Ninja Gun

In a town shrouded by old live oaks that hang Spanish moss from their extended branches, a band comprised of the offspring of pig farmers is finding a way to broaden the reach of their own brand of songwriting and geographical music theory.
Valdosta, Ga. lies just 10 miles north of the Florida border and prides itself with a midlevel university and a daytime metropolitan status, while lying amidst swamps filled with alligators and overgrown catfish.
Within this antebellum suburban conurbation lies Ninja Gun, a quartet made up of guys simply known as Coody, Jake, Thad and Jeffery. The four play a brand of rock that beckons the histories of Tom Petty, The Replacements, classic country and post-Newport Dylan. The townies, unfortunately, do not typically support this fare. Apart from a core group of tried and true fans and a rock 'n' roll pizzeria that caters to such a crowd, Valdosta does not offer much of an outlet for Ninja Gun and several other great, unheard bands.
With no real chance of airplay, even on the local college station, and few venues to play, Ninja Gun must look elsewhere for ways to get their records heard. Head singer and songwriter Jonathan Coody says that one way the band manages to get their songs attended to is to look towards other, larger markets.
"We're lucky enough to live an hour and a half away from Gainesville, Fl. That's where our label, Barracuda Sound, is based and we have a lot of good friends down there," Coody says. "We actually play more shows in Gainesville than in Valdosta."
Ninja Gun also uses more atypical ways, other than touring, to disperse their music. With the ever-growing trend of major companies opting for the cheaper price of using songs from lesser known independent artists in television shows, movies and commercials, new media avenues offering huge exposure are opening up for unknown bands. Ninja Gun had a little success in placing songs from their first album, Smooth Transitions, in different forms of media. Bunim/Murray Productions used several of the songs as background music on the Real World and Road Rules shows on MTV. The band recently placed two songs from their first album in the first two episodes of this season of the show Friday Night Lights on NBC. Also, their song "Bare Bones" was used in "Cinema Sounds," a movie theater filler program played before previews.
"I think it played in movie theaters all around the country for the month of August," says Coody. "This 16-year-old kid from North Carolina wrote me an email saying that our song makes his job not suck as much when he's scraping popcorn off of the floor of the theater where he works."
Chuckling, he continues, "That meant a great deal to me and as far as I know, we're huge among the 16-year-old theater worker demographic now."
With a new album coming out early in 2008 entitled Restless Rubes, Ninja Gun hope that further touring and further exposure through alternative media methods. It seems that one can only stay put so long amongst the swine and eventually the boys get fidgety.

www.myspace.com/ninjagun