Big Ass Truck

Big Ass Truck coalesced in Memphis during the mid-1990s around the core partnership of guitarist Steve Selvidge and drummer Robert Barnett. As a psychedelic funk outfit, the group issued its first album through a local imprint in 1995 and built a regional audience by sharing bills with 311 across the South. Following extensive Southeast dates, author Robert Gordon—whose book “It Came From Memphis” documented the city’s music scene—connected the band with Boston’s Upstart Records. That label reissued the debut and simultaneously released the follow-up full-length Kent. For their next project the musicians sought “something a little different,” prompting Upstart to introduce them to Yep Roc Records; the resulting Sack Lunch EP appeared in 1997, its first half captured in a professional studio and its second half tracked on a 4-track recorder inside the band’s rehearsal room. Who Let You in Here followed in 1998 and The Rug arrived in 2001. Guitarist/vocalist Robby Grant has since issued several solo albums, and he and Barnett later formed the offbeat indie-rock group Mouserocket.