The Pernikoff Brothers project, which debuted in Palo Alto, CA in October of 2006, is barely one year old, but has been a long time in the making. Tom and Rick Pernikoff began composing and playing music together as kids in St. Louis. They spent their early years honing their skills as instrumentalists on guitar and bass respectively, and immersed themselves in the classic sounds of Led Zeppelin, Beatles, Jackson 5, Pink Floyd, Marvin Gaye, Jimi Hendrix, and much more.
Tom and Rick later focused their attention to Jazz and more improvisation music while living in Boston and studying with world famous musicians and educators, Jon Damian and Bob Nieske. Tom fronted a local Boston jam band called The Edition along with the Tom Pernikoff Jazz Trio,while earning two degrees from Brandeis University in Economics and Music. After fronting his own band called Fixt, Rick went on to study Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Music at MIT.
The Brothers left Boston in September 2005 and drove to California on whim to help start a company in Silicon Valley. Sadly, they didn't have enough room in their car for all the electric guitars, 100+ pound amps, pedals, and drums so they took what they could – an acoustic guitar and acoustic bass. Even though Tom and Rick were about to venture into an unfamiliar world of capitalism and technology, they had no intention of leaving their music behind. Soon after their arrival in California, they began composing music for what is now the Pernikoff Brothers. Their compositions span many styles of music, but can be largely classified as "singer/songwriter".