About Ukulele Russ
Ukulele Russ is Alaska’s internationally touring ukulele wild man, one-man frontier band, and living proof that four strings are plenty when combined with musical talent and questionable judgment.
For more than 20 years, Russ has made his living gigging full time throughout Alaska. He has hauled instruments across the state, played everything from intimate roadhouses to packed outdoor festivals, met characters no travel guide could invent, and learned which roadside stops are worth the detour—and which bathrooms require emotional preparation.
He built his career by taking an instrument associated with Hawaiian shirts and pleasant background music and turning it into something loud, funny, unpredictable, and occasionally alarming. His shows combine original songs, twisted covers, parodies, spontaneous comedy, musical storytelling, and audience participation. He has toured from Alaska, Australia, Hawaii, Canada, New Zealand, Florida and beyond, headlined festivals, and somehow continues to be invited back.
That last part may be his greatest achievement.
Underneath the long hair, strange songs, and deeply average jokes is a serious multi-instrumentalist who knows how to command a room alone. Russ builds each show in real time—playing, singing, improvising, reading the audience, and changing direction whenever the moment demands it.
The humor may be subpar, but the musicianship comes with the good silverware.
Those two decades on Alaska’s roads also gave Russ something no tour-guide handbook can teach: an intimate, working knowledge of the 49th state from ground level. He didn’t experience Alaska through luxury lodges or cruise-ship windows. He learned it as a road-hardened, low-income ukulele guy traveling from gig to gig—finding the affordable meals, strange attractions, beautiful backroads, local stories, hidden fishing spots, and unforgettable people that most visitors never encounter.
That perspective now shapes his Alaska adventures. Russ offers guests something more personal than a scripted bus tour: a flexible journey through the landscapes, communities, roadside oddities, and wild experiences that make Alaska unlike anywhere else.
Whether he is commanding a stage, guiding people through the 49th state, or standing beside a cow moose making an expression no adult should make in public, his mission is the same: create an experience people will remember.
Just don’t ask him to provide quiet elevator music.
The elevator deserves better.