Blue Octane Bluegrass Band

JEFF WESTERINEN (mandolin and vocals) has played Bluegrass and Old Time music professionally for over 40 years. A native Marylander with an itinerant history, Jeff has played mandolin and bass in regional bands from New York, Florida, South Carolina and Washington State before moving back to Maryland in September of 2014. He is a veteran of the five-time New York State champion Yankee Rebels and the year 2000 International Bluegrass Music (Pizza Hut) Champion Ohop Valley Boys. A true multi-instrumentalist, Jeff is also known to play a fiddle tune on a violin, flatpick a guitar or pick up a banjo to play a breakdown or two. Jeff names Doyle Lawson as his biggest influence on his mandolin style as well as for vocal arrangements.
ANDREA WESTERINEN (bass and vocals) cites the bassist Roy Husky Jr. as one of her early influences. She has played bass in regional bands in Florida, South Carolina, Washington State and Maryland for over 25 years. In the Seattle area, she has performed with the award-winning Ohop Valley Boys and the Stray Dogs at bluegrass festivals and state fairs. Andrea contributes heartfelt vocals and impeccable timing on the bass, providing a solid foundation for Blue Octane. Andrea and her husband Jeff currently make their home in Baltimore, MD with their daughter Becky as well as Carter and Ralph, their two boisterous labradoodle dogs.
DAVID ROBERTSON (guitar and vocals) has played music nearly all his life starting at a young age singing in church and playing mandolin with his father. David was born in Arizona and raised in southern West Virginia. He has traveled many a highway and back road entertaining and making music with multiple bands. David is well-known for his unmistakable tenor voice and can jump in on any song from the Osborne Brothers to New Grass Revival. He has never met a stranger and leaves his audience feeling like they have a made a new friend. David currently lives on the Mason Dixon Line surrounded by an awesome community of bluegrass pickers he calls his friends.
JOHN BROWN (guitar and vocals) grew up around Bluegrass. His father, John Brown, Sr. was a well-known guitar player and singer. At age 8, John got his first guitar and by age 10 he started playing bass with his fathers band, The One Way Express Bluegrass Gospel Band (which he still fills in with occasionally). Throughout the years, John has performed in several New Jersey based bands, including the Home Cooking Band and his own band, the Bel-Aire Boys. In addition, John was a member of Ivan Sexton and the Delaware Valley Boys and has performed several times at the Delaware Valley Bluegrass Festival.
John's biggest musical influences include the Stanley Brothers, Flatt and Scruggs and the Osborne Brothers. His guitar style is influenced by the Stanley Sound and he enjoys cross picking leads. John makes his home in Millville, NJ with his wife Michele and a Chihuahua named Bella.

DEAN PHILLIPS (banjo) makes his home in Stewartstown, PA and plays a hard driving, high precision 5-string banjo in the style of J.D. Crowe and Earl Scruggs. The sound of the banjo was imprinted on Dean early in life, since his father is also a well-known and highly proficient banjoist. Mike Munford, who was IBMA’s 2013 Banjo Player of the Year, has recently taken Dean under his wing and is closely mentoring him. Dean is quite a popular banjo player in the Maryland and Pennsylvania area, and is regularly asked to sit in for a few tunes as a guest in Danny Paisley’s band. In addition to Blue Octane, you can find Dean performing with the Mason Dixon Line band and the very well known and long running Satyr Hill band.