Trouble Shooter plays their final show after 40 years of music

RUSHFORD, Minn. — Like many teenagers in the early 1980s, MTV inspired Bruce Darr to start a band.

"It seemed intriguing," he said. "Seeing live music in some of those videos, it seemed like a fun thing to do."

For most teens, it would be a short-lived phase. For Bruce, his older brother Rob and their friend Dennis Overland, the MTV-inspired country rock band Trouble Shooter became a 40-year endeavor.

After 40 years of rocking, the band officially ended their run with a concert and party outside the Rushford fire hall Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. Hundreds of people showed up for the send off.

Bruce started the band with Overland, another classmate and eventually they convinced his older brother Rob Darr to join on drums and vocals. Bruce Greenwood joined the group in 1989 to play keyboard and rhythm guitar.

"I'm the new guy," he joked.

The band went from earning weekend slots at area bars, to playing regionally, to playing full time. In 40 years of playing, Trouble Shooter would also release two records, secure an agency to represent them and get multiple opportunities to audition with producers in Nashville.

"We met so many people, there were so many fun experiences and some not-so-fun experiences," Rob said.

Even the not-so-fun experiences, such as band houses inhabited by roaches and bad meals on the road have become good memories with the passage of time.

Greenwood recalls a show when the band was amassing dozens of new songs a month that he forgot his part.

"My piano part went completely off the rails," he said. "We just decided to stop the song and my face probably was as red as a beet."

Today, the musicians laugh about the moment.

"But we didn't laugh then," Rob said.

In the early days, the band would learn songs by ear. Easy internet resources that layout chords to songs and a catalog of YouTube versions of songs didn't exist. Band members would either buy physical music on tape or tape new interesting songs to cover directly from the radio.

"Of course, you'd miss the first couple of bars but once you broke down the song you could figure that out," Bruce said.

By the mid-1990s, the group began playing full time.

"That was fun, we had every day off," Rob said. "We'd practice every weekday and we'd learn three to five new songs per week."

Every day off was a bit of an exaggeration as they were playing more than 300 shows per year during that time.

Whenever they came back to Minnesota for shows, the group had entirely new sets. It helped them build a loyal fan base locally.

During that time, Trouble Shooter played throughout the central U.S. from Wyoming, Colorado, the Dakotas through Nashville and points in between and playing shows as far north as Winnipeg.

"I think we did everything we could to reach the next step, which would be to become some kind of national act which never materialized," Rob said.

By 1997, the group throttled back to playing weekend shows and summer festivals in the region. In 2007, they opened for Taylor Swift in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Greenwood has his own music project keeping him busy, but after Saturday's show, the next time Trouble Shooter gets together will be to hang out as friends, share memories and stories and maybe an informal basement jam.

"The ironic thing is talking about just getting together and jamming, that's how it all started," Bruce said.

"The rhythm section might not be so rhythmic by then," Overland joked.