Passenger’s roots stretch back to 1989 where a jam thrown in an old ware house in Oakland combined with a series of generator driven Jam trips to the Sierra Mountain wilderness, sparked the initial Passenger sound. Their first official gig was with Jeff Pierson (guitar/vocals) and Jim Brumburg (Bass/Vocals) who not much later, left the band and found short lived success with “Box Set”. The remaining members, Sam Vitoria (lead guitar) Marshall Luck (keys), J. Shaffer (drums) and Sunshine Becker (vocals) decided to carry the torch.

The next evolution brought on Bill Becker on the Bass, a logical choice since Bill and J. had cut their music making teeth together, in their first band ”____”. Additionally, Sunshine’s boyfriend at the time, Greggor Stewart joined to hold down the rhythm guitar.
After many back yard BBQ’s and a few ‘real’ gigs Passenger broke down to a leaner acoustic sound where Greggor, Sam and Sunshine cut Passenger’s first CD in 199?. During this phase the rest of the band was hard at work dialing in their funky, jamband vocabulary with the side project Lamina Groove.

When Sunshine got busy with SOVOSO and Sam pulled out to explore a new musical path, the passenger torch was passed to Bill, Marshall and J. who teamed up with the fabulous front man Tony Vittiello to fill their shoes… and fill them he did!  Several well recived shows and an Expressions center Demo followed until Tony got the urge to start a family and moved back home to NY in 2003.

Our good friend Chris Real took the reins from 2003-2004 when among other debauchery; the infamous ‘Mardi Grass party in Tahoe’ took place.  After a bunch of good time passenger once again took a break to see what new seeds could be sown.

In 2004 the current crew came together when Bill invited his old friend and previous band mate, John "Nasty" Nevraumont to sit in on guitar.  With new blood they melded their individual styles into a captivating, sonically driven way that’s part jamband a touch of progrock and a dash o’ funkynoodle. The “White Zone” CD is the latest encapsulation of this ever evolving band.

The wheels keep turning… with the nod from Phil Lesh and Bob Weir, for Sunshine to tour with Furthur for the Winter 2010 tour, and the addition of, former Passenger member, Jeff Pierson to the Furthur Summer tour; Passenger’s roots have become intertwined with greatness! Stay tuned, Passenger seems destined to ride another wave of interesting evolutionary twists that’s sure to be more than we ever expected.