The State Theatre Presents
Johnny Mullenax
With special guest Ma'am
- Sponsored By
Johnny Mullenax, a Tulsa native, grew up in a musical family. He started playing the guitar at age 5. In his teens, he followed his family to the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas. In typical Johnny fashion, he showed up with just a guitar and ended up sleeping in a stand up bass case. At 18, he used a friend’s ID to get into a club where he was part of a live hip hop band backing rappers. According to Johnny, “Life is too short to play one style of music, and if you have an opportunity to try something different then you should give it a shot.”
Claiming wide-ranging influences from AC/DC and The Ramones to John Coltrane and Parliament, Johnny calls his genre-bending sound a funky country bluegrass good time!
Before COVID, Johnny went out on the road with fellow Okie TJ McFarland (Tennessee Jet) and started connecting to a network of other touring musicians. He always wanted to start his own project, and after playing as a sideman for seven years with several bands, he finally took that leap.
The future’s been thrown Out The Window, but that don’t mean the party’s over.
On their second full-length record, Ma’aM arrives—delivered by sound and spirit—brimming with ferocity and ragged glory. Araelia “Rose” Lopatic’s songwriting is as sharp-witted as it is catchy. Raucous choruses give way to clever verses, penned with an earthy clarity, and ultimately reveal an honest country-rocker steeped in tradition, but bold enough to know when to break from it.
Made with real, live, bleeding fingers, broken guitar strings — Ma’aM’s singular approach to country music takes form over thunderous floor toms, blaring memphis-style horns, and tube amps that might just explode by the end of the record. If there is justice in this world, these songs will blast in every ear-bud, car stereo, and dive bar, from the Pacific Coast Highway to Rockaway Beach. The band’s beer-drenched patina belies a road-worn honesty and dares the listener to agree: there’s no substitute for the real thing.
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