Maroon the Shantyman is a vile pirate with a penchant for breaking into song at the worst possible time, like 1:00 in the morning during "Hell's watch" or during breakfast warbling away his 100 verses of "Drunken Sailor" to make everyone want to string him up by his goolies. This would explain why he carries more guns around than a typical English frigate. It's been speculated that he's overcompensating for something, but the leather codpiece prevents us from knowing for sure.

He's got the voice of a mating squid, so he was fully qualified to be the shantyman on board. No one knows what his real name is, but since we found him marooned on a tropical island, we've called him Maroon ever since. (The simple mindedness of pirates for ya!)

We pulled him out of the arms of some of the most vicious island women we'd ever seen, it looked like they were sucking the life out of him. He put up a fight like he didn't want to be rescued, but we knew better. Those women were too tan for him. Yeah, that's it. He's been trying to find the words to thank us ever since. That probably explains the singing thing.

Craig Lutke may be responsible for many things in his life, but you'll never see him own up to them, especially if they have something to do with pirates. Except on his tax returns, of course, where it all gets marked off as expenses. We do know he prides himself on his rapidly increasing movie collection, since that way he can store up useless movie trivia to test the rest of the group with when they just couldn't care less.

He's convinced his "day job", which pays the bills around here, is just a side-gig while he's waiting for the "whole pirate thing" to take off. Keep an eye on those pirate stocks, big guy. One way to get a cheap laugh is to watch him slowly sweat himself in a pirate puddle during a show because he's always wearing that damned hot pirate coat in the summer.

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Harvey the Corpsman.   In the Royal Navy, every ship has aboard it, someone to serve as the ship's doctor, or Corpman (pronounced CORE-man). These men are usually skilled with many a surgical instrument and life-saving procedure and know how to put those skills to good use.

In the world of pirates, though, we have to make due with Corpmen that were booted from the Royal Navy 'cause they weren't worth keepin'. That's how we got Harvey the Corpman. We found him with his head buried under a table (and a bar wench's skirt) in a pub in Bermuda with only his bloodied bone saw to tell us what he was. We figured that, to be a pirate you needed to know the fine points of wine, women, and song, and Harvey apparently had the wine and women part down, we'd make sure he know the song part as well. Now he's making a living tending the sick and, in between his horrible jokes about maiming the wounded, he'll break into a musical number, bellowing in his voice that sounds like a buffalo giving birth, and proceed to make the worst bedside manner you could wish on your worst enemy.

Dave Ruffin was elected in high school as the man most likely to wear a sofa and tights for a hobby. Boy, were they right on the money with that one! He's got more acting skills than all of The Bilge Pumps combined, but he prefers not to show them in leau of being a complete jackass on stage. Suits us, since it goes with the show and we hate being shown up. The mad scientist in him has forced him to have a secondary address at the local Home Depot where he's always searching for the latest instuments of chaos... er... creation. He can screw his face up into so many different looks, we think he was the original "bitter beer face" man. One day, he'll get out of the teaching business (hopefully, before his students become leaders) and fulfill his life's dream of throwing a pile of fruit on his head and singing Elvis' greatest hits dressed as Carmen Miranda.

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Fanny the Flagmaker started on the Pieces O' Eight as a flag dyer 1st class. She soon got promoted to flag waver, then flag spreader, then flag folder, until she finally hit the much sought after title of flag maker. Now she gets to sit in a dark cabin and crank out flags and shirts all day, except for those joyous times when we haul her back above decks when there are lines to be tarred or dolphins to be strangled. She is very good for our ship health, though, since she's excellent at scaring away the rats by lifting her skirt in the bilges and sending the poor buggers running overboard to drown happily. Although the ship's protein levels during mealtime have since dropped dramatically.

Now that she's looming about (get it) on board, we hope the time is coming when she'll sober up and be back up high in the rigging again, serenading the Sargasso seagulls with her helium filled lounge singer voice.

Mary Dossey has taken on a hefty and meaty task for years, keeping half the Bilge Pumps clothed in a matter befitting a band of our... ahem... calibre. She also took it upon herself to learn mandolin, drum, and probably a secret tuba, all in an attempt to not have to sell the band's lousy merch all the time.

She's fun to antagonize to the point where she will punch you... something John Crow's countless bruises over the years will verify. She is also equally skilled at a belly laugh and a kick to the crotch... sometimes delivered simultaneously. She seems determined to be the last remaining depot of bolts of cloth and sewing patterns when the apocalypse hits. Our best guess is that she is prepping a costume shop for zombies.

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Elizabeth the Stowaway washed up along side the Pieces O' Eight one high tide with a bottle of cane rum firmly grasped in one hand and a flute/paddle in the other. Even though she smelled like a Jamaican moonshine still, we pulled her out of the water, scraped the ramoras off her and propped her up in the rigging to have target practice at with our flintlocks until she woke up. Unfortunately, she came to before Harvey could draw a bead on her and he proceeded to babble on about finding a great, heapin' mound of treasure if we'd let her sign the articles. We are still debating the possibility

Well, we ain't found the bloody treasure yet, but we still have a good time calling Elizabeth the worst pirate in the world as she still manages to get shocked with all the bawdy ship humor. We do give her credit for trying to sing along, though, in her voice that sounds like a rusty door hinge. It's kind of like watching a cute lil' bunny try to growl at you.

Initially we all thought that Dana Smith had only one talent, blowing all sorts of bad notes on her flute. Turns out, we were right. Luckily for us, there are plenty of things she can do bad, so we made sure she hung around. She's quite possibly the sweetest person to ever dress up as a pirate, but that's only to those who have not see her do some type of strange ritual in the hall closet we promised to never talk about again.

She moonlights as an Elizabeth Swan impersonator, along with her better half, Fred Flores, in Pair of Pirates. Although, unlike him, she does like seafood, so if she gets stranded on a deserted island, she'll have a waaay better chance of survival.

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John Crow the Cook is always serving the crew "food from the John" and forcing us all to "eat Crow". These jokes may be the lamest groaners in the world, but they're all our famously bearded cook has left in the world to keep him warm on cold nights (along with the Cabin Boy), so we laugh along every time he says 'em so that our helpings of sickly, diseased bilge rat stew with cheese whiz and asparagus tips doesn't turn into cold sickly, diseased bilge rat stew... with cheese whiz... and asparagus tips.

He's been know to serve us heaping helpings of his charred beard tips on the times when he leans over the stove too far when he's scratching his ass. We're hoping the beard never burns off as it's the only thing that serves as a buffer from his singing voice that sounds suspiciously like someone's shoving diseased manatee through a sausage grinder.

Ted Dossey moonlights for one month a year as the creepiest Santa Claus in the world... OK, maybe it's just creepy to us because we've seen him in his skivvies cackling like a demented witch and slinging sticks of dynamite all over the yard. We've all had nightmares about sitting in his lap and are bound and determined to make sure it doesn't happen to us again. The therapy bills are too much.

As the father of our own Natty Nell and the father-in-law of Maroon, he is forced to double up the presents every Christmas at gunpoint, not mention the punches to the cods he gets when he pesters his grandson to the brink of insanity.

Sharkbait Simon the Scapegoat is the chum to all the friendly fish of the ocean. Well, at least he would have been if he was in the water any longer before we found him. Left tied to a bouy (not a boy, as many people assumed) after parading around the quarters of his former captain... while wearing the captain's daughter's dress... while the captain's daughter was still in it... he thought his life was at an end. Until, of course, getting picked up by us scurvy dogs and being forced to sail the seas and singing sea shanties all day. Which proved to him there was a fate worse than death.

Regardless, he stands resolved to give his all with his battered guitar and voice that sounds like a pod of sperm whales humping each other in an oil slick.

Christopher Dallion is by far the grumblingest guitarist to ever join the band, which is saying something if you look at all of the guitarists that came before him. Primarily, because he still can't believe that he actually said "Yes" when asked and that we were going to hold him to it. He thought he'd just come to rehearsal, screw up a few songs for us and we'd decide to let him go. Little did he know that we loooove bad guitar and the worse he did, the more we liked him.

Now he's forced to ride along with us on car trips to small towns across the country, performing in 100+ degree heat for very little money and middling noteriety. Don't taunt him about it, though, or he'll crush your pathetic little car with his monster truck and the last thing you'll see before you die will be his Humphrey Bogart tattoo laughing at you as Christopher gives you the finger as he drives by. His momma would be so proud.

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Jack the Rum Runner, aka the barrel-dweller, is the expert in all things fermeted and sugary. He was found floating down a river in a basket woven of sugar cane like a Caribbean Moses. Unfortunately the sugar fermented sometime during the journey, causing him to have a lifelong addiction to Jamaica's finest alcoholic export. He still drinks his rum from bottles with nipples on them. What can we say? Old habits die hard.

He spends his nights on the monkey deck of the ship, pounding his 12 string into submission (not a euphemism) and luring sirens to their deaths with his voice that sounds like a barrel of hammers falling into a well.

Fred Flores might just be the most mashocistic person we've ever met. He eased his way into the band after we mentioned we were looking to add a guitar player by working on our songs on his own. He likes things to sound just right, though, so he might be wondering why he was so agreeable after a year in the band's chaos.

He moonlights as a Jack Sparrow impersonator, along with his better half, Dana Smith in Pair of Pirates, calling himself Fred Sparrow... because he was saving the name Jack for a special occasion. He moonlights on his moonlighting as a sailor on his boat the Summer Breeze, but that's once again being a pirate, so it doesn't count. He moonlit on his moonlight moonlighting by being a Scoutmaster for the Boy Scouts for 6 years, but once he realized he had all of his pirate badges, he got out.

Basically, we're saying we could drop him on a deserted island and he'd be fine... including an unseemly attachment to a sports ball.

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Aloysius Smeesy the Ship's Carpenter is a pirate with a knack for woodcrafting. That is, if you consider having a ship's wheel for a peg leg woodcrafting. He creates more holes than he patches when he stumbles around the decks with a saw in one hand and his wood in the other, looking to plug the first available leaky hole he can find on the ship. Wait a minute... am I still talking about carpentry?

Anyway, our favorite of his woody works of art is the belaying pin he hand carved that we use when we sneak up behind him and club him on the head before his latest attempt at redecorating the foc'sle into a victorian tea room so he and his dolls can dress up and have crumpets together while he sings to them in his best whale belching voice. Man, he's a wierd pirate!

Al Olson is a tried-and-true renaissance faire performer. Which means he's still looking for what he wants to do with his life. The 25+ years he's been a part of the Smee and Blogg singing executioners show has given him the life experience necessary to live for a month off .00 and a case of Ramen Noodles.

He likes to pretend his a normal-type guy when he breaks out his rocking chair and tell all of us about the (cough) glory days, but we all know that all it takes is a cheering crowd and an available coffee can to make him a happy man. (Don't worry if you don't get the joke, you can ask us about it later)

Splice the Rigger, though new to the sweet trade, has already earned the worst reputation possible in the pirate community... a nice guy. Luckily for him, he is new to the trade as nice guy pirates rarely last very long. They tend to end up tied on the main yard in a ball gown to be used as an extra sail and a cannon target when it's time for a battle.

So, to prevent this dire fate from happening, the crew had dedicated itself to exposing him (sometimes literally) to all sorts of sin and things decent people frown upon: fornication, debauchery, murder, incest, pokemon, twitter, and Michael Jackson impersonations. You know, the things that make you want to be a pirate in the first place. Feel free to help us when next you see him. Him being a rigger and all, you can bet he'll be (ahem) well rigged for the job.

He's got the voice of breaking glass that just got kicked in the crotch, so he'll be perfect to stand watch on the monkey deck on days we want to keep the dolphins away..

Nathan Campbell (no relation to Bruce) is fun to have around just because, until recently, he was an actual Corpsman in the Navy, which irritates Dave to no end. Looks like all that time spent play grab-ass with a bunch of men in uniform claiming to be sailors trained him perfectly for the real world... or at least our real world.

Apparently when you get out of the Navy, there's nothing in the world to do, so he's hoping this whole piracy thing takes off so he can become an official Texas privateer and go up against his old Navy buddies when Texas secedes from the union.

He's a veteran of the stunt show world, having played both bad and good guys with equal enthusiasm and complete lack of regard for his own safety. Which means he's likely to smile and shake your hand in genuine greeting just before he flips over backwards and hauls you off a cliff with him, just to see what will happen.

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Ruby Pearl the Quartermaster is so good at counting, she decided one day to count all the weevils on the ship in a quest for numerical perfection. Little did she know the Cook has a breeding tank hidden below decks, so the quest will be eternal.

Her desire to split all of the booty she can find and the crew's general lack of math skills made her the perfect Quartermaster. That, and the fact that she really knows how to swing a cat. Now, if only she could find a way to tag the weevils...

At times, Ruby's compulsion to dive into the pile of gold and jewels on board and swim around like a rich duck have caused the occassional concussion when she realizes physics don't work that way and coins don't move like water. If her head wasn't so hard, the crew would be worried, but everyone knows repeated strikes to the head help you learn your numbers.

Marj Troyer has had a musical journey that is a culmination of changing climates, cultures and musical genres. Her geniune smile, her heart, and her humor are known around the seven seas. Her considerable skills on the mandolin and bass reflect influences from rock, folk, country, bluegrass and Western swing.

Prior to the Bilge Pumps, Marj was in Skeleton McKee and the Trinity River Whalers for many years, focusing on original and Celtic music.

Her appearance in the band has introduced a strange concept called "music theory" that has caused many crossed eyes and headaches from the existing band members. She assures everyone that the headaches will go away eventually when "learning" occurs, but it seems like a pipe dream.

Black Pearl the Cannoneer got the "honorable" job of firing the guns because she came on board the ship already deaf and smelling of sulfur. The crew figured she was either a demon or a cannoneer.. or both! Either way, she is well suiting to creating loud noises on deck.

She also brought aboard a passel of different drum-like instruments guaranteed to keep the crew awake at night. However, it's still a more pleasant sound than the snoring of the First Mate. Her desire to keep the drums in tune and her penchant for sleepwalking does lend to some of the crew's facial skin being stretched out a bit in the middle of the night, but hey... free facelift!

One day, all of Pearl's booming will summon Kraken to the ship, and we can all imagine her tossing a set of reins over its beak and riding it off into a tidal wave in the sunset. It's how every pirate should go, really.

Trae Hamilton is an alumni of several original rock bands, having performed in Deep Ellum and many clubs and festivals throughout the south. Trae is a seasoned drummer, percussionist and an accomplished tympani player and has a music room filled with so many drums that one dropped drumstick will still be bouncing off drum heads 15 minutes later.

She became intrigued with Scottish drumming and played snare and tenor drum with the award-winning North Texas Caledonian Pipe and Drum Corps. A veteran of the Celtic Rock band Skeleon McKee, Trae's intricate rhythms are the heartbeat of her music.

Her introduction of rhythm to the band might cause more than a few of the crew to have mild seizures on stage, but as long as the audience laughs, it won't matter. However, the seizures can flow the other direction when she has to keep a rhythm for John Crow.