On the first track of his new album as Joe Something, Picture Pepper Potato Brain, singer-songwriter and guitar shredder Joe Agnello has Robert De Niro on his mind.
“I’m your Midnight Run / I’m De Niro in Heat,” the Burlington musician sings on the chorus to the aptly named “Deniro in Heat.” The song, which starts out with the sound of a film projector being loaded, references Michael Mann’s 1995 thriller, Heat, starring De Niro.
“I was watching a lot of Michael Mann films when I was making this record,” Agnello, 32, explained. “I find that helps me a lot when I’m writing or recording, just to get out of music and engage with other art forms. It can cleanse the palate, in a way.”
Agnello has quite a palate to cleanse. Though Picture Pepper Potato Brain is his second solo LP of original material, he’s perhaps best known locally for being something of a talented impressionist. He does a bang-on interpretation of Bob Weir in a host of Grateful Dead tribute acts, including Zach Nugent’s Dead Set and Dobbs’ Dead. He channels the power of Jimmy Page in the Led Zeppelin cover band Nico Suave & the Mothership. And he takes on Dean Ween with the band Knights of the Brown Table.
Agnello hopes to become known for his own playing eventually. A skilled, eclectic guitarist who can embody the rhythmic subtleties and inverted chord voices of Weir and the blues-rock pyrotechnics of Page all at once, Agnello is also, at his core, a rock and roller who longs to set his musical self free. His new record, which drops this Friday, November 6, serves as something of a sonic biography, a map of Agnello’s influences, many of which might surprise his jammier fans.
“I’m unbelievably grateful for the cover bands and for the fans that come out to hear those songs,” Agnello said. “Ultimately, that’s not what I want to do. I want to focus on my original music and take that for a ride, see what happens. But playing the music of the Grateful Dead has helped me be a professional musician, and you can’t really measure the worth of something like that. Playing these songs has given me a living, and I don’t take that lightly.”
The hordes of Deadheads who come out weekly to see Agnello perform might not know it, but he didn’t start out as much of a fan of the band. The Massachusetts-born guitarist got the itch to pick up a six-string after his father handed him a copy of a Ramones album when he was 13.
“Growing up, it was all about punk until I got a little older and started listening to the Smashing Pumpkins and Pavement and Dinosaur Jr.,” Agnello said. “I fell in love with screaming, fuzzy guitars just cutting through the mix.”
You can hear those influences all over the new LP. The guitar solo on “The Kinks” is a perfect mix of the distorted excess of Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis and the playful yet searing chops of the Eagles’ Joe Walsh. The flange-laden melodic stabs on “Flip Phone” come right out of the ’90s grunge playbook.
“At the end of the day, it’s a pure rock and roll record,” Agnello said. “I mean, I’ve been chasing Neil Young’s guitar tone on Rust Never Sleeps since I was in high school. There’s no secret; he just cranks the amp to 10 and makes the tubes cry.”
So how did a high school punk and scuzz rocker end up being one of Vermont’s go-to Grateful Dead guys?
“Well, I don’t want to belittle what it’s become and how important to me it is now,” Agnello began. “But when it started, it was just literally about getting a gig. I didn’t really know that much Dead music, but when Zach [Nugent] asked me to play all the Bobby parts, as a working musician, I said, If I’m going to do it, I’m really going to do it. I just dove headfirst into the music and his playing.”
He was pleasantly surprised to find Weir’s playing more complex than he had previously realized. But it was singing Weir’s parts in Dead songs that really unlocked something in Agnello.
“Up until that point, I just made instrumental music,” he recalled. “Leaning into the Bobby role really helped me find my voice as a singer. You just have to get up there and let it fly, man.”
That learned confidence can be heard in the assured way he belts out the hooks on swampy rocker “They Can Be Dude” and the Southern-rock majesty of “Caroline,” a tune that channels both the Mountain Goats and Tom Petty.
“I hope that what I’m doing is taking all these little pieces and influences I’ve picked up and making them my own,” he said. “That’s what I always loved about Ween and why they’re my favorite band. They taught me to wear your influences on your sleeve, but hold on to your voice, your writing, and it will take care of itself; you’ll be yourself.”
Picture Pepper Potato Brain feels incredibly Joe Agnello, and that’s a good thing. While there are moments of jam-adjacent vibes, the record by and large strikes a balance between Southern-fried stoner rock and grunge-inflected indie. It all feels rather, well, Burlington. And that’s not by accident.
I love this scene. It means everything to me.
Joe Agnello
“I love this scene,” Agnello said of the Queen City music ecosystem. “It means everything to me, and I live here because I am so constantly inspired by the people and musicians around me. I get inspired by Mike Gordon and Lily Seabird and Greaseface; it all moves me and makes proud to be part of it.”
Agnello will celebrate the new LP with that scene on Friday, November 20, at Foam Brewers on the Burlington waterfront. He hopes fans of his tribute work take to his original tunes just as passionately, but he knows how hard it is to put out an album in 2026 and get anyone to notice.
“I don’t honestly have expectations or big aspirations for the record,” Agnello admitted. “To be frank, I don’t really understand how to put out a record in the current climate. I don’t want to waste a bunch of time making Instagram reels, you know? So much is down to luck and the algorithm, which is so depressing.
“So, the only plan is to play live as much as I can and keep exposing people to the music,” he continued. “That’s all I’ve ever known. That’s how I came up playing music. So that’s what I’m going to do.”
The original print version of this article was headlined “There’s Something About Joe: After years of channeling other musicians, Burlington guitarist Joe Agnello shows his true face”
This article appears in November 4 • 2026.
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