Judge Roy Bean is a hard working rock band from Brooklyn, New York. The band formed when three singer songwriters, Mark Stratil (Guitar/Vocals), Andrew Battles (Bass/Vocals), Mike Wertz (Drums/Vocals) met while teaching high school in Brooklyn. The sound is rounded out by multi-instrumentalist and biologist extraordinaire Chris Aston and the irrepressible Grant Mulligan on keyboards.

The result is an indie southern rock band that relishes putting on a great show. Their music is both melodic and hard rocking drawing on influences from The Stones to Nirvana to the Stooges and everything in between. Judge Roy Bean is already a staple on the Brooklyn and Manhattan live music circuit.

Judge Roy Bean are named after the so called "Hangin' Judge", an eccentric Texas saloon-keeper and Justice of the Peace who called himself "The law, west of the Pecos". According to legend, Judge Roy Bean held court in his saloon along the Rio Grande River in a desolate stretch of the Chihuahuan Desert of west Texas.

The band spent the early months of 2008 in the studio with producer Kasim Smith recording their debut album, Shovelhead. The inspiration for the album name comes from the browbeaten but tenacious badger that uses its head as a shovel to dig its burrow. The band is staged to support the album with a series of live performances; catch them if you can. No matter how you slice it, it is no understatement to call 2008, "The Year of the Bean".

You may have caught the show at Hank’s Saloon, Rebar and Matchless in Brooklyn or at Uncle Mike’s, Rare, 169 Bar, National Underground, The Underscore and Kenny’s Castaways in Manhattan. Judge Roy Bean has a regular gig playing a softer acoustic set at the Ceol in Brooklyn every other Thursday.

You can download Shovelhead on the official JRB website.