Justin Ringsak

Justin is a native of the Rocky Mountain town of Butte, Montana, where he currently lives with his wife Zee and their three mostly-feral cats (two of which were transported halfway across the damn planet from Cambodia, because reasons…).

Butte also happens to be a heavily polluted Superfund site due to a century plus of hard rock mining, and Justin has worked in various capacities over the years to increase awareness of southwest Montana’s long-term environmental problems and encourage a proactive response to pollution rather than leaving it for grandkids and great-grandkids and great-great-grandkids (you get the point) to deal with.

He has escaped ‘the mining city’ on numerous occasions, hunkering down for various years in the hippie compound of Missoula, Montana; the windy streets of Chicago, Illinois; the mountain mecca of Denver, Colorado; and has adopted Kampot, Cambodia as his other home town.

After starting with the trumpet at the tender age of 7, Justin has since performed on guitar, bass, mandolin, and percussion with a diverse selection of bands and musicians, including El Dealbreakers, Durian Funk Band, Sean Eamon, Los Todos Sonidos, Crack Sabbath (the Montana edition), MOS Funnel, The Kampot Playboys, PunchTruck, Chad Okrusch, andAxshinslax, to name a few.

Aside from live gigs and studio sessions, Ringsak also performs solo from time to time, featuring a mix of original compositions and skewed takes on cover songs from a big bowl of genres and artists.

When not doing music-related things, Justin is also an active writer and photographer. To make money for food for eating, he currently teaches web design at Montana Tech of The University of Montana and runs a small communications consulting company on the side, Red Mountain Communications. He has previously worked as a radio announcer, shoe sales clerk, debate instructor, dog walker, medical research writer, AmeriCorps VISTA guy, ESL teacher, and name change researcher.