When Bonerama struts onstage with its four-trombone frontline, you can guess it’s not quite like any rock ’n’ roll band you’ve seen. When they tear into some vintage New Orleans funk, there’s no questioning from which city these guys hail. And when those ‘bones start ripping into Hendrix and Led Zeppelin licks, all stylistic bets are off. Even in a city that doesn’t play by the rules, New Orleans’ Bonerama is something different. They’re not a traditional brass band, but they’ve got brass to spare—even with no trumpets or saxes in sight. They can evoke vintage funk, classic rock and free improvisation in the same set; maybe even the same song. Bonerama has been repeatedly recognized by Rolling Stone, hailed as “the ultimate in brass balls” (2005) and praised for their “…crushing ensemble riffing, human-feedback shrieks and wah-wah growls” (2007). Bonerama carries the brass-band concept to places unknown; what other brass band could snag an honor for “Best Rock Band” (Big Easy Awards 2007)? As cofounder Mark Mullins puts it, “We thought we could expand what a New Orleans brass band could do. Bands like Dirty Dozen started the ‘anything goes’ concept, bringing in the guitars and the drumkit and using the sousaphone like a bass guitar. We thought we could push things a little further.” New Orleans’ fertile club scene was directly responsible for Bonerama getting together. Trombonists Mullins and Craig Klein were both members of Harry Connick’s band, where they’d been since 1990. Both were looking to supplement this gig with something a little less structured. “Harry sets the bar pretty high, and you have to play it the same way every night for everyone to follow.” The big chance came in the summer of ’98, when Mullins had a weekly residency at Tipitina’s in the French Quarter. The club was then turning weekly slots over to some of the city’s favorite musicians, including Allen Toussaint and Cyril Neville; Mullins got charge of Wednesdays. Word got out one week that he and Klein were staging their trombone super-session and everybody they knew wanted to get involved. “It seemed that half the trombone players in town showed up,” Klein recalls. “At the end of the night we had them all onstage, maybe fifteen trombones at once. It sounded like a freight train; a big wall of sound coming right at you.” The players in the lineup all add to Bonerama’s diverse blend: Rick Trolsen was one of the first to answer the call for trombonists at Tipitina’s. A New Jersey native who grew up on hippie communes, he first saw New Orleans when the Navy shipped him there; he soon resolved to get out of the Navy and into music full-time. New Orleans native Steve Suter is a classically-trained player and a former member of the Louisiana Philharmonic. A key member of the early lineup was bass trombone player Brian O’Neill. A few years older than his bandmates, O’Neill had toured with R&B legend Wayne Cochran and his CC Riders. “He could do all the stuff that you’re not supposed to be able to do on a trombone,” Mullins says. Sousaphone player Matt Perrine adds the bassline to Bonerama’s sound and an additional voice to the songwriting. Matt has played with everyone from the New Orleans’ Nightcrawlers brass band to the alternative rock trio the Tin Men. Guitarist Bert Cotton learned his chops at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and then came to New Orleans to immerse himself in funk. “He can fill out the chords harmonically, which is one thing that makes us different from a traditional brass band sound,” Klein says. Currently, drummer Eric Bolivar (who played Latin music in New York before joining Anders