Monkey Puzzle (rock band)

Monkey Puzzle
Origin	New Zealand
Years active	1995–Present
Labels	Onefoot Records Evolutionary Mistake
Past members
Danny Rodda Ryan Tregurtha Toby Mills Matt Whipps

Monkey Puzzle is a New Zealand based high energy rock act that has performed and recorded since 1995. Monkey Puzzle has consisted of various lineups over the years, led by guitarist and lead vocalist Danny Rodda. Danny grew up on the Kapiti Coast 50 kilometres north of Wellington New Zealand and went to school with Karl Kippenberger (Shihad) and Ara Adams Tamatea (Katchafire)

Over the years Monkey Puzzle have performed at many live events, including the Queenstown Winter Festival, and were the opening act for the 1999 Creed tour of New Zealand, Planet X New Zealand 2002, and Vodafone Xtreme Air 2002, 2003, 2004. Multiple tours of NZ and Australia saw the band sell over 35,000 albums over a 10 year period. After a few years off while Danny Rodda pursued other musical outlets, Monkey Puzzle returned to the world stage in late 2008 with a new album and tour.

Since 2005 Rodda has been playing with a side project called The Rascal Kings and as of January 2010 TRK has been his main musical outlet with 2 E.Ps and an Album already under their belt their output has already been quite prolific.

Over the years Rodda's music has been featured on over 30 X-Sports videos and compilation soundtracks, numerous TV shows and has received extensive airplay throughout New Zealand, Australia, and the USA. In 2000 the track "How 'Bout You?" also made it to the semifinals of the Channel V Australia Leg Up band contest, beating out over 15,000 entrants to make the top 100. The track still gets plenty of airplay and the video, which was infamously lost by New Zealand post for over 6 years, is finally getting airplay as of March 2008.

The band has released three EPs, 5 albums and 1 DVD.

Band members

• Danny Rodda - Guitar/Vocals
• Ryan Tregurtha - Drums
• Toby Mills - Keyboards
• Matt Whipps - Bass
• Ben Chapman - Drums
• Matt Swain - Drums (also see band OdESSA)
• Aaron Passmaore - Bass (Crumb)
• Tyson Hill - Bass
• Shane Ryan - Bass
• Scott Mead - Guitar
• Karl Johannsen - Drums
• Danny Ortiz - Guitar
• Jim Ware - Bass
• Adrian Win - Guitar

Discography

Date of Release	Title	Label	Charted	Country	Catalog Number
1997	Monkey Puzzle/Brubeck	Onefoot Records	-	-
1997	Cigarettes & Sourbears	Evolutionary Mistake	-	-
1998	Unequivacle Jones	Evolutionary Mistake	-	-
1999	Chew This	Evolutionary Mistake	-	-
2002	Turn Down The Shit Knob	Evolutionary Mistake	-	-