The Road Agents

The Road Agents are a guitar/mandolin duo. They play Southwest Montana Acoustic Rock and Roll, which is less common a genre than you might expect. Justin is from Butte but he lives in Helena among the part-time politicians. His mandolin sounds more Keith Richards than Sam Bush.  He growls into the microphone and wears sharp western shirts from Miller’s.  Jeff is from Dillon, currently exiled to Bozeman.  He hammers on a Bozeman-built Gibson J15, and sings stories set in Montana and the high deserts of the southwest.  Together they’ve played a couple hundred gigs across Montana and Arizona, the California coast, and the panhandle of Idaho. The most recent eighty or so of these have been within the confines of the Treasure State, playing as the Road Agents.

When lucky, the Road Agents add talented Special Agents to the lineup – Karen Newlon on fiddle, Joe Corrado and Dirk Allen on electric guitar, John Dendy and Matt Wintersteen on Bass, Sean Mihalko on drums, and Jon Leavitt on harmonica. 

The road has led the agents as far east as Molt, north to Swan Lake, west to Missoula, and south as far as the Beaverhead Brewery.  They’ve played most of the breweries and hot springs in between, along with saloons, distilleries, and classy restaurants.  They occasionally appear on the big stage with larger acts like the Kitchen Dwellers, Too Slim & the Taildragger, and Los Marvelitos. 

A Road Agent show is a tight display of rhythm, creative mandolin accents, and curious songwriting.  Their first EP, Dreams of Stingrays, Roadrunners, and Hangovers, was released the summer of 2018. Its follow-up, Suspicious Lesions is in pre-production, to be released later this fall.