Brainpool began writing JUNK: A Rock Opera in 2001, after a successful but less-than-satisfying fore in the pop music industry. Playground Records Scandinavia released JUNK: A Rock Opera as a double CD concept album in 2004. In 2005, Sweden’s Malmö Festival commissioned Brainpool to do a concert version of JUNK: A Rock Opera with the 60-piece Malmö Symphonic Orchestra. The one-time concert played on the festival main stage to an audience of ten thousand people. Swedish broadcasting postponed the 9 o’clock news to air the event live on television!

From the beginning, Brainpool envisioned that JUNK: A Rock Opera should exist as a fully realized stage production—JWC Artist Group, Brainpool’s personal management, contacted Shakina Nayfack in 2005 and asked him to develop the work for the stage. After two years of listening to the amazing music, developing the story, and emailing across the globe with Brainpool, Shakina joined forces with long time friend Joseph Yoshitomi to form Epic Megaloplois Productions (EpicMegaPro, for short), and finally get JUNK: A Rock Opera on its feet. In May of 2007, seven years after Brainpool first embarked on their rock opera adventure, EpicMegaPro and JWC Artist Group presented the world theatrical debut of Junk: A Rock Opera at the Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood, California. The showcase, which received a “Go!” from LA’s foremost alternative press, the LA Weekly, played for two weekends to standing-room-only houses.

Shortly after the showcase, Artistic Director Daniel O’Brien and veteran Broadway producer Laurence Braun invited EpicMegaPro to continue developing JUNK: A Rock Opera at the brand new Lyric Theatre in Los Angeles. The workshop production, which ran over the course of three months, launched the inaugural season of the theatre and started a fan-based phenomenon, with audience members from 15 to 75 years old calling themselves “Junkies” and returning to see the show weekend after weekend!

When JUNK: A Rock Opera closed in October, the show went out with a bang, throwing a one-night-only concert at LA’s newest underground rock venue, the Echoplex. The concert was recorded by Ian Charbonneau of Spaceland Recordings, and is now available as the official workshop cast album: JUNK: A Rock Opera – Live at the Echoplex.

After investing remaining funds for the show and raising new funds with the help of The Field, a nonprofit fiscal receiver, EpicMegaPro announced a new partnership with Off-Broadway Booking to produce a reading of JUNK in New York City on May 11, 2009.