Danny Jerabek from Ripon, WI & Michelle Jerabek from Kewaskum, WI, decided to form a band after getting married in 1997.  They traded their wedding gift money in for a very used, bright, granny-smith green utility van so they could travel with the band from gig to gig.  Danny & Michelle both grew up playing polkas with their families in years prior-- it was only natural for them to start a polka band first---and that’s just that for about 4 years, performing at polka festivals all over the US (CO, TX, PA, NV, MN, ND, SD, IA, WI).
   
As time past, they started writing original material, as well as being introduced to other styles of music like Zydeco, Cajun, Tex-Mex, Tejano, and combined those styles with sounds of artists like John Fogerty, Bonnie Raitt and Doug Sahm.
One big influence on Copper Box was a Mexican accordion player by the name of Steve “Esteban” Jordan, in which a DJ friend in SD sent Danny a disc to check out.  Danny really fell in love with Jordan’s style and absorbed all that he could get his hands on his music.  Their polka band was expanding beyond the Czech & German & Polish polka styles into other genres of music, which led to the formation of Copper Box in Feb. of 2002.

Copper Box started knocking on doors to try to get a gig in rock-music bars in the NE part of WI—but every time they mentioned the instrumentation of the band had an accordion, the answer was NO.  Until one day when a brave Green Bay, WI bar owner was fearlessly playing CD demos from bands in the bar without listening to them first.  CBx music came over the speakers and the owner said his customers all turned their heads and said, “who is this,” followed by “bring ‘em in!”  After playing that club, CBx finally got their buzz rollin’ in WI and it has been snowballing from there.

They were nominated for several WI Area Music Awards, received high feedback on internet music sites, like garageband.com and CD Baby and college radio.  They opened for several national acts such as Little Feat, America, Buckwheat Zydeco, Little Texas, The Little River Band, Marcia Ball, CJ Chenier, Brave Combo, W.C. Clark, Little Big Town, etc.  They started performing 2-5 nights per week in music clubs, PACs, community events, concert series, festivals such as Summerfest (Milwaukee, WI) and Musikfest (Bethlehem, PA), and continued on.  They were selected to do a music video for SONY, which was aired at the NAB Convention in Las Vegas, NV, and appeared in several commercials on national TV.

Copper Box core members include Danny Jerabek (accordion, keys, cornet, vocals) Oshkosh, WI, Michelle Jerabek (saxophones, guitar, vocals, flute, washboard) from Oshkosh, WI and Kevin Junemann (bass) from Stratford, WI and Jason Van Ryzin (drums) from Menasha, WI.