BoomBox performs live at Agave Tuesday

The multigenre band BoomBox will be performing at Agave in Avon at 10 p.m. Tuesday.

BoomBox was founded in 2004 by songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Zion Rock Godchaux. Godchaux is the son of two Grateful Dead members — Keith and Donna Godchaux — and was raised on a broad variety of genres growing up in the latter decades of the 20th century.

“I’ve been big into music ever since I was little, so we’ve been influenced by all types of stuff — rock and roll, reggae, blues, jazz, funk, R&B, disco, Hank Williams, Ali Akbar Khan — just across the board, we’ve been influenced by all of these artists, and it comes through our music,” Godchaux said.

Godchaux started his musical career playing rhythm guitar in his mother’s group, The Heart of Gold Band, but developed his own sound and style ​​while touring San Francisco in the 1990s. Godchaux formed BoomBox with producer Russ Randolph in the early 2000s, and has since released five albums, the latest in 2018 titled “Western Voodoo.”

Godchaux said that the band’s sound aims to channel elements that make up the great songs that have been blasted out of boomboxes over time.

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“There are a lot of different vibes and angles, but it still adheres to a universal rhythm,” Godchaux said. “The ultimate goal of a BoomBox song is to somehow summarize all of those ingredients into a singular sound. You can hear lots of different flavors in there, and we don’t set out to try to do that. It’s just how it works with us.”

The band has changed shape over the course of its nearly 20-year existence. Randolph parted ways with BoomBox in 2016, after which Godchaux continued as a one-man show with support from guest performers until bringing his stepbrother, Kinsman MacKay, into the band in 2019.

In the current arrangement, Godchaux plays lead guitar and vocals while MacKay holds down the drum beats and electronic elements.

Godchaux said that playing with his “brother from another mother” has been a seamless process, and has made BoomBox’s sound even more smooth and streamlined than it has in past iterations.

“We’ve always really enjoyed making songs together and jamming together over the years,” Godchaux said. “Working in the studio and coming up with songs together is really easy, because we both have similar ears and we’re just very complementary to each other when we’re writing. We just have a better chemistry. We’re very connected rhythmically, and I think the shows sound better and flow better than they ever have.”

The crowd can expect to hear a mix of BoomBox’s older classics and newer hits, many of which have garnered millions of streams, such as hits “Stereo” and “Waiting Around.”

“Even the songs that we’ve been playing forever, we still approach them like it’s the first time we’ve played it. We try to not put any rules on the songs, so even on the old songs we’re still exploring it.”

With grooving beats, soothing electronic rhythms and probing vocals, the music of BoomBox makes it easy to dance and release tension in a way that Godchaux hopes is uplifting and therapeutic.

“All of the rhythms, melodies and frequencies add up to these healing properties,” Godchaux said. “I hope people feel rejuvenated and refocused on some level when they hear us. I feel that the music and the dance and the groove — that does help lift people’s spirits. If it’s not physically medicinal, it’s maybe psychologically and potentially spiritually medicinal. It’s more just good energy, good vibes and a lightening of the spirit.”

Tickets to the show are $32 for general admission, and available online at Eventbrite. Doors to the show open at 9 p.m., and BoomBox comes on at 10 p.m. For more information about the show, visit Eventbrite.com and search “BoomBox returns to Agave with special guest ETHNO (Jeff Franca from Thievery Corp)”.