While Covid created shockwaves still reverberating today, some good also came to fruition, made possible by happenstance. That’s the genesis of the band Bigfoot County, when two neighbors, Mike Szabo and Mitch Gadsby, hanging out at a neighborhood gathering during the pandemic discovered a shared passion for music.
“We clicked right away. It just sounded great right off the bat. We put on a mini show for everyone there, and of course people were telling us we should start a band as they do when that happens,” Szabo told the Source. “I kind of got serious about it and joined this website called Bandmix, which is almost like a dating website for musicians. That’s where I found Matthew [Miller], our drummer, and eventually James [Hutchens], the other guitar player, who brought in Casey [Holloway] on bass. It was pretty obvious when we first all got in a room together that we had something pretty special. It just clicked.”
Their band has been together for about a year. Szabo, who grew up in a musical family, is on lead and rhythm guitar and vocals. Gadsby grew up in a touring musical family and is on vocals and keys. “He says when he was a toddler they would go to gigs and he would sleep in the guitar case on stage beside them,” Szabo said when asked to describe his bandmates. The drummer, Miller, moved from Seattle where he was performing with prominent bands. Holloway is the bass player, who also comes from a musical family. His father has been part of local bluegrass and country bands. “We have James Hutchens on lead and rhythm guitar, specifically always a telecaster guitar. James has been playing in bands around Bend for a long time, and he brings a country flair to our sound.”
Szabo started a band in 2014 called “The Dirty Hounds” but left it when work and raising young children required more of his time and attention. “Then in 2021, I had a rough year during the pandemic where I lost two really close friends and a brother, all in the same year, all different non-COVID-related incidents,” Szabo says. “After that I found myself really digging back into music for cathartic reasons.”
His greatest musical influence was the Allman Brothers. “The soul and emotion in every note Duane [Allman] played and every word Gregg [Allman] sang was incredible. That was definitely the band that changed everything for me, and I still listen to those albums all the time.”
When he eventually assembled Bigfoot County, Szabo says it took off quickly. He’s found support at Silver Moon Brewing and The Commonwealth Pub. “It’s really been a great little music community at those two places, I feel very grateful for everyone’s support.”
The name, Bigfoot County, comes from a lyric in the Grateful Dead song “Brown-Eyed Women” that goes “Tumble down shack in Big Foot County. Snowed so hard that the roof caved in.”
“I guess we are a cover band, but we don’t play covers note for note. We kind of just jam to good tunes and make them our own. We play songs that have a lot of room for improvisation,” Szabo explains. “We are a two-guitar band, and both of us play leads, so there are a lot of dueling guitar solos at our shows. We play stuff like early Allman Brothers, a little Grateful Dead, Stones, Al Green, Tedeschi Trucks, Marvin Gaye. We also throw in some country tunes from Sturgill, Stapleton and Haggard, among others. We try to make everything as danceable as possible.”
Bigfoot County is performing at Silver Moon on Friday, Feb. 20. “If you like that old school, bluesy rock sound, you’ll definitely like us.”
Bigfoot County
Fri, Feb 20 7pm
Silver Moon Brewing
24 NW Greenwood Ave, Bend
bendticket.com/events/bigfoot-country-2-20-2026
$12.24
This article appears in the Source February 12, 2026.
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