stax Records, bringing his own original fusion of blues and R&B styles to the band. He endorses GHS strings and Hartke Amplifiers.
The newest member of Bad Influence, Joe Wells, joined full time in 2021 after subbing on and off for David Thaler over that last couple of years. Joe brings decades of experience to the band.
The Bad Influence Band has appeared on hundreds of club and festival stages, including the House of Blues in Las Vegas and the Chesapeake Bay Blues Festival. Their winning songs, musical dynamism and strong presence has led to opening slots on bills with a coterie of stars: Heart, Shemekia Copeland, Candye Kane, Roomful of Blues, Albert Cummings and Albert Castiglia, among others.
“We’re looking forward to expanding our touring range and having even more fun playing and recording our music,” says Tash. “We’ve made it our mission to take the blues wherever we can – across the U.S. and to the world — and to entertain audiences and educate fans about just how deep, real, varied and exciting this style of music can be.”
Check out their bios, CD releases, and the testimonials throughout this website. Then check out their up-to-date schedule, pay a visit to their youTube channel, and GO SEE THIS BAND!
Joe Wells
This native Virginian began playing drums over 35 years ago and has been an active figure in the Washington, DC music scene since 1997. After several years in the Atlanta indie rock scene, drum study in New York, and the Richmond Blues scene he landed the gig with surf guitarist Danny Morris, recording one album and touring extensively throughout the eastern U.S. and Caribbean for 5 years. He then took over the drum chair for guitar legend Tom Principato in 2002 recording 4 WAMA award winning albums and performing numerous tours of the U.S., Canada, and Europe.
Joe has also performed and/or recorded with a who's who list of the DC music scene as well as a multitude of other internationally acclaimed artists such as - New Blue Soul, Linwood Taylor, Memphis Gold, Bob Margolin, Bill Kirchen, Coco Montoya, Tommy Lepson, Phil Wiggins, Deborah Coleman, John Hall, Peter Stroud, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Big Boy Little, Banner Thomas, Mary Ann Redmond, Jimmy Thackery, The Nighthawks, Dave Chappell, Jon Paris, Romero Lubambo, W.C. Clark, Billy C. Wirtz, Robert Lighthouse, Billy Price, Jerry Peek, Chris Watling, and many more.
Joe plays some kind of drums, cymbals and uses sticks.
Michael "Jr" Tash was born in 1965 in Silver Spring, MD. He has been around music from an early age. Mike's father, Ken, had been a singer in the DC area during the 60's and had established an impressive collection of records from the classic singers of the 40's and 50's. Little did he know this had quite an impact on the budding guitarist. In 1975, something happened to launch Mike into the world of music - KISS. Once he saw Kiss he knew he had to play the guitar. He got his first guitar - a cheap acoustic - at age 11. Next came high school and the electric guitars and loud amps, as he moved into the world of heavy metal.
"...Edsall is amongst the DC area’s finest harp players, able to distill Little Walter, George ‘Harmonica’ Smith, Sonny Boy Williamson and Slim Harpo into a personal style..." from In A Blue Mood Online
The man with the feel and that voice, Washington, DC native Bob Mallardi picked up the bass at an early age. His father Joseph and mother Louise had verey strong musical bacgrounds that they carried with them from their roots in the old country.