Guitarist Andrew Hooker is a graduate of Musicians Institute (GIT) Hollywood, California where he received a two-year degree in Commercial Jazz guitar. Andrew has studied guitar with jazz giant Scott Henderson (Chick Corea and Tribal Tech) and with Reggie Wooten of The Wooten Brothers, Nashville, TN. Andrew has also studied with composer Dee Barton (his credits include Sinatra, Tonight Show, James Brown, Stan Kenton, Maynard Ferguson, John Lennon, Roy Orbison, Clint Eastwood, and Dennis Hopper just to name a few.)

When Andrew is not busy with VINYL SOUP, he spends his days teaching private music lessons for a business he founded called Music Lessons Will Travel and producing from his studio in Nashville, The Cave Studios. You can visit The Cave Studios website at www.thecavestudios.com

Justin M. Smith began playing piano at the age of 4. After he demonstrated an ability to hum recognizable melodies before he could talk and picked out tunes on his toy piano, his parents enrolled him in piano lessons at age 5 and voice lessons at age 8. He also began percussion lessons at age 12. Justin studied classical piano off and on through his high school years along with percussion and voice. At Middle Tennessee State University, Justin earned a bachelors degree in English Literature with a minor in music including studies of voice and percussion.

Justin began his first original rock band in high school. He demoed his first original material at the tender age of 16 on his trusty 4-track Tascam. By the time of his high school graduation, he had written and recorded his first concept album. During his college years, Justin contributed to several Murfreesboro based bands as a drummer. He also played keys and sang with short-lived but influential late '90s jam rock band Windham Earle, based out of Murfreesboro and featuring future Vinyl Soup percussionist Dave Brodsky on drums. In 1996, Justin began performing with Americana artist Lee Gibson, eventually landing on an independent label for one album, and performing at venues such as the Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas, South by Southwest in Austin,TX and the Wildhorse Saloon in Nashville, TN. In 1999, Justin joined newly formed alternative rock band Mass Transit as lead vocalist, keyboardist, co-songwriter and sometimes percussionist. He performs and records with Mass Transit to this day. Mass Transit's new album is due in the first half of 2007, and details regarding this group can be found at www.masstransitmusic.com and on My Space. Currently, Justin also plays keys and sings with 2 new Nashville collectives - Fleetwood Mac-esque folk-rockers Honey and the Lion and his own jazz groove trio, The Cosmos. Further information on both can be found at www.myspace.com

Coming up through the seventies, listening to such artistic rock acts as GENESIS, PINK FLOYD, ELP, YES and many others, TROY developed a love for the adventurous playing and wondrous lyrical stories the bands of that time produced.

At age 13, he switched from tenor sax to drumset and began performing gigs at schools and private functions. Eventually he would perform with such acts as Greg Thompson Production Shows, Mason Proffit (Warner Bros recording group), Acoustic Swiftness (Latin Jazz Ensemble), Marcel Evans (The Drifters), Lil Greenwood, Augie Meyers (Texas Tornadoes), Fred Wesley (James Brown Horn Section) Eric Burden (of The Animals) Chuck Negron (of Three Dog Night),The Coasters Reunion, Lynn Anderson, Bo Diddley, and many others .